TA Ep. 155 Dr. Aline LaPierre - Connecting Mind, Body, and Emotion w/NeuroAffective Touch

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Dr. Aline LaPierre: Oh,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Well, Dr. LaPierre, welcome to the Accrescent podcast, the Accrescent community. So so excited to have you on because in my mental health, emotional wellness practice, we are talking about so many of the things that you have spent years, you know, living in and researching and teaching and studying. And I feel so blessed.

So, so honored to have such a wealth of knowledge and intention and empathy joining us today.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That's very humbly.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I'm so excited to get into it. So, but I do love to start with just a little bit of an introduction. I, you know, I've, I'm, I've read through your bio on the website. I'm sure many others will even after this, but some of the little pieces that led maybe to the beginning of this journey and some of those key pieces that led you to where you are today.

And as I was painting, I was noticing, you know, a lot of symbolic images coming in and that, and I really didn't know anything about psychology. I was just thinking, I'm an artist. And so I thought, How am I going to find out, like, what the paintings are about? And then, I also was noticing that there were certain patterns of shapes and forms that always ended up, like, everything always pulled to a certain side.

Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: strong pull because I imagine at some, on some level it took you away from the painting. There might not have been as much time to do the

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Well, that's exactly what happened actually. But at that time, uh, Pacifica Graduate Institute was, was forming and I discovered them and, and of all miracles, they were inviting. artists to join the program because I thought I haven't been to school in years. I can't take those tests to get into UCLA or whatever.

How can I ever go back to school? And so Pacifica was started. I applied and I applied sending in my paintings. That was my application.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh my

You know, what I realized were, is that we're learning about the psyche, talking about the internal world, all of that. That was really wonderful. But that was not taking care of the body part. And so then I started looking for how do I take care of this body part? And I discovered, I don't know if your listeners are familiar, you, Emily Conrad and the work of Continuum, which was,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, no, that's actually new for me.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Is it?

And so there was the body part and there were the two parts, very separate, and I would go back and forth between them and eventually it was like, well this is, This isn't right. Why can't it come together? And so that's how I've ended up teaching the integration of, of touch and movement and psychotherapy.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I am buzzing because this is something I have started talking a lot with about clients. I even just did a little workshop a few weeks ago about the five core facets, as I have seen in my practice to healing and these different components, because just like we look at physical health, right? We just kind of know, Oh yeah, I, I, There could be stuff with my gut, my brain, my heart, my lungs.

Impact. And so I love this because I am also, you said this at the start before we started recording, you're also local to Southern California in LA. And so I'm very excited to be able to refer some people to you because I focus more on the psychological, specifically subconscious aspects, but to be able to have someone who's blending all of them together and covering some of those areas that I don't is really, really exciting.

It still feels like pioneering work, you know? So, so often I'll go somewhere and if I'll say what I do, you know, I, I, I touch and I do psychotherapy and I can see the person glaze over and they kind of just drift away, it's like, it's very, it's still strange,

Um, and we're going to get into the difference between psychological work, body based work. And we might even get more into how you're blending them all together, but it might be helpful to just start for the listener off with, for those who maybe don't even know what body based work is doing a little bit of a compare and contrast

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Mm hmm. Sure. Um, well, where to start? It's always, you know, like getting the thread, right? Well, of course, we all know that, that psychological work is, is using our capacity to put our experience in, in language. And then, you know, bringing forth a language that we feel expresses the whole experience of the person.

And this isn't to malign the mind or to, to make it lesser, but is really that there's a certain arrogance in the way we think that the brain is intelligent and the body is not. And of course, the brain is part of the body, but, um, so the other piece is that if you look at how we go through our developmental sequence, our cognitive brain doesn't come online till we're two, three years old.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: zero to three, the experiences we had just because we can't. Sometimes always recall them or verbally communicate them doesn't mean they weren't incredibly, incredibly impactful. And I think there is sometimes a misconception that if I don't remember it, it wasn't impactful.

It remembers what happens in the womb. A lot of clients will, will remember the moment of their conception and what they, you know, it's, it's amazing. The body remembers everything. And if we invite it, and if we hold it in an attuned way, it is so happy to tell its story because it's never been asked.

Here might be a sign that I need to do some body based work. Are there some specifics, or is it just kind of like, everyone should do this?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: No, there are specifics, particularly, and those specifics are more obvious when somebody carries trauma, because with the trauma comes that sense of, um, well, of easily being overwhelmed by life, of dissociating, it's like, I don't know where I went, I suddenly wasn't paying attention, and, or, um, certain ways in which we hold ourselves that cause us pain.

