This podcast is an interview with therapists Paula Scatoloni and Rachel Lewis-Marlow and their specialty of working with eating disorders and trauma healing.

Paula Scatoloni is a somatic-based psychotherapist, Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, and Somatic Experiencing™ practitioner in Chapel Hill, NC. She has worked in the field of eating disorders for over two decades. Paula served as the Eating Disorder Coordinator at Duke University CAPS for nine years and has taught extensively on the etiology and treatment of eating disorders through workshops, professional trainings, and conferences. She co-developed the first intensive outpatient program for eating disorders in the U.S with Dr. Anita Johnston. Paula is passionate about increasing awareness of the effectiveness of somatic modalities in the treatment of disordered eating and hopes to pursue research on the effectiveness of somatic therapy within the eating disorders population in the near future.

Rachel Lewis-Marlow is a somatically integrative psychotherapist, dually licensed in counseling and therapeutic massage and bodywork. She is a Certified Advanced Practitioner in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and has advanced training and 25 + years experience in diverse somatic therapies including Craniosacral Therapy, Energetic Osteopathy, Oncology massage and Aromatherapy. Rachel is a private consultant to eating disorder treatment facilities. She provides ongoing training and supervision to clinical and support staff in the programmatic implementation of the EMBODIED RECOVERY model. In her private practice in Chapel Hill, NC, Rachel works with trauma, eating disorders, and dissociative disorders.

Links:

Website www.embodiedrecovery.org

Book Chapters: https://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Informed-Approaches-Eating-Disorders-Seubert/dp/0826172644

Mia was born in Calgary, Canada, and studied at Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, graduating in 1998. From there she practiced both chiropractic and craniosacral therapy until committing solely to cranial work and prebirth and birth healing in 2003. After opening Emerging Families, a centre dedicated to therapy, research, and education for the prebirth and birth period, she published her first book, The Secret Life of Babies: How Our Prebirth and Birth Experiences Shape Our World, 2014. 

Her second book, It's Never Too Late: Healing Prebirth and Birth At Any Age, out this year, is a practical guide to for parents, caregivers, and health care providers. She follows in the tradition of R.D. Laing through her mentor, Andrew Feldmar—whose only approach is to suspend any protocol and labels, and to respectfully follow the patient who is entrusted to guide his or her own life. Her techniques are also influenced by Osteopathy, Body-Mind Centering, and her time serving the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, as well as by her years in The Orphan Wisdom School in Ontario, Canada, and studying with Dr. and Elder, Malidoma Some. 

I invited Jim back so we could go deeper into his work. Formative Embodiment is a mixture of approaches in which somatic practitioners could see themselves and their work. What sets it apart of therapies like Somatic Experiencing? Stanley Kelerman's approach was to look at "form." Listen as Jim Feil describes how he works with clients, and we explore what happens when clients have fight, flight or freeze responses. We also discuss using touch. 

Stanley Keleman is one of the primary influences for Jim Feil’s synthesis of his lifelong studies and practice, resulting in the work he calls Formative Embodiment (FE).Among other important influences are Polarity Therapy, Cranial Biodynamics and Pre and Perinatal Therapy.

The FE work focuses on our lifelong relationship to our changing form. After we move through our gestation and early childhood, we become ever more participatory in forming ourselves into competent, effective, complex and hopefully satisfied adults.

We confront crises, traumas, conflicts, dilemmas and, of course, opportunities – all challenges to form and forming. We develop modes of action, behavior and understanding that enable us to learn from and leverage our experience as we move forward to carve out a future. We build a personal body and life field out of our genetic inheritance and experience.

FE, built as it is on primary organizing principles of the human form, can be both a stand-alone work, or enrich virtually any other therapy, coaching or educational process.

About Jim Feil

Dr. Jim Feil, MA, DC, RPP has over 45 years in the study, practice and teaching of energetic and somatic therapeutic practices. His first career was as teacher of English and American Literature.

He began his career in therapy by studying with the founder of Polarity Therapy, Dr. Randolph Stone in 1970, and went on to earn his Doctor of Chiropractic degree in California in 1986. He began studying Formative Psychology with Stanley Keleman in 1981, continuing until his passing in 2018.

He has studied and taught Craniosacral Biodynamics (with Franklyn Sills), and Pre and Perinatal Therapy among other methodologies. He works with adults using verbal and body-oriented techniques, specializing in formative and somatic methodologies. He has taught in the US, throughout Europe and in China.

His work directs itself at helping individuals form themselves to effectively and competently respond to life transitions, challenges, crises, and opportunities.

Matthew Appleton co-founded Conscious Embodiment Trainings in 2006, with his partner Jenni Meyer, to promote awareness of pre and perinatal psychology, sacred ecology and somatic wisdom. Prior to this he was also co-founder of the Institute of Craniosacral Studies and was a senior teacher with the Institute for 12 years. Matthew is a registered Craniosacral Therapist and Body Psychotherapist living and working in Bristol. He trained in Pre and Perinatal Education with Karlton Terry in Switzerland and worked with Karlton in the UK for a number of years. For ten years he lived as a houseparent at A. S. Neill’s famous democratic school Summerhill and his book ‘A Free Range Childhood’ based on his experiences at Summerhill has been published in several languages. Drawing from his work with babies and children, and his training experience with Karlton Terry, Matthew developed Integrative Baby Therapy, which he teaches internationally to practitioners from a diverse range of backgrounds.

