Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body (soma) centered healing modality developed by Dr. Peter Levine. It addresses the lingering effects of being overwhelmed, which can be held in the body, by resolving and discharging powerful, incomplete survival energies. When a person experiences an intense event, our system may find it difficult to process and integrate what occurred. We call that trauma. The impact of trauma can accumulate in the body and lead to stuck patterns of fight, flight, or freeze.
SE can help a person release, recover, and become more cohesive internally. It is not uncommon for people to have traumatic experiences in their lifetime, (accidents, poison, sudden loss, surgery, etc) which can have long term impacts on health and well-being. Trauma can also occur from physical, mental abuse, birth-related difficulties, or interpersonal challenges which created states of overwhelm. Parents who didn’t or couldn’t respond adequately are often a hidden cause of trauma. Many survivors of trauma don’t recall or consider it a current problem, and yet the body remembers.
Somatic Experiencing fosters and nurtures hope and empowerment. Practitioners are trained to respond with empathy and understanding. Together, as partners in a deeply healing process, we aim to restore resilience, increase personal capacity to respond effectively, and strengthen self regulation. This body-oriented therapeutic model has been applied in multiple professional settings for healing trauma and other stress disorders.
By understanding how trauma impacts the body, I encourage you to fully participate in your healing work. Rather than staying entangled in cycles of unwellness, I wish to encourage you to become free from repetitive and unseen sources of suffering.
The SE approach can help release traumatic shocks, which is key to transforming PTSD. It offers a framework to assess where a person might be “stuck”, and provides clinical tools which aim to resolve these physiological states. SE is often combined with a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.
What we do: (Scroll down)
WHAT DO WE DO IN A SESSION?
- We take things slowly. First we explore what makes you feel really good, safe and seen. Then we take that goodness and approach a stuck place. With support it is possible to get a little close. We don’t jump in feet first and make a splash. That would be overwhelming…again. Stuck places can be in the body, like a physical response to someone or as a blind spot, something that is avoided or invisible.
- We track what is going on. If you feel overwhelmed, we back off and slow it down. The key is to avoid doing harm. Each time you safely approach a pain point, or trauma point, there can be a slight discharge of energy. That usually means the body is doing healing work.
- We try to lower the mental noise by watching, being curious, and grounding – feeling the body here now. Then you can take that sense into your everyday life.
- We track behavioral patterns and defense mechanisms that may be related to your trauma or medical history and work to help your nervous system understand that there are other ways to respond. What we learned as a child can be updated as an adult.
- If it seems like it would help, we can use various forms of touch to intensify the experience and increase cohesion. It is not massage, nor deep tissue work. It is light touch that can help the body co-regulate.
- SE is effective in-person or through video.
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