Somatic Experiencing
A gentle, neuro-biological approach to the resolution of trauma.
In a world where the norm is to ‘think’ our way out of problems, Somatic Experiencing is a refreshing deviation, beckoning us to embody our way towards healing. By leveraging the wisdom of our bodies and gently releasing trapped trauma, we can unlock a more balanced, healthier, and peaceful version of ourselves.
WHAT IS SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®?
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. It is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.
The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. SE provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.
HOW IT WORKS
The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.
WHEN IT COMES TO TRAUMA...
The main thing to know is :
Negative symptoms of trauma—such as anxiety, hyper-vigilance, aggression, and shame— result from denying the body the opportunity to fully process the traumatic event. Thus whatever the trauma is, it has a common effect on our physiology — the trauma is stuck in the body. It's stuck in our physiology, stuck in our emotional self, and stuck in our perceptions, our behaviors, and in how we experience the world.
The one thing to understand is :
The mind and body are interrelated, and all parts of the brain and body need to be incorporated in the process of getting unstuck. Animals in the wild have innate mechanisms that involuntarily work to discharge the stresses realated to trauma. We have those mechanisms too, yet they are very often innocently interrupted by us not knowing and understanding how these mechanisms inside us work.
The critical thing to learn is :
We need to re-learn how to support our mind/body in its natural attempts to discharge and metabolize the internal imprints of trauma. In short, we do this by learning how to move though the stuck places where trauma and accumulated stressors have become stuck in the body.