By Michael Lear, Trager® Instructor
Written in 2019 as a chapter in a book about Veterans and PTSD
This article is Part 2 of Michael Lear’s 4 part series: Relieving Post Traumatic Stress Related Symptoms with The Trager® Approach and Trauma-Informed Yoga and Mindfulness.
Part 2
The first Trager® session I received was May 13, 1987 and my latest was just two days before beginning to write this chapter. Discovering the Trager® Approach changed the course of my life significantly. It made me interested in, curious about, and aware of how I moved in my body; who I was towards myself as I lived in my body; and how all that impacted my movement experience, either by limiting it or by opening it up to new potential, like doing Yoga.
My body was feeling better and the deep relaxation fostered by the sessions facilitated the release of deeply seated muscle holding patterns that clearly had subconscious emotional counterparts. The insights I gained were game-changing.
The work took me into foreign territory. Terrain that was inside of me, not outside, and which connected me to what was and what wasn’t comfortable. The Trager® Approach’s capacity to provide a safe context for my body-mind to assess, re-organize and let go of dysfunctional muscle holding patterns that manifested as functional limitation and pain was extra-ordinary, comfortable, pleasurable. It facilitated a ‘remembering’ of my body’s inherent coherence and, once it felt safe, my body naturally migrated toward more balance and harmony.
I had let go of learned dysfunctional muscle patterns developed and valid at an earlier time which were now simply limiting. The relaxation and release of stress promoted by the mindfulness of The Trager Mentastics® led to a controlling of my body's 'fight or flight' response. This produced a decrease in cortisol and adrenalin release, normalizing my blood pressure and leading to a lowering of my cholesterol levels. In addition, the decreased stress curbed my emotional eating and encouraged me to make better nutritional choices. As I was pain-free, I became more active which also contributed to a reduction in my body weight.
So affected by the experiences that I continued to have, I began to wonder what education one needed to be able to impart such a feeling state to others. I then registered for the professional Trager® Approach training and became a certified Trager® Practitioner in 1991. Also, Trager® had led me to Ashtanga yoga and Vipassana meditation. Today, these three form the tripod of daily practices upon which my days rest.
So what is The Trager® Approach and what are its applications for addressing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder related pain? Succinctly stated by Deane Juhan, Senior Trager® Instructor and author of Job’s Body, A Handbook for Bodywork, in an article about the Trager® Approach:
“Unconsciously habituated muscular responses and adaptations to life’s adverse circumstances, such as accidents, illness, surgery, emotional traumas, or high levels of daily stress, often develop into poor postures and patterns of movement that can become the silent accumulative context for further pain, injury or disease. And wasteful, ineffective muscular patterns can also frequently slow down, compromise, and even ultimately limit the process of recovery from physical or emotional breakdowns of many kinds.
“The Trager® Approach is a rapid, effective, and painless, indeed pleasurable method of deprogramming these accumulated negative muscular pattern, and of restoring the positive body image and feeling, tone, and organized responses that are essential to healing and healthy development. ‘The purpose of my work.’ Dr. Trager has said, ‘is to break up these sensory, motor, and mental patterns which inhibit free movement and cause pain and disruption of normal function.’
“The Trager® Approach consists of the use of hands-on contact and movement re-education to influence deep-seated psycho-physiological patterns in the mind, and to interrupt their dysfunctional projection into the body’s tissues. The method is to impart to the patient what it is like to feel right in the sense of a functionally integrated body-mind. Since the inhibiting patterns are affected at the source, the mind, the patient can experience long-lasting benefits.“
Juhan continues: “During a Trager® tablework session, the practitioner uses gentle, pleasuring rocking motions, compressions and elongations, gravity-assisted swings and hangs of the limbs, and shimmers of the tissues to facilitate a more and more painless and passive perception of movement throughout the patient’s body. These manipulation are not perceived as intrusive because they do not work against the organism’s basic reflexes and defenses, but rather simulate the normal ranges of elongation, compression, and jiggling of coordinated movement in the body. And the pleasuring aspect of each exploratory movement is not incidental to the treatment. On the contrary, it is of the essence, and any pain or discomfort is always an indication to modify the depth, range, or speed of the practitioner’s imposed movements.
“This pleasuring is important for three reasons: 1) Pain inevitably engages reflex muscular defensiveness, producing amplified, not reduced contractions and holding patterns; 2) Pleasuring is a potent biofeedback element which leads to deeper relaxation, softening, and increased ranges of motion within the limitations of the actual conditions in the body; 3) Trauma and pathology themselves have created pain and fear, frequently to the extent that the patient can no longer imagine any part of their body as a source of pleasure, comfort, or strength.
