Mindfulness workshops for mental health

A SOMATIC-based approach to mental health is set to be offered to secondary school students.

Teacher and mindfulness specialist Bronte Spicer runs workshops to educate teens on how to process emotions and improve self-esteem.

On Monday, Ms Spicer held a workshop for parents to learn practical techniques to help their teens.

“It gives a different approach to supporting people with mental illness,” she said.

“It’s a somatic approach, that means that it’s not offering talk therapy but it’s offering practical, simple tools for our families to practice so they can process negative stories that they hear about themselves.

“There’s a lot of research coming out about trauma that shows us that the part of the brain doesn’t quite do its job properly in a traumatic or distressing experience.

“This leaves the body’s nervous system in a state of fight-flight-freeze response even well after a traumatic experience.”

Ms Spicer said somatic-based therapy and mindfulness practices, known as the Kiloby Inquiries, helped end her 22-year struggle with depression and should be taught to young people.

“It’s not taught, we talk a lot about emotion, we teach our kids how to put words to what emotions we have but we’re not teaching them how to feel their feelings,” she said.

Research into somatic-based therapy comes as a recent royal commission highlighted several shortcomings in Victoria’s mental health system.

“Rather than having so many people feel like there’s something wrong with them because they’re going to talk therapy sessions and not getting anywhere, this new research on trauma is really the answer,” Ms Spicer said.

Ms Spicer runs the Thrive workshop, an eight-week applied mindfulness program for mental health in secondary students.