Paul McDowell Petschek

My practice not only explores how Somatic Experiencing can be effective in treating PTSD (even the most complex kinds) but also SD, Stress Disorders, of all kinds. It's amazing how many of our challenges in life are based on our high stress lifestyles and the lingering effects of traumatic overload, just as it is amazing how tuning down this stress results in better performance and more ideal lives in so many ways.

For much of my career I've worked in the creative arts and the film business, where I've been a director, a producer, an editor, and an actor. I am highly interested in how Somatic Experiencing can be used to create films and other artforms that are healing. But the artform of being a person and living a "successful life", that is where I concentrate my work with Somatic Experiencing clients. To help them become more grounded and effective in what they seek to do. To be more secure in what they are doing and in their connections with others. To finish past events in a more completely experienced way, so that new growth and new developments spring forth.

I am particularly interested in working with creative individuals of all types, from actual artists to anyone who acknowledges creativity in their lives. I specialize in helping artists work through their "artist's wound", while still being able to have it and draw from it, thus helping them to be in fact more productive, creative, and successful. I find that clients that aren't artists also enjoy a creative approach, where we use senses, images, behaviors, feelings, and meanings to tease apart the conflicts in their experience, while helping to manage their nervous system. The result is a life that simply flows better, with more success. After all, everyone is trying to self-express.

I have worked very effectively with actors and artists of all kinds, with veterans, with victims of sexual abuse or developmental trauma, with those who have eating disorders or other addictions, with clients who are haunted by grief or loss or other past events. Often I use my skills in Hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing as an adjunct to work that clients are doing with other trained professionals, such as Psychiatrists and Psychologists. Here we concentrate on helping the client develop the tools necessary to experience the conditions in their body in a therapeutic way and to report on this and also to master certain levels of skill in the regulation of their nervous system, so that positive work can be done.