You know, and, and that is so. We're so used to it. We don't even know we have those. So having a, uh, a practitioner who is knowledgeable, sort of begin to support, begin to show, begin to help the body find a more natural posture is really important. So I would say the signs is when we notice there's something going on with us that we don't understand.

Uh, what it is, why it's there, why it stands in our way of having the life we want, you know, then it's a sign to check in with the body.

And so sometimes my conscious mind can be a little egotistical thinking, I'm good. I got it all handled. And when I tune into the body, it's, Hmm, my body's communicating a different

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right, right. You know, one of the first exercises, I guess we could say, um, or experiences I do in, in, in the training, in the neuroaffective touch training, is a body mind dialogue. And, um, I initially, and it's just simple, it's like, let's have your mind introduce itself to your body, let's have your body introduce itself to your mind.

And so it's, it's like an amazing opening into the whole world of that somatic body mind collaboration.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: That's exactly right. Yeah, that, that very often we are not safe with ourselves is, you know, I, I, that, that is so, so key. And that's really one of the first principles of somatic work is to look at that aspect of safety,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm. I just had to,

Dr. Aline LaPierre: know, go ahead.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: With, with, you know, safety, which brings us right into Porges work and, and, and the, the polyvagal system.

But that sense of collaboration, of cooperation, that, that how we are with ourselves, even when things are difficult or even when there's illness or problems, it's like that sense of, I, mind will not abandon the body and body does its very best to, to support that. mind, you know, that they really are, they really function together.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. Versus demonizing or ostracizing parts of ourselves, which I think happens very often. I even see, you know, on social media, sometimes there's, um, Little quotes that I think resonate with people in the moment, but are potentially a little bit harmful where it's like, my mind is such a lying asshole.

And I just think that changes the whole energy we bring to the work, rather than my mind is betraying me. I need to figure out why it's my mind's trying to protect me. What does it think it's protecting me from? And can I maybe give it some different protective tools or options?

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, can you give some examples and then I think we'll go much deeper into the neuroaffective touch and also some developmental pieces because I know that's something you work with so much, but some maybe some broad examples of body based type work, and then we'll get more specific into neuroaffective touch just for those who are still like I've never heard of body based work.

What does that even mean? Where can I

So, the body is our foundation, and when the foundation is shaky, then the psychological aspects remain shaky.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. I do think a lot of cognitive work, like traditional talk therapy, psychotherapy, makes us aware sometimes of the patterns. This is the analogy I give so often. The patterns we're stuck in are like a magnet. Pulling us into these cycles, into these thought processes, into these behavioral patterns.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right. You know, and, and to, to go a little further into an example, would be, let's say, someone who comes in and says, you know, I, I love my, I, well, I'll take a woman, because most, I love my husband, but somehow, I, I always pull back. I can't quite trust him. I can't quite feel that he's really there for me, you know, and, and then the, the, the husband or partner will say, I don't know why she rejects me all the time, you know.

And so what, and this happens over and over and over again, until that baby goes, if I reach out, it hurts. So I'm not going to reach out anymore. And then that gets filed away in the basic rules of life. You know, thou shalt not reach out because it's too painful. And here is the adult who no longer remembers that.

This is at work in the system and is faced with a partner that they may love, but it's like, they just can't ever reach out.

I might even think of maybe things like myofascial release, even something like massage, but can, can you explain that a little bit more of maybe some of the subcategories to body based work? And then we'll get into neuroaffective touch specifically.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Well, you know, somatic is the umbrella work for, is the umbrella word for all of the different aspects of working with the body. So, so somatics isn't a form of body work. It's the umbrella word, like psychotherapy or psychology or psychiatry, somatics. Big.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: the body, I, I began to see, you know, I, I, I found, um, roughing, and then I found, then there was massage, and then there was neuromuscular work, and then there was EMDR, and then there was, and there was a whole series of, and I thought, thought, what, why is it necessary to have all these different techniques?

Until I realized that each technique addresses a particular system in the body, massage addresses, relaxing the belly of the muscles, deep tissue addresses, uh, opening up the connective tissue that keeps everything together. Neuro neuro. Neurological work addresses the, the, the, the, the neurological sensors at the bone that tell the body what to do.

So it's, It's really interesting. And generally when somebody gets interested in body work, they soon start to go, Oh, I'd like to learn this one and this one. And you'll find that body workers have a list of, uh, skills that they have developed. By taking these different trainings that address different parts, different systems in the body, the nervous system, lymphatic massage addresses the lymphatic system.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And it feels like there is more of a push towards being multifaceted practitioners. I know this is, I, I have always loved being multifaceted. It's always been, I think, something that lights me up. Blending so many different things together. Whereas I think societally we're sort of taught you shall be an expert in one thing and one thing only that is all you will do.

