TA Ep. 155 Dr. Aline LaPierre – Connecting Mind, Body, and Emotion w/NeuroAffective Touch

[00:00:00]

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Oh,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Well, Dr. LaPierre, welcome to the Accrescent podcast, the Accrescent community. So so excited to have you on because in my mental health, emotional wellness practice, we are talking about so many of the things that you have spent years, you know, living in and researching and teaching and studying. And I feel so blessed.

So, so honored to have such a wealth of knowledge and intention and empathy joining us today.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That’s very humbly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I’m so excited to get into it. So, but I do love to start with just a little bit of an introduction. I, you know, I’ve, I’m, I’ve read through your bio on the website. I’m sure many others will even after this, but some of the little pieces that led maybe to the beginning of this journey and some of those key pieces that led you to where you are today.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Sure, I know that’s, there’s, there’s so many different [00:01:00] stories, you know, but I think the one that is most dear to me of how this all started is, um, that I came to it through, through art. I was a painter, I was an artist, I’d study art, and I had in my mind that my life path was going to be an art, I was going to be an artist.

And as I was painting, I was noticing, you know, a lot of symbolic images coming in and that, and I really didn’t know anything about psychology. I was just thinking, I’m an artist. And so I thought, How am I going to find out, like, what the paintings are about? And then, I also was noticing that there were certain patterns of shapes and forms that always ended up, like, everything always pulled to a certain side.

And if I painted a tree, it was always leaning over to that same side. And it was like, what? Is that, why does it always turn out [00:02:00] that way? So, and then I realized that the paintings actually were reflective of my psyche. And not only that, they were reflective of my body energy, of the patterns of tension that were in my body. And so there, the painting put me face to face with those two pieces, the psychological piece and the somatic piece. I didn’t really know it at the time, but, um, so I went looking and I thought, well, maybe I’ll get in therapy and I’ll bring my paintings and we’ll be able to figure this out. And when I, I couldn’t find, um, And I thought, since it’s about painting and imagery, I would go to a Jungian therapist, you know, so I went to the C.

G. Jung Institute, and even there, it’s like nothing was coming together. It’s like, I couldn’t find a, uh, an analyst who understood art well enough to that, and I couldn’t find, of course, a [00:03:00] therapist who understood body and movement, and so I thought, well, there’s only one thing to do. is to go back to school and learn it myself.

Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: strong pull because I imagine at some, on some level it took you away from the painting. There might not have been as much time to do the

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Well, that’s exactly what happened actually. But at that time, uh, Pacifica Graduate Institute was, was forming and I discovered them and, and of all miracles, they were inviting. artists to join the program because I thought I haven’t been to school in years. I can’t take those tests to get into UCLA or whatever.

How can I ever go back to school? And so Pacifica was started. I applied and I applied sending in my paintings. That was my application.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh my

Dr. Aline LaPierre: And they accepted me. And [00:04:00] so that’s how I sort of got on the track of becoming a, a, a psychologist. And then at the same time, but that didn’t take care of the body part.

You know, what I realized were, is that we’re learning about the psyche, talking about the internal world, all of that. That was really wonderful. But that was not taking care of the body part. And so then I started looking for how do I take care of this body part? And I discovered, I don’t know if your listeners are familiar, you, Emily Conrad and the work of Continuum, which was,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, no, that’s actually new for me.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Is it?

Well, Emmeline is no longer alive, but she created a process called Continuum, which is about listening. It’s a little bit like authentic movement, but goes a lot deeper. It’s about listening to the biological impulses that come through the body. So, it was really powerful. [00:05:00] bottom up in the sense that mind was not involved, we were really going deep into the body and allowing it to express its story.

And so there was the body part and there were the two parts, very separate, and I would go back and forth between them and eventually it was like, well this is, This isn’t right. Why can’t it come together? And so that’s how I’ve ended up teaching the integration of, of touch and movement and psychotherapy.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I am buzzing because this is something I have started talking a lot with about clients. I even just did a little workshop a few weeks ago about the five core facets, as I have seen in my practice to healing and these different components, because just like we look at physical health, right? We just kind of know, Oh yeah, I, I, There could be stuff with my gut, my brain, my heart, my lungs.

