PECH is preparing to open a new center that focuses on body care to treat people living with multiple traumas, including homeless people. Called Bifröst, the new resource is based on a unique approach in Quebec and Canada.
The people targeted by the service have experienced “multiple trauma”, often in childhood, and are almost all drug addicts. For several years, the PECH team has noticed that its interventions have had “mixed results” with them, explains its director, Benoît Côté.
The organization estimates that 80% of people who use its services have been exposed to trauma before adulthood. With them, classic intervention approaches such as variable-intensity community monitoring have their limits.
“They are not willing to hear what we have to say because their nervous system is deregulated. […] There is a blockage. »
Inspired by different models developed in Europe, the team began to offer them so-called “psycho-corporal” services which “untie the nervous system”, he continues.
Massages on clothes, yoga adapted to trauma, breathing techniques, TRE technique (trembling exercises used by some therapists to treat trauma), etc.
For some people, this type of treatment gives “really amazing” results, says Annick Laliberté, assistant director of psychosocial services at PECH.
She gives the example of Hubert, a regular in the crisis services for 20 years, with serious consumption problems. “He names having experienced a lot of difficult things when he was young, in his family. He himself lost custody of his children. »
In order not to jeopardize his chances of rehabilitation, she gave him an assumed name during the interview. Hubert “experimented with the TRE with a practitioner when he was in a residential resource. Quickly, in the first weeks, there was a drop in consultations in the emergency room, the person is able to open up about difficult subjects. »
Three months later, his consumption has decreased. “He is thinking about how he can make different choices. »
One minute at a time
Mme Laliberté also praises the benefits of massage therapy for “multi-tested” people. “Every human needs to be touched in life, it’s also the first thing we do after childbirth, put the baby in contact with the skin of his mother. When you have been sexually assaulted, massage therapy is not always easy. But with us, it is suitable. People are massaged with clothes, without oil. Often we start in a seated position. »
The duration of the treatments is also “adapted”. Sometimes starting with just two or three minutes. This “contact with the other in a context of security” can then open doors for the person, she continues. People can “increase their massage presence and then relate in intimacy. »
While waiting for the opening of Bifröst in Saint-Roch, PECH is renting premises to provide care. The new building will be erected near the Saint-Vallier parking lot, rue Caron. An acquisition financed thanks to a loan from the City last February.
Care will be provided on the ground floor and 50 social housing units will be built on the upper floors (unrelated to service users). The organization is now seeking funds to finance the care itself, the equivalent of $500,000 per year. Discussions have begun with the Integrated University Health and Social Services Center (CIUSSS) of the Capitale-Nationale and PECH hopes to find sponsors.
A small revolution
In an interview, Benoît Côté regrets that there is no funding program dedicated to innovation in his field, as is the case in many economic sectors. He repeats that Bifröst is a “true Copernican revolution”.
“We are convinced that we can no longer continue to work with traditional approaches,” he says. People with multiple traumas are not in a position to dialogue. “We could talk to them about it for years. If it doesn’t go through the body to go to the head, we’re screwed. »
When it is pointed out to him that this may seem esoteric, he retorts that “the novelty is that we come to integrate the body into the intervention”. “Our body is well made, but it is complex. It all works together.”
According to fairly extensive research conducted by the organization, there is no equivalent to Bifröst in Canada. However, PECH has identified seven centers in Europe working with similar approaches, including Beacon House in England, which specializes in the treatment of trauma, particularly in young children.
This is a “new trend in alternative psychiatry”, continues the director of PECH. “All dimensions of the body have been neglected for 30 years. We only address the central nervous system of people, we medicate a lot. »
In Norwegian mythology, the “bifröst” is a kind of rainbow connecting earth and sky. PECH retained the term for its reference to “bridge” and “transformation”.
For Benoît Côté, the scope of the City’s ambitions in this area requires innovation. “If we really want to mark the occasion, reduce homelessness in Quebec, it is essential. We will have to develop treatment alternatives in drug addiction and mental health. »