Beyond Trauma

Re-Establishing ‘Grounding’ in Haiti after the Earthquake

by Dennis Moorman on March 6, 2012

My first visit to Haiti was just one month after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck. The scale of destruction to buildings and infrastructure was massive. Far more tragic were the multitudes I encountered striving to cope with the day-to-day survival demands of finding shelter, food, and clean water. The experience was an opportunity to make good use of my training in SE® and a testament to the approach. One particular exercise delivered at least ten benefits to the people we served—but first, some background.

In that earthquake on January 12th, 2010 an estimated 316,000 people died, another 300,000 were injured (many losing limbs), and more than a million were left homeless. Quite a few of the survivors were severely traumatized by losing their trust in the stability of the very ground on which they walk. Many had lost friends and relatives in the disaster, adding grief to trauma. By January 24th, just twelve days after the major earthquake, 52 aftershocks were recorded at a magnitude of 4.5 or greater. This continued experience of aftershocks was terrifying for many and was a source of re-traumatization.

I came to Haiti in the company of a team of doctors, nurses, and therapists organized by the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, Inc, better known as The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. Father Romane St. Vil, a Haitian-American priest, was named to lead our efforts to help the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquake.

The medical team encountered many symptoms for which they could find no physical explanation: dizziness, racing heartbeat, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, insomnia, feeling as though the earth was continuing to shake, loss of balance, paralysis, and fear of sleeping indoors, to name a few. I recognized many of these complaints as typical symptoms of unresolved trauma. The medical team began referring these people to me and I began working with them through translators, using my training in Somatic Experiencing for the renegotiation of trauma.

In January, 2011 around the first anniversary of the earthquake, I was invited to return to Haiti. Pax Christi International partnered with Maryknoll, inviting Sister Euphrasia “Efu” Nyaki to join me. Efu is a faculty member of the Somatic Experiencing® Trauma Institute in Brazil. It was our task to help with training two groups, thirty people each, who had suffered trauma from the earthquake. These volunteers were willing to use what they learned in their own healing to help others in their respective communities.

We prepared two five-day trainings, focusing on basic theory and practice of the Somatic Experiencing method. The goal was to help people begin to renegotiate the trauma that was still being held in their highly charged nervous systems. We were happy to see how enthusiastically the groups responded to using SE and how quickly they were able to pick up the theory and put it into practice.

In November and December of 2011 Efu and I returned to work with those same groups. This trip, sponsored in part by Maryknoll Sisters, allowed us to provide those volunteers additional supervision through two different three-day workshops. Further, we visited six different communities and spent 160 hours giving individual sessions to 218 people who were still suffering from symptoms since the earthquake, which at the time was nearly two years past.

In the beginning of many sessions we used a light supportive touch on the feet to help people to begin to re-establish their grounding. Many of the people we met were dissociative—specifically, they had difficulty feeling bodily sensations. For this reason, we found that supportive touch on the joints and diaphragms was a particularly effective resource to help people reconnect with their bodies. Often that reconnection allowed them to discharge residual traumatic energy being held in their bodies.

Another technique that we found especially effective in this context was the “Hand Pushing” exercise described by Dr. Peter Levine in Healing Trauma: Restoring the Wisdom of the Body. We used this exercise in the standing position when possible since clients were usually working to re-establish their equilibrium and connection with the earth. As therapists, we provided a supportive resistance and the client would gently push against our hands with theirs. During the exercise we encouraged them to go slowly and only gradually increase pressure so as to titrate the experience and remain connected with their bodily sensations. We asked them to maintain an awareness of their connection with the earth and especially notice their breathing as they pushed. Depending on their initial symptoms, we found people could receive as many as ten specific benefits from this particular exercise (use arrows to scroll through photos below):

We found this technique to be quite adaptable and discovered some variations that could also prove helpful. For example, when there was high activation in the gut, we encouraged the use of sound to help facilitate the release of this energy. We also experimented using this exercise with the client’s eyes closed as a way of further restoring internal awareness and equilibrium. For those who had lost arms or legs, this exercise could be adapted by pushing with the legs or the back, rather than with the arms. For those who struggled with ongoing anger and would benefit from practicing this exercise on their own, we encouraged them to adapt this exercise by pushing against a strong wall.

In closing, we found the trauma healing work in Haiti using the Somatic Experiencing method to be very gratifying, since many of the healing results were immediate. I recall one particular session with a woman who had been stuck in paralysis and depression ever since the earthquake. At the close of the session, she began to wave her arms in the air and dance and sing, saying we had healed her and what wonderful doctors we were! My reply was that she would do well to give thanks to her body, because that is the true miracle worker that holds the wisdom for healing. By learning to listen to her body and respect what it needed, she found the healing that she so desperately sought.

We are especially grateful to all of our teachers and mentors in the method of SE for making it possible for so many suffering people to enjoy this beautiful experience of healing!

Reverend Dennis Moorman, MM, SEP – Dennis is a Maryknoll priest and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, currently working in Brazil with trauma renegotiation and assisting with SE trainings.

Sister Euphrasia “Efu” Nyaki, MM, SEP – Efu is a Maryknoll Sister and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. She works with AFYA, a holistic center for women in João Pessoa, Brazil, which she helped to found in 2000. She is also a faculty member of the Somatic Experiencing Institute in Brazil.

Photos courtesy of Dennis Moorman

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