And I do see a shift there of more and more people inviting some of these different pieces

Dr. Aline LaPierre: It's encouraging, isn't it? Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yes. Okay. Neuro effective touch. Let's get into this a little bit.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: What are you said? It's a blend of three pieces.

Here's a tension, here's something holding, let's push into it. Let's break up. That's tension. Let's open it so there can be a flow, but it doesn't tend to, why? The body is like that in the first place, that, that deep reason why that shoulder is locked is, is that that little infant learned that, that they couldn't reach out.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: So, so I thought wouldn't it, wouldn't it be nice if we could hold the body in such a way that it could tell its story and then we could support the release as the body is telling its story.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I love it so much because it's, you know, it's funny, I'm thinking of these videos I see on Instagram where it is, it's someone like digging their fist into a shoulder and the person's like screaming and in pain and release and all those things. And part of it looks a little bit cathartic, but I think you're, you're speaking to something so poignant, which is we're treating a symptom of something deeper.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. And then, from a developmental perspective, I also looked at, you know, how does a body develop? Like, what are the sequences? And there's, in somatics, in somatic work, there's an interesting sequence of development, which is referred to as relational movements, which are not developmental movement.

It's not like learning to sit and crawl and stand and all of that, which are more external, but a relational movement is something like being able to yield into someone who can hold us and we trust that they won't drop us. Being, being able to reach to someone and trust that they will receive our reach in an attuned way.

So for example, this yielding piece, you know, which is that first relational movement that starts from the moment we're born. So we have ways of holding the body of creating a nurture surround that will help the body stop, start to drop down. Towards that yielding and right away, the body tells the story.

carries us through our whole lives,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Does, does it change the way you approach it? My immediate thought was, it feels like there can be two categories as it pertains to touch in infancy, which is either it was absent or not there, or it wasn't safe. When there was touch, it didn't feel

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Yeah, and so then as the body begins to tell its story it may need to learn to push like what the Relational movement that is missing is the push like this is toxic. This feels bad This feels like this person is taking my energy rather than you know reciprocally interacting with me so So those relational movements, the, the body begins to name them and name what was wrong about it.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And as you get into that work, do you find that people will have cognitive memories that surface?

I don't want, you know, it's like what mine did in order to adapt to the situation. is one thing, and that's important. And then what the body had to do to adapt to the situation is something else, because the mind might have overridden the body and go, you know, just let that person pick you up. You don't want to lose the attachment.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I see and also have experienced myself, um, as a child touch was invasive and abusive in a lot of ways. And I find myself now working on realizing. Wow. How often I am bracing kind of like internally, very subtly whenever there is touch involved. And I remember probably a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago thinking, Oh, touch is so distorted for me.

It is not. A safe thing. And when you start to see how other people touch can, like, they don't even have a second thought about it. It's of course it's safe. Why would it not be safe? Um, which is actually, I think one of the reasons why body-based work is something I'm just now getting into because it hasn't felt safe.

So the nervous system itself gets patterned based on what is possible, what is safe, what is toxic in our environment. So part of the working with the body and part of working with touch is, is to help the nervous system re rework its receptors. So that's on the level of the body and emotionally it's like rework the relationship with the, yeah.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Now go ahead, I, I just thought of something and I, I, I'll show you in a minute.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay. It sounds like within a session, yes, you're bringing all those pieces together. What, what are we starting to psychologically, cognitively understand based on what the body is communicating? And then what is the repair emotionally, psychologically, physically, that needs to happen? Thanks

Dr. Aline LaPierre: right, yeah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Versus maybe traditionally you might go to a talk therapist and understand the cognitive, but have to go somewhere else to now do some body repair and like bounce around to get all these pieces.

It's not, A therapy in itself. It's a, it's an approach that can be incorporated in however you work. So body workers take it into their way of working in a way that works for them and psychotherapists in a way that works for them. But in terms of, of, um, receptors and all that. I just want to show you sometimes when people are not, it's a little heart and it has flax seed in it and we have different shapes, but sometimes if the body is not ready for human touch, we can warm these and we'll put them in different areas of the body and then maybe touch over it so that it's a more safe kind of touch, but it still creates that capacity for the body.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I like that even instinctually that already feels safer.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: You know, when I see on social media, they, there's lots of people that were at least in the realm of people I follow doing group somatic, you know, releases and somatic led workshops. And when I see that, like there's a practitioner walking around touching the different people, I'm like, Ooh, that's really cool.

