According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Disorder, Pediatric medical traumatic stress refers to reactions that children and their families may have to pain, injury, and serious illness; or to "invasive" medical procedures (such as surgery) or treatments (such as burn care) that are sometimes frightening. Reactions can affect the mind as well as the body. For example, children and their families may become anxious, irritable, or on edge. They may have unwanted thoughts or nightmares about the illness, injury, or the hospital. Some people may avoid going to the doctor or the hospital, or lose interest in being with friends and family and in things they used to enjoy. As a result, they may not do well at school, work, or home. How children and families cope with these changes is related to the person's own thoughts and feelings about the illness, injury, or the hospital; reactions can vary, even within the same family.

Most common are attachment issues developed in childhood due to unavailable caregivers, neglect or abuse. Dr. Ed Tronick is most well known for his work in Infant Mental Health. This youtube video shows one of his most famous experiments The Still Face Experiement

According to The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Post-traumatic stress disorder is a type of anxiety disorder. It can occur after you've seen or experienced a traumatic event that involved the threat of injury or death.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors
PTSD can occur at any age. It can follow a natural disaster such as a flood or fire, or events such as:

• Assault

• Domestic abuse

• Prison stay

• Rape

• Terrorism

• War

What are Primitive Reflexes?
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Primitive reflexes are automatic movements that provide essential responses through the birth process and after birth.  When the birth and the early months go right, these primitive reflexes integrate into the system and are replaced with more adult reflexes to assist in maneuvering the world safely.  The brainstem directs the primitive reflexes and require no cortical intervention or thought to show up and later integrate.  These primitive reflexes are vital for survival in the new frontier called life.  As the higher and more sophisticated centers of the brain come online and develop, these early reflexes that don't integrate or show signs of retention become ruptures in the natural development of the child and can carry over into adulthood.

• Fear Paralysis Reflex: The first to emerge and integrates in the first trimester, if this reflex is left active all situations are seen through the perspective of fear. Some signs of retention include: motion sickness, learning disorders, difficulty breathing, underlying anxiety or negativity, extreme fear of failure, phobias, aggressive or controlling behaviour, feeling stuck in life and constant overwhelm
  

• Moro Reflex: This reflex acts as the baby’s “fight or flight” response to the world. This important reflex usually integrates into the adult startle response by four months. Some signs of retention are emotional immaturity, lack of impulse control, hypersensitivity or hypo-sensitivity, sensory overload, and social immaturity.

• Rooting Reflex: Stroking a baby’s cheek will cause the child to turn and open the mouth. This is the automatic response to turn towards food.  This helps with breastfeeding. Usually disappears by four months. Some signs of retention are thumb sucking, picking eater, speech and articulation problems, and dribbling when eating/drinking.

• Palmer Reflex: This is the automatic flexing of the fingers to grab an object if the palm is stimulated. This reflex should integrate by six months. Some signs of retention are messy handwriting, poor manual dexterity, and difficulty with fine motor skills.

• Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR): This is intricate for the baby through the birth canal and to develop cross pattern movements.  The ATNR is seen when you lay a baby on its back and turn their head. The arm and leg on the side the child is looking at should extend while the opposite side bends. This response should end by six months. Without integration shows up as poor handwriting, trouble crossing vertical midline, poor hand-eye coordination, and poor visual tracking for reading and writing.

• Spinal Galant: This reflex assists babies with the birth process.  This reflex happens when the skin on the side of an infant’s back is stroked. The child should swing towards that side. The spinal galant should inhibit by nine months. Some signs of retention are poor concentration, unilateral or bilateral postural issues, fidgeting, poor short term memory, and bedwetting.

• Tonic Labyrinthine Reflex (TLR): The TLR helps with head management and prepares the baby for rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing and walking. This reflex actually integrates slowly while other core systems mature and should disappear by three and a half years old. Signs of not integrating include motion sickness, poor muscle tone, walking on tiptoes, poor balance, and poor short term memory.

• Landau Reflex: Assists with posture development.  This reflex activates at 4-5 months and usually integrates by one year. When the child’s head lifts it causes the entire trunk to flex. When retained appears overall poor motor development.

• Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR): STNR or the crawling reflex divides the body along the midline to prepare and assist with crawling. You can view this reflex by watching the baby’s head drop towards its chest while the arms bend and the legs extend. Interestingly, the STNR appears briefly after birth and the reappears between six to nine months. It should dissolve by 11 months. If retained, there is a tendency to slump while sitting, inability to sit still and concentrate, poor muscle tone, and poor hand-eye coordination.

I offer a series of co-regulated exercise during the sessions to integrate any unintegrated reflexes.

In the western world we've forgotten how to grieve. In many cultures where our lineages are from, whole villages gather and mourn together for weeks when someone is lost or passes. Intentional Touch offers a gentle safe haven for the client to be held exactly where they are, for the therapist to carry their grief with them as to lighten the load so the client to can step forward in right timing.

When long-term marriages or significant partnerships end it's normal to have more stress on an individuals attachment/relational system. Touch work offers a safe haven to process emotions, co-regulate and individuate into the next chapter of the individuals lives.

• Adoptions

• Attachment Disorder

• Developmental Trauma

• Medical Trauma

• Post Traumatic Stress

• Trauma

• Abuse and Abandonment Issues

• Grief and Depression

• Physical Aggresion/Anger Management

• ADD/ADHD

• Oppositional Behaviours

• Anxiety/Phobias/Panic Attacks

• Social Skills

• Bed-wetting/Enuresis/Encopresis

• Brain Injury

• Parent/Child Bonding

• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

• Bullying

• Low Self-esteem

• Foster and Adopted Children

• Pre-Adoption Guidance

• Stress Management

• Separation Anxiety
  Sleep Problems
  Attachment Disruption
  Psychedelic Integration