What is Natural Processing?   or,  What is Process-Oriented Somatic Therapy?

For over three decades, two questions have driven my orientation in therapy:  “How does our nature work, and how can we best work with that nature?”   These questions have led me to find ways to work with the potential movement and integration of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual natures.   

“Natural processing” is the somatically-based process-oriented therapy that emerged from the integration of my search through many approaches to healing and growth.

My training and experience working with EMDR since 1993, coupled with various somatic-focused trainings, and extensive work leading many consultation groups has coalesced into this approach.

Foundational to this work is a deep understanding of our “drive for completion,” on every level.  Inherent dilemmas arise in many forms, such as competition between “drives for completion” and “drives for survival”.  Full engagement in the dynamics that are evident, moment-by-moment, with a strong somatic focus brings the details to life.  These vital dynamics are then more accessible to processing.  Use of bilateral stimulation further enhances the client’s ability to grow towards resolution.

As a therapist, it is more challenging to learn “process” work, than more structured theories and protocol driven therapies and methodologies. The Natural Process trainings present ways to pace the work, track resiliency, and deepen processing that engage the therapist in the nature of healing capacities.  We can set the conditions for growth, and then closely nurture and “trust the process.”

Participants to these trainings report that this approach “changes the way I work, and is immediately accessible.”  My goal in these trainings is to help therapists gain further access to their clients’ nature, as well as their own.  I want therapists to be able to integrate this work and make it their own.