Episode 564: We've forgotten that we live in our bodies with Jan Winhall, MSW

<p><span>Jan began her career as social worker and psychotherapist 40 years ago. She began listening with non-pathologizing ears and heard shocking stories of sexual torture, and responses that confused her.</span></p><p> <span>Women were cutting themselves, bingeing and purging huge quantities of food, and abusing drugs and alcohol. As she listened she learned that somehow these self-harming behaviors were “helping” individuals to escape intolerable emotional states. They were shifting their mood from flooding anxiety to numbing deadness, or vice versa.</span></p><p><span>Because these behaviors were so helpful they were compulsively repeated and often became addictions.</span></p><p><span>Jan’s book </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0367408120/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?creative=9325&creativeASIN=0367408120&ie=UTF8&linkCode=as2&linkId=ac555e245db361a9b5ce3ee080487454&tag=wescoatrapro-20" rel="nofollow"><em>Treating Trauma and Addiction with The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom Up Approach</em></a><span> is the result of rethinking the Felt Sense Experience Model that she wrote about in her book, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2EA0Q4/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00J2EA0Q4&ie=UTF8&linkCode=as2&linkId=867219a85fd29efa64c0a83e4cd97b96&tag=wescoatrapro-20" rel="nofollow"><em>Emerging Practice in Focusing- Oriented Psychotherapy</em></a><span>, 2014. Jan’s integrated the Polyvagal lens Theory to create a more sophisticated way of understanding emotional regulation, where addictive behaviour is an embodied response to emotional dysregulation.</span></p><p><strong> </strong><strong>In This Episode</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://janwinhall.com/" rel="nofollow">Jan’s website</a></li><li><a href="https://janwinhall.com/courses/" rel="nofollow">Jan’s courses</a><span> </span></li><li><a href="https://usabp.org/resources/Downloads%20for%20the%20Site/Webinar%20Downloads/FeltSensePolyVagalModel/GendlinPrimacyofhumanpresence.pdf" rel="nofollow">The Primacy of