What is Somatic Experiencing®?
The Somatic Experiencing® method is a body-oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application. 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 for finding where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.
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. Advanced applications of this method of resolving trauma reactivity may include therapeutic touch and regulation via somatic supports and relational attachment repair.
What is trauma?
When our bodies experience something that is too much, too fast, or too soon, our body/minds cope by channeling the powerful, unprocessed survival energy into mental and physical symptoms. These symptoms can express as mental or emotional experiences such as anxiety, dissociation, apathy, hyper-vigilance, difficulty maintaining boundaries, or inability to settle – to name a few. Over time, they can also consolidate into physical symptoms and syndromes such as chronic pain or immune disorders.
Another way to think about it
Trauma can also be understood, in this context, as something that keeps us reacting to past circumstances or future fears rather than creatively engaging with the present moment.
What do we do about it?
In our sessions, curiosity supports us to slow down our embodied experience of what was once too much – inviting the body to tell its story and enact missing experiences. In the process, long held survival impulses can complete and discharge. Some common results include expanded tolerance for both pleasure and discomfort, learned skills for self-regulation, increased vitality, reduced overwhelm, and the ability to state and maintain clear and healthy boundaries so new life choices are possible.
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