The goal of Body Tracing is to be found in deepening kids awareness of their body boundaries, their edges,
The process is powerful, as they are guided to be mindful of shifts in their experience of their body while their outline is traced by another. Being viewed by the group members also brings up powerful feelings. One member commented on "never, ever feeling as seen before", sharing that they feel lost in their family of five kids. Another, who struggles with body dysmorphia found the idea too triggering, and asked us to turn the lights down, first. By candlelight, using a small flashlight to "trace" the edges of her body, the group created a safe experience for her, in a unique and evocative environment for the group members. (Subsequently, this group wished to have all sessions transpire by candlelight, and we continued in this dimly lit environment for the winter months).
When group members are "traced” their experience begins as the participants explore feelings of safety when lying on the ground, atop the paper, and having the experience of being gazed at by their ongoing group members and therapist(s). All the preparation for their body being traced is noted, and then one kid volunteers to be the first to have their body traced. I use a VERY long pencil so that my hands are not touching their body yet they feel the edge of the pencil as it slowly inches aside their body, their face often in concentration, breaking out in giggling with slight tickling, awareness of their breath, how their body feels, as they relax into the process, and how the breathing might affect the tracing (bumpy, etc.) Developing awareness of the mind and body interaction is the foundation of Pat Ogden’s sensorimotor psychotherapy, and she has inspired many of the tools utilized in the “body tracing”. The experience of all the time and attention focused upon them can be character changing and often is described as a highlight of their experience.
In the group each participant does a few body tracings on art-scroll paper or white sheets (during halloween, they love this image of fashioning a costume of the various parts of themselves). The process elucidates the range of feelings experienced, and we encourage the clients to explore their emotions...asking them to embody or carry in their body a feeling that they have spoken about. For example, often they are in touch with anger, and as they embody these feelings and draw upon associations with a particular situation that they had described intermittently during past groups, they could connect their thoughts with feelings in their body. Examining the shifts therein, as these feelings "entered their body" once they are asked to visualize them, helps them to identify the shifts--clenched fists, tightening, constricted breathing, changes in body temperature as they expressed feeling sweaty, cold, clammy, etc. A second body tracing is then done, capturing these feelings. The contrast is highlighted.
Issues of anxiety are examined throughout the "body tracing" exercise, especially when fears or anxiety have been identified as a preexisting problem for group members. Even if these have not been spoken about in prior sessions, these feelings are ubiquitous
Following the tracing of the body, which each child gets to experience at least two times, they are asked to identify/name each drawing. Sample comments are: "this first one is the one where I was giggly ‘cuz that was so tickly” or “we all laughed as the pencil went under my armpit". “This second one is the one where I started to talk about when I was blamed for eating the leftover chocolate cake, yet didn't do it, so I was angry…there I had my fists clenched". (this information is noted at the bottom of the drawing, writing down their words, so that they can remember their thoughts, feelings, comments, associations etc.).
The “body tracing” experience is deepened when the children color in their body tracings. This process and choice of colors, texture, etc. can be clinically relevant. One child drew his "angry-self" in all black with the exception of his blue eyes. Even his mouth was a gradation of black, and his wording was "all that comes out, is black, on this angry me". Another child uttered Miley Cyrus’s lyric "boom boom, clap, boom de clap de clap” from the song Throwdown, while poking holes through her “body tracing” up and down the paper with a red crayon (there is no interpretation—rather, observation, attention and curiosity, and attunement-- the inroads to understanding).
At a later date, we attach the two body tracings, securing them at the top, as a costume, which the kids love, and they can play-act the duality of emotions that can coexist. We also can focus on "triggers" of their anger, anxiety, etc., as both externally triggered, and internally triggered. For example, a very useful experience unfolded as one of our very shy girls became aware that the sounds in large public spaces felt acutely anxiety provoking and triggered huge discomfort. We could identify memories of a time when she was lost, in a crowd, having become separated from her mother for a few minutes. She also discussed fears from a book, Little Sisters, from the Baby Sitters Club series, wherein the 7-year-old girl becomes separated from her group in the Museum of Natural History. These memories have become part of her day to day narrative, as she has embodied her fears, walking with her hunched over shoulders, head downward, caved inward posture representing her fears somatically. The “body tracing” experience facilitated her recalling her fearful experiences which she’d spoken about in previous sessions, yet the process helped deepen her understanding of how her body contributed to her ongoing experience of this fearful part of her--from the inside out. Collaboratively, we could experience the duality of selves. The group supported her exploring different elements of her body, playing with the idea of being “the brave one”, the “noisy one”, “the naughty one” (all identities that she and her group members named). As a result of this group experience, she had an “Aha” moment, wherein she saw that noise--that heightened auditory acuity—was especially triggering or her. This idea led to discussion about how we protect or resource ourselves when we are vulnerable. The group came up with the idea that she could put her hands to her ears when she enters crowds, so that, for the first few moments, she could control the booming sounds that were so triggering, while she readjusts and establishes that she is alright, safe, not alone. She tried this at a crowded weekend farmers market that her family frequents and reports feeling a shift in her anxiety. (It isn't necessarily the intervention itself, but the semblance of some control, that is the variable effecting change, as there is so much that is out of her control. Therefore working as a group to help members find their own ways of taking charge of their body--putting hands over ears—is empowering.
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