And they’re [00:06:00] all distinct and yet interconnected. But for some reason, still, I think in the world of emotional wellness, we kind of just go to therapy, maybe meditation. And that’s the bulk of what I see, I think, in the general population. And we really need to start looking at it with so much more nuance and that whole being full being.

Impact. And so I love this because I am also, you said this at the start before we started recording, you’re also local to Southern California in LA. And so I’m very excited to be able to refer some people to you because I focus more on the psychological, specifically subconscious aspects, but to be able to have someone who’s blending all of them together and covering some of those areas that I don’t is really, really exciting.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Great. Yes. Yes. It’s still in some way. It’s not that it’s brand new because, um, somatic work or [00:07:00] body psychotherapy, depending, you know, in Europe, they call it body psychotherapy here in America, we call it somatic psychology. It’s really the same thing. But, uh, even though. It has been in existence since Freud, really, it came through.

It still feels like pioneering work, you know? So, so often I’ll go somewhere and if I’ll say what I do, you know, I, I, I touch and I do psychotherapy and I can see the person glaze over and they kind of just drift away, it’s like, it’s very, it’s still strange,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. That’s the thing. We start to, once we’re in this world, we start to feel like, Oh no, everyone’s talking about this. Everyone’s doing this because that’s everyone in our circle for the most part. And then when you zoom out, you go, Oh no, no, no. This is still very, um, it’s not widely accepted, widely used all the different things, [00:08:00] but I think that is a perfect segue.

Um, and we’re going to get into the difference between psychological work, body based work. And we might even get more into how you’re blending them all together, but it might be helpful to just start for the listener off with, for those who maybe don’t even know what body based work is doing a little bit of a compare and contrast

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Mm hmm. Sure. Um, well, where to start? It’s always, you know, like getting the thread, right? Well, of course, we all know that, that psychological work is, is using our capacity to put our experience in, in language. And then, you know, bringing forth a language that we feel expresses the whole experience of the person.

Mm hmm. But as it turns out, what we can put in language is not our whole experience. It’s the meaning we make based on how we’ve been [00:09:00] raised and, and based on the culture we’re in, but the body actually. When you think of it, it has billions of years of evolution in it. So, so it has an understanding and a way of being in the world that goes far beyond what the mind yet knows.

And this isn’t to malign the mind or to, to make it lesser, but is really that there’s a certain arrogance in the way we think that the brain is intelligent and the body is not. And of course, the brain is part of the body, but, um, so the other piece is that if you look at how we go through our developmental sequence, our cognitive brain doesn’t come online till we’re two, three years old.

So those first years where all of the imprints of how we are nurtured, how we accept nurturing, how we’re [00:10:00] loved, how we feel our worth, all of that is imprinted in the body before the cognitive self comes online. And so working with the body, As well as working with the mind is really important because there are a lot of things that we can’t put into words that feel so congruent that we don’t even know that these are imprints that we’re carrying throughout our lives. Right,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: zero to three, the experiences we had just because we can’t. Sometimes always recall them or verbally communicate them doesn’t mean they weren’t incredibly, incredibly impactful. And I think there is sometimes a misconception that if I don’t remember it, it wasn’t impactful.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: right, right. And, and what the body work does is it brings a focus on the body to make [00:11:00] space for the body to tell its story because we may not remember it When we’re in the mind in our words, but if we make space and particularly if we will hold, if we use touch and we hold the body, which is really a language, a somatic language, then the body begins to tell its story and, and It can tell the story.

It remembers what happens in the womb. A lot of clients will, will remember the moment of their conception and what they, you know, it’s, it’s amazing. The body remembers everything. And if we invite it, and if we hold it in an attuned way, it is so happy to tell its story because it’s never been asked.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yes. And what are some of those? I think we can say Everyone should be doing body based work at some point, which I think if you have spent [00:12:00] time blending the three together, I think the basis is, yeah, we all should be doing this. But I also think, are there some particular signs you might see that could help someone go, Oh, here.

Here might be a sign that I need to do some body based work. Are there some specifics, or is it just kind of like, everyone should do this?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: No, there are specifics, particularly, and those specifics are more obvious when somebody carries trauma, because with the trauma comes that sense of, um, well, of easily being overwhelmed by life, of dissociating, it’s like, I don’t know where I went, I suddenly wasn’t paying attention, and, or, um, certain ways in which we hold ourselves that cause us pain.