“The goal is to create in the session a sense of safety and ease in which new and better patterns can be learned, a delicate process that can be easily disturbed by any increase in pain or discomfort. ‘Every shimmer of the tissue,’ Dr. Trager has said, ‘is sending a message to the unconscious mind in the form of a positive feeling experience. It is the accumulation of these positive patterns that can offset the negative patterns so that the positive can take over.’” (from “The Trager® Approach to Somatic Education, Therapy, and Personal Development,” by Deane Juhan)
The table-work portion of the session takes place on a massage table with the client draped and clothed to the degree they’re most comfortable with. No oils or lotions are used. A typical session with Mentastics® Instruction lasts about ninety minutes, however time varies depending on the setting and the practitioner. Some reported benefits from the Trager® Approach include:
Increased mobility, vitality, clarity, capacity to relax and a sense of overall peace
Improved sports performance without injury
Quickened recovery from surgery or injury
Relief from stress, joint pain, muscular pain, sciatica, chronic back/neck pain, headaches and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain
Relief from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
Improved neuro-muscular function in those with Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy
and multiple sclerosisImprovement in status with ankylosing spondylitis and post-stroke paralysis
Please understand, this is not to claim that Trager® is a cure for these or any other pathologies. “But in the absence of a cure, improved emotional balance, superior coping mechanisms, more effective compensations, and a measure of control over and active engagement in their own present and future will always be of extreme importance to these patients, and to anyone personally associated with them.” Deane Juhan.
Over the course of my career, I have successfully worked with clients with various painful or limiting physical conditions, stress-related symptoms, congenital neuromuscular disorders and survivors of various kinds of trauma as well as with clients who, although comfortable, wish to expand their range of motion and physical capabilities.
This article is Part 2 of Michael Lear’s 4 part series: Relieving Post Traumatic Stress Related Symptoms with The Trager® Approach and Trauma-Informed Yoga and Mindfulness.
For more information about The Trager® Approach, or to find a Practitioner in your area, please contact The United States Trager® Association.
United States Trager Association
3755 Attucks Drive
Powell, Ohio 43065
Tel: (440) 834-0308
Books on The Trager® Approach:
Trager® for Self-Healing: A Practical Guide for Living in the Present Moment -Audrey Mair
Mentastics: Movement As A Way to Agelessness, Dr. Milton Trager and Cathy Guadagno
Moving Medicine, The Life and Work of Dr. Milton Trager: Jack Liskin
Additional information can be found at. http://www.tragerfordailylife.com
For more information on Trauma-informed Yoga and Veterans PTSD, the following books and organizations may be helpful. It has been reported that Veterans tend to prefer Yoga teachers who are also Veterans as they better identify with those who have shared experiences.
It is always best to find a Yoga teacher with whom you resonate, one who is interested in empowering the student to perform on his or her own.
The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma - Bessel Van Der Kolk
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga in Therapy: Bringing the Body into Treatment - David Emmerson
Best Practices for Yoga with Veterans Editor: Carol Horton, Ph.D - Yoga Service
Council PublicationNon-Violent Communication: Marshall Rosenberg
The Pocket Guide To Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power Of Feeling Safe:
Dr. Stephen Porges, (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
Organizations:
Veterans Healing Veterans from the Inside Out http://veteranshealingveterans.com/index.html
Veterans Yoga Project www.veteransyogaproject.org
Warriors at Ease http://warriorsatease.org/
About Michael Lear
Michael Thomas Lear is an internationally-recognized Senior Trager® Bodywork Practitioner/Instructor and Ashtanga Yoga Instructor with a client base spanning five continents and including a few Academy Award and Grammy winners as well as many figures prominent in business and industry.
For over 25 years, Lear has been at the forefront of mind-body medicine, yoga and meditation. He has studied Yoga with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, the founder of Ashtanga Yoga, as well as with many of Ashtanga's foremost instructors. Holding a Yoga Alliance RYT 500 Certification, he teaches Yoga Anatomy for Yoga Alliance Teacher Certification courses and conducts workshops internationally.
Lear is also a seasoned Vipassana meditator in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Kin as taught by S. N. Goenka. He was recognized with a cover article in Massage Therapy Journal for his work introducing Trager® to physical therapists in post-tsunami Sri Lanka, which he also has done in Japan. Lear who is on the management team for Instructors for Trager® International, also holds Plant Based Nutrition certification through Cornell University, taught by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of “The China Study” and “Whole.”
While working as Director of International Relations for Real Medicine Foundation and working closely with UN Agencies and foreign governments, Lear was an integral part of many international relief programs to improve primary health care service in disadvantaged areas of post-conflict, disaster affected and poverty-stricken countries, including Sri Lanka, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Armenia and post-earthquake Haiti. South Sudan’s Medical Journal/JubaLink has cited Lear as a principal in establishing the country’s first College of Nursing and Midwifery.
In addition to his international service, Lear serves locally as a founding board member, trauma recovery yoga instructor, and lead trainer with The Shanthi Project a non-profit organization which conducts trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness classes at the county prison, juvenile justice center, Boys and Girls Club, and area school districts for grades K-12.
A life-long musician playing drums, Lear feeds his soul behind the kit. He has many years’ experience playing professionally and in a variety of genres. In addition to playing professionally, he developed an entire on-line yoga and mindfulness program specifically for drummers www.yoga4drummers.com to help them access their full potential. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Finance and International Management from Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. and has worked extensively in the corporate world. A native of Easton, PA, Lear makes his home on the East Coast when he is in the United States where he enjoys visiting with family, friends and his cat Sayagyi.