An Organic Approach

Everybody heals in their own time, their own way. At HaidSmith, we take an organic approach to counseling and therapy. There’s no defined path, and it’s not a closed cycle.

Your healing journey is completely relational - it is entirely dependent on what feels comfortable for you.

After all, you know when you’re feeling and functioning better.

Bodywork is Necessary for Healing

We work with the body – the pain body and the real body – to release memories and stored emotions associated with them and to facilitate the healing journey.

Trauma Resides in the Nervous System

In stress, people always want to go into the head, but the real impact of traumatic experiences is in the body, not in the memory. The body acts as a container: once a person has experienced trauma, there are physical defenses that armor the body (just as within the mind) and that do not allow the individual to experience a full range of emotion, movement and joy, life and aliveness.

In trauma especially, a person becomes frozen and the body tells the story of this frozen state. Bodywork helps to release the embedded trauma. Bodywork does not require touch – any touch, requires the consent of the client.

The Brain is Only Part of the Body

It follows that therapy or counseling that does not deal with the body is limited. This is because everything - involvement, awareness, understanding, connection, and emotions are experienced everywhere in the body.  

To heal, individuals need to get an understanding of how their brain works in trauma to limit expression in the body; how emotions, feelings, and memories are internalized, to the extent that even freedom of movement and breathing can be restricted.