You know, like sometimes people will say, you know, well, you’ll see, like, you’ll see the shoulders are always up and there’s a tightness. You can see [00:13:00] tension patterns that the person doesn’t even realize they have. And that’s what happened to me with painting. It’s like I started to look at my body in the painting and go, Oh my God, I am holding these patterns in my body and I didn’t even know it.

You know, and, and that is so. We’re so used to it. We don’t even know we have those. So having a, uh, a practitioner who is knowledgeable, sort of begin to support, begin to show, begin to help the body find a more natural posture is really important. So I would say the signs is when we notice there’s something going on with us that we don’t understand.

Uh, what it is, why it’s there, why it stands in our way of having the life we want, you know, then it’s a sign to check in with the body.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I notice this in myself often, particularly with things like posture, even hand [00:14:00] movements and leg movements, of, the body does, it’s so communicative, and sometimes you might consciously go, no, I’m not stressed, I’m fine, and then you realize, Ooh, like I’m always crossing my arms and crossing my legs and like, you know, holding everything in or bracing.

And so sometimes my conscious mind can be a little egotistical thinking, I’m good. I got it all handled. And when I tune into the body, it’s, Hmm, my body’s communicating a different

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right, right. You know, one of the first exercises, I guess we could say, um, or experiences I do in, in, in the training, in the neuroaffective touch training, is a body mind dialogue. And, um, I initially, and it’s just simple, it’s like, let’s have your mind introduce itself to your body, let’s have your body introduce itself to your mind.

And initially I thought, oh, that’s so simplistic, [00:15:00] should I do that, you know? But I thought, well, let’s try, I thought about it, so let’s try it. And it has been amazing in terms of Thinking about how body and mind should collaborate together, what emerges in terms of the way that body and mind are like an estranged couple, you know, where, where there’s so many ways in which the mind is judgmental of the body or arrogant towards the body, and so many ways in which the body is afraid of the mind’s judgment, and so many ways in which the body is basically saying, I’m I’m not going to show myself if it’s going, if I’m going to be judged by you, mind.

And so it’s, it’s like an amazing opening into the whole world of that somatic body mind collaboration.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, what came up for me, you were sharing that too, is I think the dismissal, the inner dismissal we often are doing with ourselves [00:16:00] of there’s judgment. And then there’s also very, very often a dismissal of the unconscious self, the felt self, the body, and some of these things we’re experiencing. And what I talk often with clients is, Of course we want to foster safe relationships externally, but is the relationship with you safe? Do we need, you know, that’s so often that starting point of we need to rebuild the safety and the trust with us to sometimes even be able to make the leaps and bounds of progress.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That’s exactly right. Yeah, that, that very often we are not safe with ourselves is, you know, I, I, that, that is so, so key. And that’s really one of the first principles of somatic work is to look at that aspect of safety,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm. I just had to,

Dr. Aline LaPierre: know, go ahead.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, go ahead. ahead. You go [00:17:00] ahead.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: With, with, you know, safety, which brings us right into Porges work and, and, and the, the polyvagal system.

But that sense of collaboration, of cooperation, that, that how we are with ourselves, even when things are difficult or even when there’s illness or problems, it’s like that sense of, I, mind will not abandon the body and body does its very best to, to support that. mind, you know, that they really are, they really function together.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. Versus demonizing or ostracizing parts of ourselves, which I think happens very often. I even see, you know, on social media, sometimes there’s, um, Little quotes that I think resonate with people in the moment, but are potentially a little bit harmful where it’s like, my mind is such a lying asshole.

I’m done listening to it and get it. I get the sentiment beneath that, but [00:18:00] no, your mind is only ever trying to protect you. Your body is only ever trying to protect you. They’re not trying to sabotage you or, you know, keep you living in chronic illness or. Emotional states, but we need to figure out what’s up, what’s going on, what’s contributing to this.

And I just think that changes the whole energy we bring to the work, rather than my mind is betraying me. I need to figure out why it’s my mind’s trying to protect me. What does it think it’s protecting me from? And can I maybe give it some different protective tools or options?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Skills. And also, you know, mind is very imprinted by how we’re socialized. And how we’re socialized is really to override the body, or to [00:19:00] shape it to a certain image that’s more acceptable culturally, or, you know, there’s a lot of overriding of the natural biological life force That’s in the body. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, can you give some examples and then I think we’ll go much deeper into the neuroaffective touch and also some developmental pieces because I know that’s something you work with so much, but some maybe some broad examples of body based type work, and then we’ll get more specific into neuroaffective touch just for those who are still like I’ve never heard of body based work.