His Website:  https://conscious-embodiment.co.uk/ 

A Free Range Childhood:  https://www.amazon.com/A-Free-Range-Childhood/dp/1870258460 

Human Baby Human Being Conference:  http://babyconference.co.uk/ , recordings available

Article by Matthew Attached: The Influence of Birth Trauma on the Physical and Emotional Well-Being of the Baby

This episode introduces listeners to Jim Feil, MA, DC, RPP. He studied for many years with master teachers in polarity, psychology and more. Over his now 45 year career, he has created his own body of work he called Formative Embodiment, drawing on polarity, embryology, human development, and especially the work of Stanley Keleman.

Stanley Keleman is one of the primary influences for Jim Feil’s synthesis of his lifelong studies and practice, resulting in the work he calls Formative Embodiment (FE).Among other important influences are Polarity Therapy, Cranial Biodynamics and Pre and Perinatal Therapy.

The FE work focuses on our lifelong relationship to our changing form. After we move through our gestation and early childhood, we become ever more participatory in forming ourselves into competent, effective, complex and hopefully satisfied adults.

We confront crises, traumas, conflicts, dilemmas and, of course, opportunities – all challenges to form and forming. We develop modes of action, behavior and understanding that enable us to learn from and leverage our experience as we move forward to carve out a future. We build a personal body and life field out of our genetic inheritance and experience.

FE, built as it is on primary organizing principles of the human form, can be both a stand-alone work, or enrich virtually any other therapy, coaching or educational process.

About Jim Feil

Dr. Jim Feil, MA, DC, RPP has over 45 years in the study, practice and teaching of energetic and somatic therapeutic practices. His first career was as teacher of English and American Literature.

He began his career in therapy by studying with the founder of Polarity Therapy, Dr. Randolph Stone in 1970, and went on to earn his Doctor of Chiropractic degree in California in 1986. He began studying Formative Psychology with Stanley Keleman in 1981, continuing until his passing in 2018.

He has studied and taught Craniosacral Biodynamics (with Franklyn Sills), and Pre and Perinatal Therapy among other methodologies. He works with adults using verbal and body-oriented techniques, specializing in formative and somatic methodologies. He has taught in the US, throughout Europe and in China.

His work directs itself at helping individuals form themselves to effectively and competently respond to life transitions, challenges, crises, and opportunities.

Michael Trout completed both his undergraduate studies in philosophy and his graduate studies in psychology in Michigan. He completed his specialized training in infant psychiatry at the Child Development Project, University of Michigan School of Medicine, under Prof. Selma Fraiberg.

In the mental health field since 1968, and in private practice since 1979, Mr. Trout directs an institute engaged in research, clinical practice and clinical training related to problems of attachment. He was the founding president of the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health and the International Association for Infant Mental Health, was on the charter Editorial Board of the Infant Mental Health Journal, served as Vice-President for the United States for the World Association for Infant Mental Health, and served on the Board of Directors (and as Editor of the Newsletter) for APPPAH–the international society for prenatal and perinatal psychology. 

In addition to publishing a number of book chapters and journal articles–as well as the 2005 book, co-authored with a foster/adopt mother, The Jonathon Letters, and the 2008 Baby Verses: The Narrative Poetry of Infants and Toddlers–Mr. Trout has produced 16 documentary films that are in use in universities and clinics around the world, including five films on the unique perspective of babies on divorce, adoption, loss, domestic violence and parental incarceration. His meditation CD for foster and adoptive parents is entitled The Hope-Filled Parent. He co-authored See Me As A Person, on the nature of the therapeutic relationship, with Mary Koloroutis. His final book, This Hallowed Ground: Four Decades in Infant Mental Health, was published in 2019. Mr. Trout won the Selma Fraiberg Award in 1984, for “...significant contributions to the needs of infants and their families”, and a Lifetime Achievement Award by ATTACh, “for his decades of work with children of loss and trauma”.

The most important part of Mr. Trout’s work was always in the quiet private practice where he saw families and children of all ages every week. After 46 years, he retired in the summer of 2014. 

Michael's grandfather was his "Aunt Rosie," or Angel in the Nursery. In this podcast we talked about his early years with Selma Fraiburg, setting up the Infant-Parent Institute, his inspiration to create educational films and products in the baby's voice. We mentioned two stories that I love and have changed my life, practice and teaching: The Aunt Rosie Story, and the Infant Coherent Narrative. We end with talking about his approach, wondering, following and holding that he writes about in his book, See Me As A Person, Creating Therapeutic Relationships with Patients and Their Families, that he wrote with his wife, Mary Koloroutis. This book won the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year in 2013. 

He has published an audio book, This Hallowed Ground: Four Decades of Infant Mental Health that is audio only, and is available through the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. Michael narrates the book, which makes it very powerful. I highly recommend you read it. 

Enjoy this hour with an amazing clinician. His stories and wisdom are gems.