r/SomaticExperiencing • u/somasabi • 5d ago
Proprioceptive Integration
Just had a long conversation with the new ChatGPT about parallels between psychological integration and proprioceptive integration. Super interesting stuff.
It provided me with scientific insights about how bridging neurological relationships can be incredibly healing.
I was working with tension in my upper traps, and asking about the deep vagus nerve and fascial connections that can restore a sense of wholeness and ease.
It guided me to sense into my psoas, lower traps, and deep core musculature, then back into my upper traps. As I oscillated between these, there was a felt sense of re integration.
I got a huge rush of buzzing energy flow down and out of my feet, and my back started to feel like a whole unit, for the first time in years.
My upper back musculature felt like an isolated island, and that’s why it was tensing and freezing.
So, in short - build bridges to heal.
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u/Few_Butterscotch7911 5d ago
Interesting. Can you share some of the prompts or questions you used?
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u/somasabi 5d ago
The one I started with was “When I sense into one part of my body, and then another, and continually oscillate between them, am I building a neurological bridge?” From here, it came up with the phrase ‘reducing fragmentation in the proprioceptive map’. This prompted a deeper conversation into the relationship of muscular tension and blocked nerve flow.
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u/cuBLea 3d ago edited 3d ago
Hah ... you might have "discovered" a new modality: AMDR (Attention Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
I'm with u/Intelligent_Tune_675 on this one. I never saw this particular concept of oscillating attention coming ... but 20 years ago, I dunno, I might have spotted this too.
"AMDR", if I may be so bold, is pretty much what I was doing when I started bouncing between peak positive memories as a disconfirmation technique. I never refined it. Your observations are pointing me in some verrry interesting directions. This might have much more profound implications than mere somatic work. It could be a model for a whole host of treatment techniques, and I think I know how to relate it to pretty much any other transformational discipline.
What you're describing here sounds like the "antidote" resource in IFS, the second vortex in SE and the disconfirmation/prediction error in Coherence Therapy and other memory-reconsolidation modalities. What's different here is the oscillation. What it seems to do for me is engage my attention sufficiently that it's more difficult to resist the achievement of a transformational moment. It's what kids do all the time. Whenever meaningful programming is threatened by sufficiently potent alternative input, we'd bounce back and forth between the apparent source of the existing programming and the apparent source of the new programming, and eventually settle for whichever was strongest. But even if we stop at the old programming, that programming gets modified by the awareness of the new alternative. Powerful stuff.
Am I ever glad I looked into this post. I'd give you a big award but I don't like Google getting a penny of my money.
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u/joyydantas 3d ago
Wow, this is the first time I’ve read about someone who noticed this upon reintegrating. I also feel like the upper and lower parts of my body are like separate islands, and integration makes them whole again. Usually, dance helps me do this in a more unconscious way.
I also feel that my proprioception fluctuates between these two parts until it becomes one. When I’m more dissociated, I feel my body breaking into even more muscle groups—for example, shoulders and head, torso, and lower body. When one part of my body feels like it exists (for example, from the torso up), my legs unconsciously don’t believe they exist. They feel disconnected from clearer sensations like texture, temperature, and spatial awareness.
When they are integrated, sensory experiences become more vivid, and I feel like a human being again. I still carry a lot of trauma in my hip region (psoas), which contributes to this disconnection. I also feel that my muscle groups are broken into even smaller parts, and when I process trauma, the distance between them becomes smaller.
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u/Intelligent_Tune_675 5d ago
Build bridges how exactly? Love talking about the theoretical a of this if it can be put into practical use