What does that even mean? Where can I

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That’s always one that’s, that’s difficult for me to answer. I don’t know why, because I, I have seen so many people, but, um, very, very broadly, sometimes where people will come in and they will say something like, I had a great [00:20:00] childhood, you know, we lived in a good middle class home and my mother was always there and we had dinner and I had a good education and I went to a great college and why can’t I get my life together? And, and, and so the awareness that, that something isn’t right is there, but there’s no understanding, like, what is it? Or even, you know, I’ve been talking in therapy for many years. I understand all of my traumas, I’ve talked about all of them, right? But why isn’t it getting better? And it’s not to, to dismiss psychotherapy at all, because it’s an important part, but the piece that was missing is that the imprint, how it’s, how it’s held in the body has not been addressed.

So, it’s like if you try to build a beautiful house. On a shaky foundation that the [00:21:00] body is actually our shaky foundation or our silence, you know, our solid foundation. So when we go to the body, we go to a foundational place that is, it’s like going to the basement and noticing that there are, you know, faults in the walls and that, that are not obvious when you’re in the house itself.

So, the body is our foundation, and when the foundation is shaky, then the psychological aspects remain shaky.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. I do think a lot of cognitive work, like traditional talk therapy, psychotherapy, makes us aware sometimes of the patterns. This is the analogy I give so often. The patterns we’re stuck in are like a magnet. Pulling us into these cycles, into these thought processes, into these behavioral patterns.

And I think talk therapy is really great at making us aware of the patterns. And then the rest of our [00:22:00] life, we just need to be like counterforce pulling against those patterns. Whereas when we start to get into some of this deeper subconscious body based work. We can just get rid of the magnet.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right. You know, and, and to, to go a little further into an example, would be, let’s say, someone who comes in and says, you know, I, I love my, I, well, I’ll take a woman, because most, I love my husband, but somehow, I, I always pull back. I can’t quite trust him. I can’t quite feel that he’s really there for me, you know, and, and then the, the, the husband or partner will say, I don’t know why she rejects me all the time, you know.

And so then we start to look, first of all, the body patterns, that person as she’s talking might be like really pulled in and will describe her mother or, or a [00:23:00] caregiver as being, being very aloof. So the image that emerges, for example, is a little baby, an infant who wants to be held, who holds out their arms to be picked up and no one responds.

And so what, and this happens over and over and over again, until that baby goes, if I reach out, it hurts. So I’m not going to reach out anymore. And then that gets filed away in the basic rules of life. You know, thou shalt not reach out because it’s too painful. And here is the adult who no longer remembers that.

This is at work in the system and is faced with a partner that they may love, but it’s like, they just can’t ever reach out.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yes. And they don’t know why they might be aware of the pattern, but just because they’re consciously aware of it, they still can’t [00:24:00] seem to do anything about it or make any real consistent changes. I love that. So when I think of body based work, what immediately comes into mind is somatics, but I know even that is a really, it can be a really broad category.

I might even think of maybe things like myofascial release, even something like massage, but can, can you explain that a little bit more of maybe some of the subcategories to body based work? And then we’ll get into neuroaffective touch specifically.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Well, you know, somatic is the umbrella work for, is the umbrella word for all of the different aspects of working with the body. So, so somatics isn’t a form of body work. It’s the umbrella word, like psychotherapy or psychology or psychiatry, somatics. Big.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay. [00:25:00] Yeah.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: the body, I, I began to see, you know, I, I, I found, um, roughing, and then I found, then there was massage, and then there was neuromuscular work, and then there was EMDR, and then there was, and there was a whole series of, and I thought, thought, what, why is it necessary to have all these different techniques?

Until I realized that each technique addresses a particular system in the body, massage addresses, relaxing the belly of the muscles, deep tissue addresses, uh, opening up the connective tissue that keeps everything together. Neuro neuro. Neurological work addresses the, the, the, the, the neurological sensors at the bone that tell the body what to do.

