Performance Enhancement
This workshop covers applying Brainspotting to enhance academic, professional, artistic, athletic, and personal performance.Click here to see Lisa’s workshop calendar Brainspotting is changing the landscape of working with performance blocks and sports psychology. Peak performance/performance expansion work is done on an individual, one-on-one basis although recently I have been contributing creative developments in working with teams. The targets of peak performance/performance expansion are: * to enhance and improve performance in specific disciplines Performance expansion work is accomplished in six specific areas of focus: * sports injuries or witnessing teammates being injured Immediate follow-up after practice and competition is the key to maintaining momentum in this work. It is important to reinforce and enhance progress as well as releasing and re-processing experiences that may not have gone the way the athlete would have liked. Therapist flexibility in terms of scheduling is important to achieve this necessary timely follow-up and I provide this for the athletes with whom I work. Click here to see Lisa’s workshop calendar Coaches TrainingCoaches can receive training in the principles of peak performance/performance expansion using the techniques of Brainspotting. You as a coach can learn to identify target behaviors and attitudes that diminish performance. Understanding the bio-chemistry and adaptive processing of the brain can increase the accuracy of your coaching interventions. As a coach you will not be certified to apply Brainspotting, but will be able to enhance your coaching skill by understand the underlying principles. You will become knowledgeable in identifying athletes that may wish to be referred for individual performance work. It is important that coaches are away of the benefits of infusing positive citizenship in coaching. * identification of positive and negative aspects of self-esteem, attitudes, and I am available for consultation for support, guidance, and involvement for parent support. Click here to see Lisa’s workshop calendar Micro-Muscle TrainingMicro-muscle training creates new neural pathways at the miniscule muscle movement level that holds, within the brain, the exact body movement that is needed to improve performance. When an athlete is injured, witnesses severe injury in teammates, or is the recipient of “I am not good enough, I am a failure” messages from parents and coaches, the survival terror/issues connected to these messages and injuries become “frozen” in the muscles, tissues, and nervous system. Brainspotting allows for the release and discharge of frozen traumatic material that interferes with optimal flow of muscle memory the consequence of which is clear neural networks and the ability to experience peak performance and expansion of that performance. Click here to see Lisa’s workshop calendar Dissociative and Attachment Phenomenon in Sports Psychology (copyright 2008)Dissociation is defined as an unconscious process by which a group of mental processes is separated from the rest of the thinking processes, resulting in an independent functioning of these processes and a loss of the usual relationships, for example, a separation of feelings from cognition, cognition from behavior, etc. Dissociation is a universal and frequently benign experience common to all people and societies and not always of pathological significance. Terms such as “daydreaming”, “wool-gathering, and “spacing out” reflect relatively benign states of dissociation. In the case of threat of death, severe physical injury, or disruption in attachment to caretakers and loved ones, dissociation becomes a survival technique which allows that person to continue to function in their daily life. The survival terror and traumatic neurobiological freeze response splits off from the person as a whole and becomes stored in what is known as body memory, ego states, or simply put “another part” of self. I have created and developed new, cutting-edge techniques in my work as a sports psychologist that are based on my clinical work with clients who are healing from trauma. Physical injury, rejection and, and negative judgment/perception by coaches, peers, and parents often lead to “survival terror” and the consequence is dissociation. Very young athletes who enter the world of elite athletics are particularly vulnerable to attachment disruption and this is a rich, deep place from which to work with these children. Attachment is an innate, biologically driven state in which a child seeks solid, safe attachment with their parents. Attachment is necessary for survival. Without attachment to caretakers we would not be fed, clothed, or protected from the elements. Without attachment we have no mirror for our feelings, fears, and development. Children who enter intensive athletic training very early begin to spend inordinate amounts of time away from home, away from their parents, and it is my experience that they begin to attach to their coaches. This decrease in time with parents may lead to the belief that “I must succeed in my sport in order for my parents to love me” which results in anxiety, distraction, and fear of failure (i.e., “if I do well, my parents will still love me and be more connected to me”). The primary internal focus and attention is directed toward their need to “control” the quality of connection to mom and dad by “being a good athlete”. These thought processes are hidden and subconscious but extremely powerful in regards to blocking organic, spontaneous peak performance. Not all child athletes experience this attachment disruption but it is important to evaluate performance of young athletes from this perspective in order to rule out attachment issues as a root of performance problems and to bring the parents into the therapeutic process in order to heal this particular wound and subsequent performance blocks. Last but not least, it is important for coaches of very young elite athletes to be aware of the important role that they now play in the attachment needs of their athletes. If a child is subconsciously attaching to their coach by virtue of the time spent with that coach and the expectations of success, it is likely that the child is quite vulnerable to criticism, judgment, and insensitivity to their emotional needs. Click here to see Lisa’s workshop calendar It is my hope that these new conceptualizations regarding performance will one day become utilized in mainstream sports psychology and performance expansion and will be teaching these tools at workshops nationally in 2011 and beyond. |
Lisa is interviewed by the We must re-learn the old ways, the ways to happiness and contentment that we abandoned or forgot in our rush to “grow up.” We must become connoisseurs of Kool-Aid once more. Retaining one’s childlikeness, while losing one’s childishness is the essence of maturity. When I turned 50, I bought a brand new baseball glove and a like-minded friend did the same. We play ball whenever we can throughout the summers. Sometimes, there is a group of us out there on the diamond, but often it is just the two of us. We accept the fact that we’re no longer going to hit a ball over a regulation fence. In fact, we accept that we’re lucky now to hit one over the Little League fence. There is this consolation, however; the joy’s the same even if the distance is not. Indeed, I came to Lisa Schwarz and Brainspotting, not because of a dire problem or a terrible trauma, but because I sometimes hitched when I threw a ball. It was some kind of teenage fear of making an error, of making a mistake, that had been “stored,” but not properly “filed.” Lisa helped me file it away (which is so much easier than trying to repress it), but our work together brought me much more than simply the confidence to let a ball fly from my fingertips without anxiety. The 10 year old within me has always been alive and well, but it never occurred to me before that he needed to be introduced to that inner teenager who worried so much about mistakes or to the 54 year old man that I have become. I suppose the psychological term would be that Lisa has put me on the path to “an integrated self.” All I know is that the bunch of us together have more fun, experience events more broadly, and feel more profoundly than any one of us does separately. In any case, we’ve proven to be a good team, because that 10 year old is very good about spotting the inner child in others, especially in my wife and daughters. He tempers all that book-learned psychology that the college-me studied, with real feelings and real fears. As a result, I am much more empathetic to my wife and my younger daughter especially, who is herself now a college student and working hard at “growing up.” I’m also much better at putting time in perspective, as well. When I was 10, summer seemed to stretch endlessly to the horizon. Now, the days go by so fast that I can hardly keep track of them. Life seems to be picking up speed at a time when I would most like it to slow down, but the 10 year old reminds me that there is really only one bit of time that matters: Now. This moment. Seize it and wring the Life out of it. Kids are good at doing that. And so let us raise our big plastic tumblers of Kool-Aid in salute to all the inner children out there. Know them, nurture them, and let them come out and play. |
