The SE™ Approach
Somatic Experiencing® is a body-oriented approach to the renegotiation and healing of shock trauma and developmental trauma. It is the work of Peter A. Levine, PhD. The SE™ approach helps to discharge traumatic shock and restores connection, a key element in transforming both PTSD and wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.
Like other somatic psychology approaches, Somatic Experiencing® is a body first approach to dealing with the troubling, persistent (and oftentimes physical) symptoms of trauma. It helps us create new experiences in our bodies; ones that contradict those of tension and overwhelming helplessness. This means that healing isn’t about reclaiming memories or changing our thoughts and beliefs about how we feel; it’s about exploring the internal sensations and incomplete movement responses and habitual behavior patterns underlying our feelings and beliefs.
Defining Trauma
Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of repeated cumulative stressors. In simplistic terms it might feel like “too much, too fast, too soon” or conversely, “not enough, too late, too slowly”. Trauma may result from a wide variety of events such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, racial discrimination, oppression, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear, conflict, and chronic shaming. Trauma can leave a person “stuck” in fight, flight or freeze, impairing their ability to live in the present with resilience and ease.
How it Works
The SE™ approach facilitates the completion of self-protective physical responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body and nervous system, 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, building their capacity for containment and resilience.
What does a Somatic Experiencing® session look like?
We might begin by talking about a particular event or symptom. As we talk, we pay close attention to the sensations, movements, thoughts and behaviors your body may be presenting for resolution, rather than on analysis or intellectual understanding. I help you stay within your range or resilience, where you feel most comfortable and alive, rather than moving into highly activated nervous system states of fight, flight, or freeze. Most clients find that they benefit more from being helped to slow down and be present in working with and metabolizing a small part of their story.
SE is a very different process than trying to “get it all out” verbally, which is often over-stimulated or numbing. This slowing down approach is what makes SE different from other talk therapies where you might spend the session talking without paying attention to the body.
With SE, we learn the cues of the nervous system, work to slow down, and allow the body to renegotiate and release excess stress from past events.
Sometimes a session involves physical movement, especially to resolve incomplete survival responses. When it’s useful, I also offer SE Touch
Support (or guide you in self-contact) to aid your nervous system in recognizing the safety of this moment. These are only some aspects of SE and body-oriented modalities