You know, it’s like, um, acupressure addresses the meridians in the body. So, [00:26:00] craniosacral addresses the long tides in the body. So each system actually addressed a particular area and it’s not different than psychotherapy, than psychology where you have, you know, ego psychology and relational psychology and, and, and uh, anyway, you know, like that.

So it’s, It’s really interesting. And generally when somebody gets interested in body work, they soon start to go, Oh, I’d like to learn this one and this one. And you’ll find that body workers have a list of, uh, skills that they have developed. By taking these different trainings that address different parts, different systems in the body, the nervous system, lymphatic massage addresses the lymphatic system.

Uh, well, craniosacral addresses the, the, the, the, the fluids, you know, to the brain. Um, so. [00:27:00] So there are all these types of body work. Now, one thing that is sort of a regulation that regulates both psychotherapy and body work is scope of practice. And so somebody, somewhere, thought that it would be a good idea to say to the psychologist, You shall never touch.

But somebody also thought to say to the body workers, you shall never touch the emotional world and talk to your clients. Because as, as people come into, into the training that I do, it’s like I invite both body workers and psychologists to come. And both of them are like, well, aren’t we going to break the rules of our scope of practice? And I say, well, are you willing to be a pioneer? And there are ways to really frame it so that it will not [00:28:00] be, you know, but in a way we do need to, to sort of put an end to this split that keeps body and mind separate, even in our healing techniques.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And it feels like there is more of a push towards being multifaceted practitioners. I know this is, I, I have always loved being multifaceted. It’s always been, I think, something that lights me up. Blending so many different things together. Whereas I think societally we’re sort of taught you shall be an expert in one thing and one thing only that is all you will do.

And I do see a shift there of more and more people inviting some of these different pieces

Dr. Aline LaPierre: It’s encouraging, isn’t it? Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yes. Okay. Neuro effective touch. Let’s get into this a little bit.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: What are you said? It’s a blend of three pieces.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: [00:29:00] it, yeah, it, well, it’s a blend of, of, of, of talk and touch. Um, how, how did I come to that? Well, I, I, I, you know, I just couldn’t sit and talk to people where I could see their bodies, you know, needing connection. But the, um, You know, there are, there are different types of touch and a lot of the body works will, will use the type of touch that sort of confronts the body.

Here’s a tension, here’s something holding, let’s push into it. Let’s break up. That’s tension. Let’s open it so there can be a flow, but it doesn’t tend to, why? The body is like that in the first place, that, that deep reason why that shoulder is locked is, is that that little infant learned that, that they couldn’t reach out.

So the story [00:30:00] that is in the body remains untold really. And so the body might let go for a while, but the story is still active and. the pattern will come back.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: So, so I thought wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it be nice if we could hold the body in such a way that it could tell its story and then we could support the release as the body is telling its story.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I love it so much because it’s, you know, it’s funny, I’m thinking of these videos I see on Instagram where it is, it’s someone like digging their fist into a shoulder and the person’s like screaming and in pain and release and all those things. And part of it looks a little bit cathartic, but I think you’re, you’re speaking to something so poignant, which is we’re treating a symptom of something deeper.

And at [00:31:00] some point we need to understand what that deeper thing is.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. And then, from a developmental perspective, I also looked at, you know, how does a body develop? Like, what are the sequences? And there’s, in somatics, in somatic work, there’s an interesting sequence of development, which is referred to as relational movements, which are not developmental movement.

It’s not like learning to sit and crawl and stand and all of that, which are more external, but a relational movement is something like being able to yield into someone who can hold us and we trust that they won’t drop us. Being, being able to reach to someone and trust that they will receive our reach in an attuned way.

And that caring will come back. You know, being able to see [00:32:00] something in the world that we think looks interesting for the child and we can reach and we can grasp and we can bring it to us and go, what’s this? And we can explore. And for a lot of young children, you know, in families. These relational movements are, are traumatized, like that, you know, a lot, and I see that a lot.

So for example, this yielding piece, you know, which is that first relational movement that starts from the moment we’re born. So we have ways of holding the body of creating a nurture surround that will help the body stop, start to drop down. Towards that yielding and right away, the body tells the story.

