TOMATIS THERAPY: Our Minor Course in Miracles
You Say Toe-may-toe, Toe-mah-toh, Tomatis…
Of the 2000+ hours of intervention we’ve had to help Liam
learn, thrive and grow over the past decade, we finally found THE KEY a mere six months ago. We’ve done it ALL…We have been fans of wonderfully skilled helpers and teachers along the way. The OT's, PT's, pediatric psychiatry, psychology/counseling, pediatrician and pediatric neurology.
When in the school system it was the IEP, FBA, ESP, 504 and BIP (all another post). Not to mention the looooong waiting lists for ABA therapy--that thankfully never happened.
TOMATIS THERAPY. A word I never knew until six months ago let alone knew how to pronounce. It began with a most unlikely mother’s day gift of the book The Brains Way of Healing by Dr. Norman Doidge and a printed referral for the closest practitioner of Tomatis Method, Dr. Liliana Sacarin.
To say I was skeptical was the understatement of the year. All I’d wanted for Mother’s Day was a Target gift card and 20 minutes in the bathroom alone, not another clinician to explore.
Setting the Tomatis Stage
BUT this time WAS DIFFERENT. Let me share the IMPACT for Liam first then WHAT Tomatis IS and is not.
Let’s recap an uncomfortable Memorial Day
morning, 1.5 hour trek with hubs and Liam to Seattle for his initial assessment.
Our laps full of paperwork documenting our pregnancy then all of the
developmental and educational alphabet soup. And as always, these papers had me
giving them the side eye as I felt the sticky weight of their judgement whisper
it’s
all your fault, nothing will help him, you’ve spoiled him, he will grow up to
be a serial killer, this is doomed. Moms of special needs kids know this
shadow whisper more intimately than our own partners some days.
The Tomatis Listening Assessment went like most assessments
do for Liam. Stressful. He tore a page she asked him to complete. He escalated
with minimal provocation. AND Dr. Sacarin was so kind, so open and despite the
fact I fully expected to be turned away, we found a safe haven for all of us to
grow.
A study in contrast is required. I began homeschooling Liam
in January 2019. We had just completed in-home crisis stabilization to avoid
psychiatric hospitalization due to profound anxiety and PTSD. It manifested as
aggression, self-harm and auditory hallucinations in the worst moments. We had
turned the corner and pulled him back from the brink. For the first three
months, he simply healed. Big naps. Sensory regulation. Reclaiming his soul.
After my first abysmal week of trying to force-feed an on-line curricula that
made us both gag that is.
By July, we had started to see the light in his eyes again,
his laugh returned, he began to write and tell stories that organically allowed
him both healing and learning. We were on our way. I was loathe to introduce
anything that might tip our fragile hard-earned balance.
5 WEEKS: RENEWED LIFE RHYTHM
Tomatis Method by design is intensive to retrain the ear and the
brain for better functioning and learning. Better LIVING. After our first consultation
with Dr. Sacarin, a gentle approach was recommended as a starting place. We
would engage in three one-hour sessions per week for five consecutive weeks.
Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Liam and I made our pilgrimage to and from Seattle.
At the end of five weeks, the breakthroughs were astonishing—dare
I even say a course in miracles.
- TOUCH-For a child so hyper-sensitive to touch that we had to ask to hug him he now would kiss my hand and place my hand on his own face and ask for a face rub. I cried the first time he did that.
- ATTENTION & ENERGY-So ravaged by the PTSD compounding his already atypical approach, he’d had energy for only 10 minutes of focus on a book or preferred activity like trains. After our five weeks, he sat calmly and confidently on the floor building a whole train track start to finish---on his own. He sat at the kitchen counter with his dad building a mini-Lego set start to finish---without a meltdown. Reading instructions step-by-step.
- SENSORY & NUTRITION-Liam began to eat something that required greater energy…..the local fruit stand became a source of wonder and joy. He had previously only tolerated soft substances like yogurt and applesauce, with no energy to bite and chew. The first time he BIT into a Pizzazz apple and exclaimed “This is the BEST apple I’ve ever had in my whole life!” I felt like we had won the lottery. Then came gluten free sandwiches, carrot sticks, mangoes and all manner of branching out. Let's be clear we could not have weaned him off daily McDonalds as easily without Tomatis.
