The challenge:

• Possibility of a "collective trauma" from the COVID-19 pandemic due to direct and indirect exposure to death, social isolation, economic & housing vulnerability, among other factors.
• University students experience increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

The intention:

• Relate to the body, the environment, and other participants from the workshop through awareness and movement - for a sense of well-being.
• Collective discussion on the pandemic and mental health culture.

In Relation premise

Why does the workshop focus on the body?

• Trauma is not in the event, but in how the event has affected the body's nervous system and stress response system.
• Van der Kolk (2017) states that “trauma is not primarily imprinted on people’s consciousness but instead becomes deeply embedded in people’s sensate experience”. "Sensate experience" refers to sensations, emotions, and moods experienced by a person. Dr. Peter Levine, a psychologist, found that trauma is an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system. When the nervous system is balanced, the body oscillates between activation of the sympathetic nervous system (muscular action) and parasympathetic nervous system (digestion and rest) smoothly. When a person is traumatized, they've experienced a "shock" to the body's way of functioning. Due to this sudden shock, the nervous system is either "stuck" in a hyperarousal or hypoarousal state. Hyperarousal states refer to chronic anxiety and stress, while hypoarousal states refer to depression or numbness (see illustration at the end of this page).
• In response, Dr. Levine developed a somatic psychotherapy named "Somatic experiencing", which consists of connecting the patient to their body in the present moment, while discussing the story of their trauma. The healing occurs when there is a gradual biological discharge (shaking, crying, muscle spasms). From these theories, the body becomes a locus to heal trauma.
• The field that connects psychology to the body is called "somatic psychology". Mischke-Reeds, a somatic psychotherapist, defines the field as "the study of the body-mind interface. Reffering to the soma in the context of psychotherapy is to reference the ability to sense oneself through sensations" (2018).
• A key experience in somatic psychotherapy is "interoception": "the capacity to feel one's present body through emotions, sensations and different body states" (Mischke-Reeds, 2018). It is an activity where the individual places their awareness on their body's inner sensations, with the approach of an experiential mind. An experiential mind is one that chooses to observe, sense, and describe without judgment. This is contrasted with interpreting, judging and explaining which prevents a direct experience of the body in the present moment. Interoception is a somatic practice: the combination of body awareness and breath awareness.
• Furthermore, dance-movement therapy (DMT) also supports the body's role in healing psychological stress. According to the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA), DMT is "the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being" (2018). Movement can help balance the nervous system by creating a relaxation response (which balances hyperarousal states) or by activating the muscular-skeletal system (which balances hypoarousal states).
• The fields of somatic psychology and dance-movement therapy therefore influenced the design of the in-relation workshop, where the two movement sequences focus on body awareness and exploration of movement to create a sense of well-being.

Why does the workshop focus on sound?

• Music mirrors our biological systems (tempos usually correlate with heartbeat rates, rhythms also echo the balancing patterns of the walk, the up and downs of the breath, etc.) The frontal cortex has dense connections with auditory regions in the brain, which links sounds with motor actions.