No, no, no. That does not feel okay to me. And yet that doesn't mean it's not wonderfully impactful for so many other people, but I think it's something worth bringing up in this conversation that there probably is a fair amount of people who maybe didn't even know body based work existed, but now that they do, there's still a little bit of resistance to it because of that fear or safety

I mean, there's so many little components that make up attunement, which is really, if you think of attunement in terms of a, of a, of a musical instrument, you know, we tune our instruments and when they're in attunement, there's a harmonious flow that becomes safe. But if you don't check for the attunement of the readiness, um, the area, how is it going to be done is all of that, then it's very easy to give a touch that that is misattuned that repeats the original traumatizing experience.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Exactly. So the initial phase of, of, you know, moving to using touch. And it's interesting because for body workers, people go to them to be touched, but, but they, they right away go into do to the body. So when they come to this work, it's like, To take the time to attune. In other words, to sit a little bit with your person and find out what their body really needs and, and engage a little bit of the words is like their learning edge.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Yeah, I find too that when I first started, I, I only wanted to do strictly subconscious beliefs. What's the belief? What happened? What's the pattern I'm stuck in? What's the belief? Where did the belief come from? And I've found over the years, as I've gotten more comfortable with, for example, sitting with the raw emotion, I start going down a path of learning about somatics.

Myofascial release and, and I start to integrate those into my practice and I really think it, it has more to do with rather than just learning the material, my capacity to sit with those other elements.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. Yes.

So the holding is also Attuned to the body's anatomy.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Do you find that we know how impactful those first three years, and particularly childhood in general, is to the rest of our lived experience? Do you find that most things go back there? And, or kind of a tangent question to that is, if you have a really impactful experience in adulthood, can it be just as impactful?

Traumatizing to the body, even though it was more acute.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And then maybe contribute to why they're all so sticky.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yeah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Mm hmm.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: yeah, so recognizing, okay, this is the one that happened in real time, and this, this, this feels like it's been in your body longer, or it was there before the accident happened.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Right. Right.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: and strangely and mysteriously enough, we oftentimes hurt ourselves in places where we hold early trauma.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, say more. That's so profound.

This actually happened to me. I broke this wrist

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Oh, no.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: years ago. But, but as you're healing this real time, this trauma in real time, it's like then the body sees an opening for talking about all those early times where there was no one to reach to. So that the body will use a trauma in real time as an entrance or as an exit, uh, whichever for, Other traumas that have never, never been explored from the body's perspective.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Yes. Right. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I, I think of, I have two things like this physical based things like this that are kind of recurring things for me. One is. Head injuries. I, now to be fair, I did play competitive professional soccer. So I kind of upped the ante there, but I have had at least six really severe head injuries from soccer and otherwise that it's just like, this is bizarre.

And when you look at, I love Louise Hay and some of her work, the literally the disc that would go out in my back, according to Louise Hay, the disc associated with sexual abuse. And I was just like, this is, Mind

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Right. It is actually Louise Hay with her book is like one of the great original somatic, uh, healers. Yeah.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: I reference it so often for myself and for clients. If they come in speaking to a specific ailment, I'll always just take a peek at let's check this out.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: hmm. Oh, there's a whole Conversation we can go down. I work with a lot of cancer

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Ah,

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Um, on Fridays, I'm at a cancer center, specifically an integrative cancer center. And then I have many cancer patients in my own practice, but this is something we talk about so often. The body will set the boundaries that we often can't set for ourselves.

And it's it, the body, mind, and spirit demand to be heard. And if we aren't listening, it will find a way.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Well, I want to be respectful of your time. This has been so expansive, inspiring. I will make sure it's linked in the show notes, but I'd love for you to be able to share for the listener where they can find you, learn more.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Sure. That would be, that would be lovely. And, you know, here in, in the area, there are a lot of neuroaffective practitioners because I teach in Los Angeles and people come to Los Angeles. So there's a lot of local folks who, who do this work.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: And are you still practicing and taking on?

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay, so I'll make sure people on your website, is there a directory or is it something where they would search like NAT practitioner?

Dr. Aline LaPierre: there's a, there's a find a practitioner, uh, section on our website, which is neuroaffectivetouch. com.

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Okay, I love it. I will make sure it's linked. Thank you so much for your time, your knowledge, your, the intention that you brought to this. This was really, really special.

Dr. Aline LaPierre: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to have met you.