Oh, that’s not safe. I, if I yield, what will happen with you yield? If I yield, I’ll be too vulnerable and I’ll get hurt. Or if I’ll heal, if I’ll yield, they’ll drop [00:33:00] me emotionally. You know, relationally, so, so we can, through creating that support and particularly a lot of nurturing touch for the body, not so much confronting the body as supporting the body, then we can access these early relational movements that set the tone for how we are able to attach as a, you know, as children and through, and that.

carries us through our whole lives,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Does, does it change the way you approach it? My immediate thought was, it feels like there can be two categories as it pertains to touch in infancy, which is either it was absent or not there, or it wasn’t safe. When there was touch, it didn’t feel

Dr. Aline LaPierre: or it felt invasive or abusive, you know, abusive, abuse, physical [00:34:00] abuse or sexual abuse is a disorder of touch,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Yeah, and so then as the body begins to tell its story it may need to learn to push like what the Relational movement that is missing is the push like this is toxic. This feels bad This feels like this person is taking my energy rather than you know reciprocally interacting with me so So those relational movements, the, the body begins to name them and name what was wrong about it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And as you get into that work, do you find that people will have cognitive memories that surface?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Both, well, well, then we, then we go, you know, how to, let’s let the body tell its story, but sometimes the [00:35:00] body may not be. So we’ll say, what does mind think about this? You know, and, and mind says, well, Okay. Um, Oh gosh, you know, I, this doesn’t feel good, but I, I, I don’t want, I don’t want to be rejected. I don’t want my caregiver to be angry at me.

I don’t want, you know, it’s like what mine did in order to adapt to the situation. is one thing, and that’s important. And then what the body had to do to adapt to the situation is something else, because the mind might have overridden the body and go, you know, just let that person pick you up. You don’t want to lose the attachment.

You need them because you’re too young, you know, all of that. And body says, Okay, I’m going to allow it, but I’m going to get really tight and I’m going to make sure that nothing comes in. And so the person then loses their capacity to receive. [00:36:00] Yes,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I see and also have experienced myself, um, as a child touch was invasive and abusive in a lot of ways. And I find myself now working on realizing. Wow. How often I am bracing kind of like internally, very subtly whenever there is touch involved. And I remember probably a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago thinking, Oh, touch is so distorted for me.

It is not. A safe thing. And when you start to see how other people touch can, like, they don’t even have a second thought about it. It’s of course it’s safe. Why would it not be safe? Um, which is actually, I think one of the reasons why body-based work is something I’m just now getting into because it hasn’t felt safe.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: that you describe it beautifully. Absolutely. And, and to go one step further in terms of the [00:37:00] body and the nervous system, the, the touch receptors, the touch, you know, the, the touch receptors shut down or didn’t get a chance to develop because it. It was not safe to receive, but the, the bracing pattern and the shutdown or the push away got a lot of practice developing.

So the nervous system itself gets patterned based on what is possible, what is safe, what is toxic in our environment. So part of the working with the body and part of working with touch is, is to help the nervous system re rework its receptors. So that’s on the level of the body and emotionally it’s like rework the relationship with the, yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yes. And so it’s, it sounds like in a session, [00:38:00] Oh,

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Now go ahead, I, I just thought of something and I, I, I’ll show you in a minute.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay. It sounds like within a session, yes, you’re bringing all those pieces together. What, what are we starting to psychologically, cognitively understand based on what the body is communicating? And then what is the repair emotionally, psychologically, physically, that needs to happen? Thanks

Dr. Aline LaPierre: right, yeah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Versus maybe traditionally you might go to a talk therapist and understand the cognitive, but have to go somewhere else to now do some body repair and like bounce around to get all these pieces.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That’s right. Yeah, so it’s bringing it together. And, and it’s, you know, I’ve, I have been teaching this, um, for a number of years now, so I’ve seen a lot of students, you know, [00:39:00] learn the, the coming together. And it’s something that they can take and incorporate in whatever their main modalities are.

It’s not, A therapy in itself. It’s a, it’s an approach that can be incorporated in however you work. So body workers take it into their way of working in a way that works for them and psychotherapists in a way that works for them. But in terms of, of, um, receptors and all that. I just want to show you sometimes when people are not, it’s a little heart and it has flax seed in it and we have different shapes, but sometimes if the body is not ready for human touch, we can warm these and we’ll put them in different areas of the body and then maybe touch over it so that it’s a more safe kind of touch, but it still creates that capacity for the body.

to receive in a nurturing way that is safer.[00:40:00]

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I like that even instinctually that already feels safer.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: You know, when I see on social media, they, there’s lots of people that were at least in the realm of people I follow doing group somatic, you know, releases and somatic led workshops. And when I see that, like there’s a practitioner walking around touching the different people, I’m like, Ooh, that’s really cool.

