The Bodyblade® is a physical therapy tool and physical training device that SE Practitioners have found very useful for working with vitality, or what Dr Levine calls healthy aggression.

Oftentimes in trauma, the human organism will have impulses of self-protection and boundary setting that are overwhelmed. Levine's prescription, in fact, is that trauma arises out of the experience of helplessness in the face of threat, and trauma healing often entails recovering a sense of mastery through the restoration of life force. As clients move through their trauma narratives, they may encounter pockets of anger, potent energies that may be difficult to contain. We have found that having access to Bodyblade® can be useful for these moments. Because the Bodyblade® requires the contraction of core muscles, clients are often able to both access deeper and more potent affective experience while also having a sense of holding in the body. Shaking the Bodyblade®, which requires an engagement of our central structure rather than just exercising peripheral tissues, requires a quality of organization and coherence in the body, and this can facilitate being with big energies and staying present to the impulse as it completes instead of just throwing off the energy. In other words, rather than a cathartic blowing out of intensity this tool can facilitate the full experiencing and integration of emotions, allowing the resultant heat to release blockages and facilitate the safe discharge of bound energies in the nervous system.

In a typical session, we may use dialogue, touch, or work with other tools to facilitate pendulation, encouraging the organism to move back into healthy oscillation between expansion and contraction. As this occurs, cycles of activation and deactivation will emerge, and in this a person may discover a sense of frustration as this cycling deepens. A sense of needing to assert oneself may emerge, which can sometimes be overcoupled (too tightly bound up) with a sense of fear at allowing our feeling states to move freely. As our life force arises, giving birth to healthy aggression, there may be habits of body and mind that try to inhibit the experiencing and expression of this core part of ourselves. Of course, however, we need access to our life force. It allows us to set and maintain boundaries, speak our truth (and thus create deeper and healthier connections), and find those individuals who will truly have our best interests at heart. Also, accessing and completing sensorimotor impulses related to aggression is also often a missing piece in trauma healing. For all these reasons, it becomes important in our sessions to work with anger where it has been blocked, and facilitate the safe experience and containment of this force so it can be integrated. A tool like the Bodyblade® can be invaluable at certain times for this particular purpose.

Joshua Sylvae, PhD
Legacy Faculty, Ergos Institute