Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

May 28, 2015

C is a 38 year old married female with twin 5 year old boys. C learned about Integrative Movement Therapy®through her yoga class at The Samarya Center. She has expressed that this is the only class where she feels like she can be present in her practice without feeling like she is being watched or has to compete with other students.

C grew up in the Mormon faith and currently defines herself as agnostic. She loves “Free Will Astrology” and believes that her “gut instinct” and intuition play a big part in her life. C volunteers at the Southeast Seattle Tool Library and enjoys watching TV with her husband or reading in the evenings. She also loves writing, cooking, gardening, playing board games, and playing with her children.

C describes herself as reserved with new people and as an introvert. She has a handful of intimate friendships and a solid, loving, partnership with her husband. She loves her children immensely and, predictably, finds herself very busy managing their schedule with school and activities.

C reports that she has been diagnosed with chronic PTSD, chronic anxiety, polycystic ovary syndrome, and hypertension - all diagnoses that she received around age 19. These diagnoses have not been changed or updated.

Current medications include 4000 mginositol, 400 mg folic acid, 2000 mg fish il, 20 mg Lisinopril. C is currently working with a mental health therapist who primarily uses EMDR which C reports has been very helpful and that she feels hopeful about the positive changes she has made through therapy.

C reports feeling generally uncomfortable in and embarrassed about her body and states that she feels often awkward and uncoordinated. These feelings often keep her from participating in physical activities and also affect her sexual life, general health, and perceived ability to parent active twin boys.

At times she reports having “panicky” behavior when experiencing physical discomfort or pain. She also reports that she tends to have “catastrophic thinking” when she is triggered or under high amount of stress which then makes it more challenging for her to make decisions. During these episodes she also describes “losing her voice” or in other words her ability to advocate for herself.

C is concerned that due to her uncomfortable feelings about her body that she will lose out on opportunities to interact with her boys through their physical activities. She would like to be a positive example for her children by being an active, confident, healthy, and a well-balanced person.

C’s main reasons for seeking out Integrated Movement Therapy® are the following:

1. She would like to be able to move confidently no matter what her body or her actions look like
2. She hopes to develop new tools to manage her anxiety
3. She wants to learn to listen to her body and understand what it is telling her and how to respond.

During the intake session C and her therapist reviewed IMT and how this modality can best meet her needs.

In terms of specific activities, C was lead through a body scan, a process in which one is able to develop vocabulary for increased awareness on physical, energetic, and emotional levels. This process also allows people to manage their feelings on lower levels and to see that they can be parsed out and attended to separately, effectively making them seem less overwhelming.

Next, a basic movement sequence was taught to help C begin coordinating movement with breath – a process that has been shown to help activate the parasympathic nervous system.

To continue on this theme, C was then lead through a specific breathing exercise to explore her ability to control her breath and elicit a feeling or state of calm.

Finally, the therapist offered basic rhythmic compression to C’s legs as she laid in relaxation – a technique shown to soothe the central nervous system, further enhancing a state of calm prior to allowing time for C to rest and let her mind and body integrate the information from the activities during the session.

At the end of our session, C reported noticing a shift in her emotional state towards a feeling of more relaxation and less stress and expressed hope about future sessions.

C has great insight and self-awareness as well as a genuine, thoughtful manner with others. C would certainly benefit from continued weekly sessions exploring various physical, breath based and cognitive behavioral techniques to manage feelings of anxiety and negative thoughts in order to increase her body awareness and over all feelings of confidence.

I look forward to our continued sessions and will be developing a set of specific goals and objectives along with C so that we can track and show progress.

Please feel free to contact me anytime, once we have a release of information, to discuss how we can further support C, and/or if you have any questions about this report or the information contained within.

If at any point you would like to meet to discuss this modality in general and how we can be mutually supportive in working with our clients, please let me know. It would be my pleasure to share this exciting modality with you and to be a source of cross referral as appropriate.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

, MSW, RYT

Ceritfied IMT therapist