AUTOSOMATIC TRAINING

The following is copied from one of Phil Walsh's earliest presentations of his Autosomatic Training Technique. (My comments are in red.)

1. THINK ABOUT OR TALK ABOUT TOPIC, PERSON, SITUATION, PROBLEM, ETC... (focus your attention on any issue that is troubling you)

Prompt: Talk about and ask questions about topic. "How do you feel about...?"

2. AS YOU TALK ABOUT THE TOPIC, PAY ATTENTION TO BODY FEELING... (This is a body centred exercise. Body feeling is the key!)

Close your eyes, sit still, and focus on the feeling.

Prompt: Where do you feel it?
Is it in your chest? stomach? etc...?
What size is it?
How many inches wide? High? Deep?
If felt 'all over', ask, "is it in your left big toe?"

Note: sometimes the feeling is wider than the body limits.

(In later years Phil rarely did much prompting, at least not with me.)

3. FIND THE IMAGE

While concentrating on the feeling...

Prompt: Who/what do you see in front of you?*
Who does it remind you of?
When have you felt it before?
At what age did you feel it?
Who would you like to forget?
Who would you like to remember?
How old do you feel?*
(* these may be particularly useful)

4. RELIVE AND RE-SOLVE

if an Image is presents
(with whatever images present)

Prompt: Talk directly to the person in the image and interact with her/him/they.
Say what you want / need to say
Tell the whole truth, the good and the bad
Do what you want/need to do
Rewsolve it
Have it turn out the way you would like it to turn out/
Change what you want to change
Let your body tell you what to do, say or change
Let the feeling tell you what to do, say or change
Don't talk aboutm it. Do it.
Say something, do something, change something.

THE KEY, THOUGH, IS COMING FROM AN INSTINCTIVE, REACTIVE, PRIMAL PLACE/SPACE/ASPECT AND NOT FROM THE RATIONAL/CEREBRAL/VERBAL MIND!

Phil stresses that the rational, verbal mind has no input, no traction on trauma and traumatic memories. However, traumatic memories do relate (closely) to feeling and image.

WHEN THERE IS NO IMAGE, JUST HANG THERE WITH THE FEELING.

5. WHEN THE IMAGE and/or FEELING IS GONE

- Check back to the original feeling or any other uncomfortable feeling and focus on it. Then repeat from Step 2 on.

- When there is no uncomfortable feeling, ask: Is there a GOOD FEELING? TOTALLY GOOD FEELING is the end point.

- If no good feeling: "How DO you feel?
if "empty", ""alright", "sad", "deprerssed", etc... focus on that and go back to Step 2, etc... until yo have ONLY GOOD FEELING.

6. WHEN THERE IS GOOD FEELING ONLY: Talk again about the TOPIC in Step 1 to attempt to re-stimulate the uncomfortable feeling. If the unc omfoirtable feeling is still there, repeat the steps until only the GOOD FEELING remains.