Integrating Body and Mind. Lowering myself onto the floor, slowly, into the stretch I knew would be the release for the agony I had been enduring for the past six months, searing pain shot down the left side of my body. As I screamed out for help and lay utterly powerless on the carpet, I experienced an intense rush of emotion. Over the past six months pain had brought me to tears regularly. This was different. I was responding to my position of complete defencelessness, being incapacitated, vulnerable and feeling so small. I was aware of people close by, of them keeping watch over me but keeping a distance, afraid of touching me, witnessing the obvious excruciating pain I was experiencing. Unable to move, I relented and relaxed my body into the position I was in, a position my body had been unable to access in the months prior. Slowly, pain beginning to ease, I knew I needed to breathe slowly and deeply. As I did this, I was aware of my surroundings retreating, I was just Me. Very slowly I was able to bring myself to kneeling and then standing. After experiencing severe and debilitating chronic agony for six months, being hospitalised, receiving medical intervention and prescribed strong medication, all of which were having very little impact, I developed a significant lump at the base of my spine, which could not be clinically explained, and started to develop a severe tremor in my leg. I began dropping items, and my hand would shake. I was referred to a neurologist. My understanding of psychosomatic pain was already theoretically broad. I am in advanced Clinical Training as a Transactional Analyst Psychotherapist and have a small private practise in Hove. My experience, both personally and clinically has shown me that therapeutic process begins with talking about experience; thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and trying to make sense of. This process involves building of intrapsychic awareness to gain understanding, an acquisition of an understanding of the Mind, of Self, which gives way to having choice. Sometimes during this process there are moments when understanding is great, however change is difficult. When we experience a situation, we do so with our Whole Self, Mind and Body. Sometimes there is no option to run, so our mind retreats when our body cannot. It is in this moment our muscles tense, reacting both physically and emotionally. Our body remembers. This process continues long after a single event as we try and make sense of that event, navigating life how we interact with others and the world around us. Having persevered with Medical Model interventions, exhausted with living with the devastation and terrified at the prospect at being referred onto a neurologist, I continued looking for a way to heal myself. In Transactional Analysis we understand the concept of Physis, the subconscious drive we all have, to reach psychological health, Berne (1968). One of the key muscles in the human body is the Psoas Muscle. This muscle plays a pivotal part in maintaining the body’s core stance and runs from the diaphragm, deep down in the centre of the body very close to the spine, to the pelvis. This muscle attaches to the femur and is pivotal in hip flexion. The Psoas Muscle is known colloquially as the ‘fight or flight’ muscle; when the brain perceives threat in the environment, emotionally, or physically, and the body tenses this main muscle in the core of our body tenses in response. If this energy is not adequately subsequently dispelled the Psoas Muscle remains tight. The symptoms of a tight Psoas Muscle can be felt as lower back pain, leg pain, hip pain, digestive issues, pelvic pain. It is this core muscle I continued to stretch and release. I have my own regular psychotherapy, ‘Contrary to popular belief, self-awareness, health and peace do not come from simply “letting go of the past” and avoiding the hard things. In a world that promotes so much toxic positivity, sitting with your pain is one of the bravest acts of self-love. Perhaps inner growth isn’t in the forgetting but in the remembering, and being changed by what we learn. May we experience self-compassion and healing when we allow ourselves to feel beyond what hurts.’ Ferera Swan. Through deep therapeutic understanding, over years of fostered and treasured therapeutic alliance, I have become aware of where my breathing pattern originates. I know the origins of fight/flight in my own narrative, and how this relates to me as an individual. I know I no longer need to ready myself to flee. I breathe in a way that allows my body to regulate, and when I notice, I have returned to my old pattern of breathing I reregulate myself. Sometimes, when I stretch, I will experience intense emotion, I don’t try and interpret this, I am aware this is my body releasing outdated adaptations, I no longer need in the here and now. A realisation of integration of mind and body in a way that was transformative for my health.