No, no, no. That does not feel okay to me. And yet that doesn’t mean it’s not wonderfully impactful for so many other people, but I think it’s something worth bringing up in this conversation that there probably is a fair amount of people who maybe didn’t even know body based work existed, but now that they do, there’s still a little bit of resistance to it because of that fear or safety

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Well, what you’re talking about is consent, the level of consent that the body can give. And that is really important. [00:41:00] And when, when initiating any kind of touch, it’s always important to check in, you know, in terms of the, the consent, in terms of the attunement, you know, in terms of the pressure, the length, the time.

I mean, there’s so many little components that make up attunement, which is really, if you think of attunement in terms of a, of a, of a musical instrument, you know, we tune our instruments and when they’re in attunement, there’s a harmonious flow that becomes safe. But if you don’t check for the attunement of the readiness, um, the area, how is it going to be done is all of that, then it’s very easy to give a touch that that is misattuned that repeats the original traumatizing experience.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, I think that gets into the nuance of the work. That is one of those things [00:42:00] I’m sure when you’re training people, you’re like, I can lay out these pieces, but there is an element of being attuned to the person you’re working with to know when, where, how, how much. Etc.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Exactly. So the initial phase of, of, you know, moving to using touch. And it’s interesting because for body workers, people go to them to be touched, but, but they, they right away go into do to the body. So when they come to this work, it’s like, To take the time to attune. In other words, to sit a little bit with your person and find out what their body really needs and, and engage a little bit of the words is like their learning edge.

And, and for the psychotherapists, their learning edge is that piece of moving out of the words to, again, but to. The, the, the common piece [00:43:00] is that attunement when, because both can do the attunement and it leads them to be able to do the work in a, in a much more refined way to the needs of that particular person’s body.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, I find too that when I first started, I, I only wanted to do strictly subconscious beliefs. What’s the belief? What happened? What’s the pattern I’m stuck in? What’s the belief? Where did the belief come from? And I’ve found over the years, as I’ve gotten more comfortable with, for example, sitting with the raw emotion, I start going down a path of learning about somatics.

Myofascial release and, and I start to integrate those into my practice and I really think it, it has more to do with rather than just learning the material, my capacity to sit with those other elements.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. Yes.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: As the practitioner, [00:44:00] whereas before I didn’t have the capacity to maybe navigate the waves of raw emotion or the physical expression of something. And as my capacity grew, my offerings grew as well.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That’s right. That’s right. There, there are skills the mind needs to learn and there’s skills the body needs to learn. You know, and the other piece that I find really important is to know at least some basics of anatomy. Because anatomy is what the body is made of and the, and a lot of people think, Oh, anatomy is really dry or it’s, you know, but for example, if you want to work to come back to the reach, if you want to work to that reach, if you know that the, the, the nerve roots to the arm are coming out of the cervical on the side, when you just do that, gently hold the side of the neck, you’re already speaking to that [00:45:00] whole nervous system loop in a way that you’re not pushing and prodding to open the arm, but you’re just holding in a nurturing way and maybe creating a little bit of rocking and right there at the inception of the nervous system as it comes, a shift begins to happen.

So the holding is also Attuned to the body’s anatomy.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Do you find that we know how impactful those first three years, and particularly childhood in general, is to the rest of our lived experience? Do you find that most things go back there? And, or kind of a tangent question to that is, if you have a really impactful experience in adulthood, can it be just as impactful?

Traumatizing to the body, even though it was more acute.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Um, both, well, both actually. I think you’re [00:46:00] talking about the interface between shock trauma and developmental trauma. And they often are really intertwined. Because, um, if there’s a shock trauma, it’s sometimes referred to as big T trauma, like a, let’s say an accident, a car accident. And so then there’s a trauma to the body.