- COMMUNICATION-We attended a Jazz Alley concert to see his jazz hero Keiko Matsui. He sampled everything on the table with great joy. And while we did not make it to the end of the concert, he turned and stated “I am feeling overwhelmed. Let’s go please.” I honored our agreement that we would. He had been able to connect and communicate what his body needed. And we made a wonderful memory.
SUMMARY OF GAINS
Liam has now completed two full five-week rounds of Tomatis. Here's what we've found:
- Dramatically increased attention span to complete an activity vs “spinning” or bouncing from one idea to another in rapid succession
- Increased & improved communication of needs versus behavioral meltdowns
- Ability to masticate (bite/chew) and the sensory toleration/enjoyment of a wider range of foods
- Improved physical stamina that friends and family noted such as swimming for longer and walking without aid
- Flourishing creativity to write and tell stories for 30+ minutes at a time
- Ability to complete and read aloud entire books to his animals at home PLUS self-forgiveness if he missed a word whereas in the past it was tension and frustration
- Reduced ego-centrism and interest in others with ability to have a two-sided conversation and take perspective.
- Increased pro-social behavior of helping with tasks like bringing in groceries, etc.
Those are the BIG chunks. I know I am missing so much magic
of the day to day from our first weeks and sessions. "Children do well if they CAN!" (my favorite quote from Dr. Ross Greene)...and what we found for Liam is that he COULD do well like never before with Tomatis.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TOMATIS
First, it is not stand-alone; Tomatis Therapy is complimentary to all the things (parenting, education, nutrition, lifestyle, etc). As
with any approach the clinician sets the tone. At the Sacarin Listening &
Learning Center the respect and trust that Dr. Sacarin and Liam’s day-to-day real-life-super-hero cooler-than-the-other-side-of-your-pillow kinda-sorta-hipster world-class therapist, Colin, provided was paramount to success. (Yup, Liam worships Colin!)
5 IMPORTANT WAYS TOMATIS IMPACTS THE BRAIN
- Tomatis helps the brain develop mechanisms of change naturally through sound and vibration and attention mechanisms. No drugs. No coercion.
- Tomatis therapy uses the human ear as the portal for stimulating cortical arousal. The ear is one of the most important sources of stimulation for the brain. The ear as a whole stimulates a vast neural network called the reticular formation which controls the overall activity level of the brain. Harmonics and frequencies impact our experience of life and movement.
- Tomatis trains the vestibular system and the motor system strongly involved in balance, posture and coordination.
- Tomatis helps to regain balance and energy, like Liam’s stamina, and a sense of grounding.
- Of course, the ear and listening are also paramount for language processing and communication which is also factored into the specific listening protocol.
Tomatis is NOT Music therapy. Intensive sessions over
consecutive weeks are typically comprised of carefully “prescribed” settings of
music or voiced readings. Mozart and Gregorian chants have been found to be
most therapeutic—then set in such a way to retrain the muscles in the ear AND
the neural pathways.
REWIRING: HOW CAN TOMATIS HELP YOUR CHILD?
It assists those with Learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD,
emotional disorders language disorders, autism spectrum disorders, mild
traumatic brain injuries, voice coaching and personal development.
When we started in July and knew we were investing our
Hawaii vacation fund to do this, I said it would be worth it if it improved
Liam’s experience of life even 20%. The return on our investment was nothing
short of an AWAKENING.
Yes, there are still crunchy days. Healing is never linear, now is it? But was it worth it? Damn straight it was!
Yes, there are still crunchy days. Healing is never linear, now is it? But was it worth it? Damn straight it was!
Want to learn more?
Read: The Brains Way
of Healing by Dr. Norman Doidge
We’ve also added
to our parenting approach:
Self Reg by Stuart Shanker
Beyond Behaviours by Mona Delahooke.
Comments
Post a Comment