PILATES
Pilates is the art of contrology and a sustainable modality of movement.
Pilates is a challenging low-impact exercise method that balances strength with mobility, aligns the body, fine-tunes movement patterns, and strengthens the deeper muscles of the core. Pilates provides countless benefits for the aging body.
Scientific research supports an array of impressive health benefits for Pilates. Studies suggest it may help to improve muscle endurance and flexibility, reduce chronic pain and lessen anxiety and depression.
WHY COMBINE PILATES WITH PSYCHOTHERAPY?
Movement is a huge part of healing from trauma, and we all have trauma as it’s part of the human experience.
Movement while receiving psychotherapy is an excellent intervention for people having a difficult time feeling safe within their bodies. Movement during therapy helps one to form a unique pattern of embodied and conceptual self-awareness.
“When you’re a traumatized person, it feels like nothing will ever change. Movement helps you to re-establish that sense of time, between movements, to help the body to understand, ‘this too shall pass’. Movement really helps people to contain themselves and safely experience their bodies, which in turn makes it possible for people to feel things that they may be very afraid to feel. When you get traumatized, you don’t really want to feel what you feel and know what you know, which is the core of the problem. And movement makes it safe for you to experience yourself, even though that experience may not be all that great. Movement can help give you the courage to begin to face your sensations”
– Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk.
Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement.”
– Aldous Huxley
Nothing is more revealing than movement. The body says what words cannot.
– Martha Graham
“Through exercise individuals can connect to their own body, and in turn connect with others.”
– Stephen Porges