And so let’s say you work with that trauma in, in real time, in the adult person, and they sort of recover and the trauma is discharged and all of that, then the theory is the person will return to their whole self. But if it’s a developmental trauma, it, the person has no real self to return to. They will return to their original trauma. And that’s the, and, and, and so actually what happens is that very quickly, the, the trauma in real [00:47:00] time, adult self very quickly starts to bind with the early traumas that have enough in common with that one, that they all start to resonate together.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And then maybe contribute to why they’re all so sticky.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yeah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: yeah, so recognizing, okay, this is the one that happened in real time, and this, this, this feels like it’s been in your body longer, or it was there before the accident happened.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. Right.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: and strangely and mysteriously enough, we oftentimes hurt ourselves in places where we hold early trauma.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, say more. That’s so profound.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: I, I, I, I really don’t know, like, it’s totally mysterious how that happens, but, but it, it truly, truly is, you know, that, that, [00:48:00] um, um, let’s say, I, I, I’ll stay with this, with this image of the reaching, you know, that, so the person falls and breaks the wrist. And as you’re healing the wrist, you, which is a real time trauma.

This actually happened to me. I broke this wrist

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, no.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: years ago. But, but as you’re healing this real time, this trauma in real time, it’s like then the body sees an opening for talking about all those early times where there was no one to reach to. So that the body will use a trauma in real time as an entrance or as an exit, uh, whichever for, Other traumas that have never, never been explored from the body’s perspective.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm. It really does, I think, I think [00:49:00] speak to the body. Immense wisdom of the body. Like I think we could go down a whole trail here of you broke your wrist. Maybe if you were falling, there was an intention, a wisdom in I’m going to fall on my left wrist because I need to bring attention to this area.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I, I think of, I have two things like this physical based things like this that are kind of recurring things for me. One is. Head injuries. I, now to be fair, I did play competitive professional soccer. So I kind of upped the ante there, but I have had at least six really severe head injuries from soccer and otherwise that it’s just like, this is bizarre.

How does this keep happening? And then the other one is low back. My low back used to go out. Almost on a like a cyclical basis, like once a year, it would always [00:50:00] go out. And now what’s interesting is when I started doing a lot of work around the sexual abuse I experienced as an infant, that’s completely gone.

And when you look at, I love Louise Hay and some of her work, the literally the disc that would go out in my back, according to Louise Hay, the disc associated with sexual abuse. And I was just like, this is, Mind

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. It is actually Louise Hay with her book is like one of the great original somatic, uh, healers. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I reference it so often for myself and for clients. If they come in speaking to a specific ailment, I’ll always just take a peek at let’s check this out.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. Right. Yeah. It’s quite amazing. I mean, that intelligence that is a non verbal intelligence, but, but so able to look at, you know, [00:51:00] potential situations that will help itself be known to the mind. And usually we’ll hurt ourselves this way when we really don’t know how to listen. You know, the body will find a way to make us listen.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: hmm. Oh, there’s a whole Conversation we can go down. I work with a lot of cancer

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Ah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Um, on Fridays, I’m at a cancer center, specifically an integrative cancer center. And then I have many cancer patients in my own practice, but this is something we talk about so often. The body will set the boundaries that we often can’t set for ourselves.

And it’s it, the body, mind, and spirit demand to be heard. And if we aren’t listening, it will find a way.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: right, absolutely, and the fact is we’re just beginning to learn how to listen. You know, I feel that what I do, I, I’m just at the beginning when I hear, when I hear the [00:52:00] term bottom up, you know, oh we work bottom up, I always think we don’t even know where the bottom is yet, you know, we’re just starting to head down in that direction.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Well, I want to be respectful of your time. This has been so expansive, inspiring. I will make sure it’s linked in the show notes, but I’d love for you to be able to share for the listener where they can find you, learn more.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Sure. That would be, that would be lovely. And, you know, here in, in the area, there are a lot of neuroaffective practitioners because I teach in Los Angeles and people come to Los Angeles. So there’s a lot of local folks who, who do this work.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And are you still practicing and taking on?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: I, I’m mostly teaching and working with students who are learning to [00:53:00] do this work. And then they then are seeing clients.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay, so I’ll make sure people on your website, is there a directory or is it something where they would search like NAT practitioner?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: there’s a, there’s a find a practitioner, uh, section on our website, which is neuroaffectivetouch. com.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay, I love it. I will make sure it’s linked. Thank you so much for your time, your knowledge, your, the intention that you brought to this. This was really, really special.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to have met you.