My daughter was 3 years old when we cleared the house out and steam cleaned our carpets. She is a sensitive little sausage – struggled with change and sounds, so we took the time to communicate to her when we brought her home from pre school that day, that the house would look different, but not to worry as all the furniture currently stacked up in the garden would be coming back into the house once the carpet was dried. She took two steps into our living room and immediately tripped over the vast expanse of nothingness where once there was a sofa. It was amazing. She literally tripped over the memory of the sofa. What we were seeing were issues with her sensory processing – or sensory integration.
Sensory integration (sometimes called sensory processing), is more than just taste, touch, hearing and smells. It is the processes in the brain that make sense of the information coming in from all of our senses, giving us information about what is happening both outside and inside of our body. It’s not just our ability to touch something and recognise the texture or temperature, it is our ability to recognise our place in a space, to ‘feel’ like we are 2 meters apart from the person in front of us in the check out, to ‘know’ we will definitely fit in space on the tube train. Typically, we have it nailed by Primary school age, but there are a range of biological, social and psychological reasons why we might not. Difficulties with sensory integration can cause under (hypo) or over (hyper) reactions to sensory signals. That kid in the playground who never has a coat and is seemingly impervious to the snow (Hypo sensitive) and that one kid who get hives from sitting on the carpet at circle time and hates being touched (hyper sensitive). Sensory issues can occur on their own (sometimes referred to as sensory processing disorder) or as part of other diagnoses including autism, ADHD, and now as we understand - Trauma. I was lucky enough to have worked with some of the most awesome Paediatric Occupational Therapists during my time in Learning Disability services. Sensory Integration is their bread and butter – they are the pioneers of the mind-body connection, and as a health service provider they do it better than most. And their once ‘emerging’ treatments of sensory diets and sensory integration therapies are now at the cutting edge of trauma treatments.
The sensory integration network is a great place to find out more about this area of occupational therapy and they say that simply put, sensory integration means how we experience, interpret and react to (or ignore) information coming from our senses. Is that confetti cannon a threat to our life or a fun end to a cabaret performance? Sensory Integration makes that decision happen, and draws on our previous knowledge and understanding of how to cope with loud bangs, and unexpected loud noises.
Sensory integration is integral to what we do on a daily basis, such as getting dressed, eating, moving around, socialising, learning and working, and if it’s out of whack, we can feel deskilled, dehumanised, anxious and depressed.
Perhaps you can relate to areas of your Sensory Processing which may be hypo or hyper active?
Sight (vision) – bright lights? Colours? Seeing things move in the corner of your eye? Attracted to shiny things? Do you avoid certain places like supermarkets because of the lights? Are you drawn to fair grounds and disco lights?
Hearing (auditory system) – that clock ticking doing your head in? Want to choke that guy eating on the bus? Able to hear the neighbours next door but can’t hear the TV in your living room? Have to turn the radio down so that you can park the car?
Touch (tactile system) – OMG SOCKS AND LABELS? Or OMG soft kitten fur?
Taste (gustatory system) – Beige food only please?
Smell (olfactory system) – This is a big one for lots of post covid people, I still have very limited smell and taste 9 months on.
Proprioception (senses of body awareness and position) – Were you good at social distancing or are you always ramming people with your trolley? Need a map to find out where you are in the bed? Always falling out of bed?
Vestibular (awareness of movement, balance, and coordination) – Hands up who hates spin pole?
Interoception (our internal sensory system that tells us what is happening inside our body, for example, hunger, needing the toilet, fatigue, emotions, etc) – Don’t know when you are full of food? Always having lots of ‘little pees’?
For most of us, the development of sensory integration occurs when we are very young as part of our normal development in a childhood that is relatively stressful and not filled with adversity. As babies, when we are allowed to roll, crawl, cruise -walk and take risks in our play, we are teaching our brain how to cope with sensory information in a healthy way. However, if those experiences are jilted by adversity – whether that be an inability to crawl because our hips were in casts, or perhaps we were neglected and left to sit in a cot, our sensory integration centres do not develop in a typical fashion. Additionally, what happens if the signals coming from our senses are too weak, or too strong? If our brain over or under reacts to the signals? Or if the brain can’t make sense of those signals? The individual will experience sensory integration difficulties and this may be evident in their behaviour. Some individuals may experience the sensory inputs as overwhelming and upsetting, leading to ‘sensory overload’. Individuals may be over sensitive to sensory input, under sensitive, or both. People who have experienced trauma in their childhood whether this be from abuse or other adversities, are most likely to have sensory processing difficulties because of the way the trauma has affected their developing brains. It’s quite normal for everyone to occasionally feel under or over sensitive to sensory inputs, particularly if we are feeling stressed or tired; for example, needing quite and darkness when you have a headache; your mind wandering if you are tired and you find yourself ruminating; you may lack the tolerance of other people being in your space if you are stressed. But these feelings are temporary and wouldn't normally affect your day-to-day functioning in the long-term. Sensory integration or sensory processing difficulties are long-term and have a big impact on everyday life and learning and can continue undetected into adulthood. As humans, we try to avoid the stuff that causes us discomfort, but in SI therapy, the client is exposed to that stuff in a carefully planned way.
