Initiatives to support people with disabilities

The somatic approach to experiential and sensorimotor learning is modeled after the needs of the person with a disability and their constellation of care.
It is on this premise that a project pathway takes shape, of which the person is co-author, together with his/her family members and/or caregivers. The work of the somatic practitioner is to identify the resources, skills and abilities of the person, to listen and collect the specificity of their experiences as distinct perspectives of relationship to the world.
The proposals for interaction and sensory stimulation are built in parallel with the reading, by the practitioner, of the perceptive and expressive space of the person. A session can vary in its focus on play or relaxation, body contact or mediation with objects, while respecting attention spans and rhythms of activity and rest.
Exploration of elementary neuromotor coordination takes place in an environment of consistent stimulations that aim to procure perceptual feedback appropriate to the action so that new sensory and cognitive skills can be integrated with movement.

The combined input of Body-Mind Centering and the Jeremy Krauss Approach allows for the development of interventions tailored to the needs of each person and family. In the sessions, the involvement of parents and/or caregivers allows for the sharing and transmission of methodological tools, practical suggestions, and resources applicable to the daily experience of caregiving.
One of the first elements is the educational touch, and its corollary is the acquisition of a listening style inspired by the principle of “tonic dialogue” elaborated in developmental psychology.
A “syn-tonic” contact, appropriate and sensitive, follows rather than directs: that is, it molds itself to the presence of the person, tuning into his or her vital and emotional tone. With this disposition, the operator suggests tonic and dynamic modulations in a “two-step” of stimuli and responses, accompanying the kinaesthetic and proprioceptive experience of the person and strengthening their sense of initiative. Finding an echo and a response in the environment, new ranges of movement and expression can be revealed and built alongside stereotyped and repetitive motor patterns, since the sense of security allows to accept the proposals of minimal variations in the execution of a gesture while preserving the stability of the environment.
The analysis of neuromotor coordination traces the developmental sequence in the developmental age and the organizing principles of dynamic systems, to read the tonic-postural background and introduce variables (in gravitational position, spatial orientation, reception of sensory flows) necessary for the emergence of a new ability.
This methodology is confirmed by the most recent research on neuro-plasticity, and the brain’s ability to form new connections when a coherent motor experience stimulates the reorganization of neural pathways. Structural work on the body’s various physiological systems (the organs, fascia, skeletal system, etc.) is combined with sensory integration and functional re-harmonization of the neuromuscular system.

The approach focuses on the person and his or her ability, the way he or she expresses the uniqueness of his or her presence in the world, the space in which he or she projects his or her perception of the environment, and the quality of the bonds that sustain it.

A session lasts one hour on average and can be scheduled on a regular weekly or bimonthly basis, or over intensive residential periods of daily meetings.

Caring for a person with a disability – a child, an adult, an elderly person – requires a lot of energy and can create conditions of fatigue and stress. It’s not always easy to carve out time for yourself and pay attention to your physical and emotional well-being. One of the difficulties is finding a balance between the disabled person’s needs for care and treatment, and recognition of one’s own.
A somatic education session helps to access listening to oneself through the body, to regenerate one’s resources for regulating the rhythms of activity and rest that the state of constant vigilance can lead to distort, to identify tensions and rigidities that need release and to learn other ways of tonic-postural and emotional support.