Somatic Writing for Recovery

Session Description

Writing is about opening to the new & unknown. The paradox is that it both comes from inside of you & is out of your control! Somatic Writing Group bridges the worlds of somatics (mind-body connective practice), creative writing & recovery. It proposes the ritual of writing as a path to engaging consciousness & ventral vagal activation versus the ritual of addiction as a path to unconsciousness and sympathetic activation and/or dorsal vagal (collapse). We will be reading excerpts from experimental, confessional, auto-fiction writers & poets & begin to feel into words by writing in the present tense & moment. Each group consists of writing instruction & prompt, a 15-min writing exercise, group sharing & time/ space for processing. Clients wanting assistance & community working on (or dreaming up!) their longer-form projects (e.g. a novel, a memoir, essays or poems) are encouraged to stay after group sharing for individualized discussion. ABOUT RACHEL: Rachel is a Somatic Trauma Practitioner, PsychoNeuroEnergetics educator and writer. She holds integrative certifications in Somatic Release Technique (SRT), The Points Holding Process & PsychoNeuroEnergetic (PNE) therapeutic modalities from the Somatic Institute in Los Angeles, and an MFA in Creative writing from the University of San Francisco. Her debut novel, The Fifth Wall, was published by Black Sparrow Books in 2017 & deemed by Chris Kraus in i-D Magazine as “falling within a new & exciting tradition of female philosophical fiction.” Rachel incorporates practices of Vedic meditation, studies in non-dualism & entheogenic plant medicine into her facilitation approach, alongside polyvagal regulation techniques taught by Dr. S Rosenberg and his protege, Thor Philipsen, DO & the somatic-based practices of Dr. Peter Levine, offering a deeper dual spiritual + scientific component to the development of her clients’ somatic awareness. Rachel most recently deepened her training in Transactional Analysis at the SE Institute for Group & Family Therapy & is currently undergoing apprentice training at the Psychedelic Somatic Institute where she is learning to assist clients with complex developmental PTSD in accessing their innate primary consciousness' homeostatic psychobiological resolution. She is currently developing & running Somatic Writing Groups both inside & outside the recovery space. You can read more about Rachel, her private practice, approach & offerings at www.rachelnagelberg.com

Contact Details