The Sensory Integration Network explain that SI therapy (or SI interventions, which should only be done by a qualified SI Therapist) involve a sensory diet, which is a recommended suite of activities and accommodations (that can be carried out both in therapy sessions and at home or school) to help give that individual the sensory input they need. It can include structured exposure to sensory input, movement therapy, balance treatments, carefully designed and customised physical activities and accommodations (eg, changes to the environment or routine). You can search the SI Practitioners' Register for therapists who have gained sensory integration qualifications on SIE’s UK-university-accredited MSc in SI pathway.
Dr. Bruce Perry, a leading expert in early childhood trauma has recognised the therapeutic benefits of SI for treating trauma and is leading the way in supporting children (and adults) to treat trauma directly in the areas of the brain that it affects using a therapeutic approach called Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT). The rationale is complex, but in a nutshell – talking therapies and other more traditional psychotherapies only treat one aspect of trauma, and not everyone (especially kids) can access psychotherapies. Have you ever struggled to access Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or just felt like Psychotherapies weren’t touching the sides for you? This could be because the foundation that the higher parts of your brain is built upon, is not fully integrated. Could you say that maybe as a child you got off to a rocky start? Then, maybe give yourself some credit and compassion – maybe your brain literally hasn’t been built for therapy.
The NMT approach is based on “brain basics”. Brains develop from the bottom up – firstly, the “lower” (primitive) parts that control the basics like breathing, heart rate and body temperature, then the “higher” parts that control complex functions like language and abstract thinking. The majority of brain development happens before age 4, but the brain doesn’t stop developing until age 25, for this reason, it is understood that early childhood trauma has a disproportionate affect on the brain than a trauma in later life. We need the brain to develop sequentially and in a well integrated way. Adverse childhood events can impact that negatively, like a risky game of Jenga with lots of gaps in the bottom layers, precariously holding up our adult brains. Additionally we know that a brain developing in utero can be adversely affected if it is exposed to chemicals or toxins such as alcohol and also toxic stress which exposes the foetal brain to higher than normal levels of cortisol – So we consider our maternal and paternal health in understanding our own capacity to cope as adults.
The idea behind NMT is that we can treat the brain using patterned, repetitive somatosensory activities that help develop the individual’s capacity for self-regulation before then moving on to more traditional psychotherapies that will help with more relational-related problems and then developmentally further into more cognitive-behavioral based approaches. Dr. Perry stresses that NMT is not a specific therapeutic technique or intervention but an approach to structuring the application of interventions in a way that will truly help and lists the following as activities that can be used for NMT.
· Music
· Movement
· Yoga
· Therapeutic massage
· Reiki
· EMDR
· Drumming
· Equine or canine interactions
· Art therapy
· Drama therapy
Where is pole on there? It isn’t. And it should be. The NMT approach focuses on the need for “consistent, repetitive sensory input and movement therapies, as well as the need for a stable relational environment with positive, healthy [relational figures] providing a safe, healing environment”. We know that Pole provides all of these things. As adults, we find stability and ‘relationability’ in our pole families, with some polers saying that pole has taught them how to relate to others in a way that no other community has. Pole is reported to ‘heal’ and teach self regulation from emotional instability. Pole is reported to be safe and inclusive where individuals can ‘be themselves’ and explore their own narratives. And the physical benefits of pole are undisputed with reported benefits to neurofeedback, sensory integration and neurodevelopmental reorganization, and cardio-respiratory health.
I propose that Pole Dance can address all four categories of sensory integration difficulties which have been identified by Parham and Mailloux (2015)
Sensory modulation problems - when our brain either over or under responds to sensory information. Some people who have experienced trauma or who have Neurodivergence’s can sometimes be less aware of sensations. How aware are you when you are in pole, particularly in the tactile sense? Pole requires us to be aware of sensory input across many of our sensory processes and to modulate this information.
Sensory discrimination and perceptual problems – when our brain has difficulties with making sense of the sensory information it receives. If these problems are with touch sensory information, an individual can seem clumsy or use too much or too little force when doing things. Sensory discrimination can be an issue for traumatised brains as they struggle to tell the difference between what is a threat or not. In pole, we train our brains to use just the right amount of force, to move in the smallest of increments to adjust our posture, to visualise movements.
Vestibular bilateral functional problem – our brains can struggle with poor balance and difficulties with coordinating two sides of the body. There is a strong body of research connecting vestibular problems to trauma and we all know where we can go to get regular exposure to spinning and being upside down don’t we?
Praxis problems – this is how our brain plans for and carries out movements we have not done before. Pole combo time anyone?
My Therapeutic Pole course will take clients through the sensory integration key areas, supporting consistent and repetitive sensory input based on their own neurodevelopmental needs. This will help to heal the traumatised brain to a point where it will be able to engage more fully in and feel the benefits of psychotherapies and other talking therapies.
Homework time! Next time you are training, pick one of the sensory integration categories above and make it the focus of your training. Let me know your thoughts
In the meantime keep spinning, and climbing, and being upside down - science says it is good for you!