Somatic Experiencing Explained
If you’ve been searching for a therapist for trauma healing, maybe you’ve heard of Somatic Experiencing but are still confused.
You’re not alone!
I recently found a really helpful video of Dr. Peter Levine explaining the trauma healing modality he created. Check out the video below to watch.
In some ways, Somatic Experiencing (SE) is simple. Yet, it can also feel very complex and difficult to explain because of the intuitive way that sessions unfold.
Trauma is stored in both the mind and body. While talk therapy allows the mind space to heal, Somatic Experiencing addresses the stress and trauma that can get ‘stuck’ in the body. Used together, a natural flow between the mind and the body is created. SE helps you to learn to regulate your nervous system, creating a sense of safety and allowing trauma to slowly release from the body. This approach promotes resiliency and the capacity to heal. It can help us to gently integrate difficult life experiences and increase capacity, energy, and goodness in our lives.
With SE, we are interested in the nervous system’s natural defensive responses: fight, flight, and freeze. The body is wise and knows what it needs to do to protect itself when it is under threat. It may flee and get away, it may be able to fight back against the threat, or it may need to freeze to survive. The body places no judgment on these responses. The only goal is to survive the situation and then deal with the consequences later. So even after we survive an overwhelming experience, our system can remain stuck in one of the defensive responses (fight/flight/freeze). SE is a way of working with this leftover survival energy, allow the body to process and discharge any leftover energy that may be keeping a person stuck.
Somatic Experiencing is a gentle approach to working with trauma + chronic stress. It allows you to work with little bits of content at a time. We can work on the outer edges of the trauma. Small bits at a time to not overwhelm or re-traumatize. Slowing down in this type of work is important because the body and the instinctive parts of the brain take longer to process information than the cognitive parts of the brain. We can’t just think our way out of trauma. We need to meet the body and nervous system where it is at.
Somatic Experiencing is also an effective + beneficial modality for preparation + integration sessions for psychedelic experiences.
