Transforming Touch® (TEB)
A Pathway Back to Safety and Connection
Transforming Touch® (TEB) is a gentle, touch-based therapy developed by Dr. Stephen Terrell to support the nervous system in healing from the effects of trauma and chronic stress—whether those experiences happened early in life or later on.
Our bodies carry the imprints of what we’ve lived through. Even after difficult experiences have passed, the nervous system can remain on alert—ready to protect, yet unable to fully rest.
Transforming Touch® offers a pathway for the body to release these old survival responses and rediscover what it feels like to be safe, calm, and connected.
Through presence, attunement, and light, respectful touch offered only with consent, this work helps your system find balance—inviting regulation, ease, and a felt sense of safety.
A Different Way of Healing
Unlike talk therapy, Transforming Touch® works through the body’s own language—sensation, rhythm, and connection.
Healing doesn’t come from thinking your way through pain; it comes from allowing the body to feel safe enough to let go.
This approach gently supports the two branches of the nervous system—the sympathetic (the gas pedal) and the parasympathetic (the brake pedal)—in learning to work together again.
When trauma or chronic stress occurs, these systems often lose coordination, leaving you stuck in fight, flight (anxious, restless, overwhelmed), freeze or fawn (numb, shut down, disconnected).
Transforming Touch® helps widen what we call the Window of Tolerance—the range where your body can manage stress, connect, and stay present.
As this window expands, the gas and brake pedals begin to move in harmony, allowing you to experience more flexibility, calm, and resilience.
The Language of the Nervous System
Our nervous system communicates through sensations and impulses rather than words. Transforming Touch® helps you reconnect with this internal language and teaches the body that it is safe now.
When the nervous system begins to trust in safety, old patterns—like tension, anxiety, fatigue, or numbness—start to loosen.
You may begin to feel more grounded, centered, and connected—to yourself, others, and the present moment.
This work can be especially supportive for individuals navigating:
Trauma or chronic stress at any stage of life
Anxiety, overwhelm, or dissociation
Emotional reactivity or shutdown
Attachment wounds or relational difficulties
A desire to feel more at ease, balanced, and embodied
Honoring the Body’s Intelligence
Transforming Touch® views the body not as something broken, but as an intelligent system that has always been trying to protect you.
What we often see as “defenses” are really survival strategies—proof of your body’s resilience.
Through light touch, co-regulation, and compassionate presence, the body learns that it no longer needs to stay on guard.
As these protective patterns soften, the nervous system can rest, integrate, and experience greater harmony between activation and relaxation.
The Heart of Transforming Touch®
At its core, this work is about relationship: the relationship between you and your body, and the healing connection that forms between client and practitioner. Transformation happens not through effort, but through attunement, patience, and trust.
Transforming Touch® offers an invitation—to move toward yourself with compassion, to feel supported at your own pace, and to allow your nervous system to remember what safety in connection truly feels like.