Somatic Experiencing ®

Why?

When trauma is unresolved or stress accumulates in our lives, our attention is captured by repetitive stress signals and we experience symptoms like anxiety, spaciness, and disconnection, among a whole host of other symptoms that have become normalized in today’s dominant culture.  We may feel worn-out or easily overwhelmed or feel as if we are always "on-guard." These symptoms keep us from being fully present in our lives.

By using Somatic Experiencing® to un-stick these stress signals, our awareness is liberated and can broaden to allow a fuller experience of life.

Somatic Experiencing® cultivates and utilizes a non-judgmental awareness of our inner experience in order to resolve trauma and accumulated stress patterns that hinder us on physical, psychological and spiritual levels.

The resolution of trauma and stress not only allows individuals to reclaim their lives, it allows society to find new ways to resolve conflict and live in harmony.

The SE Approach

Somatic Experiencing 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.

The Science

Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.

In nature, animals naturally allow their nervous systems to recalibrate and release survival energy after a shock or trauma. After being chased ("flight” response) or attacked (“fight” response), an animal will lie still and give itself time and space to pause and rest. Then they will look around to see if they are safe; when they see they are safe, they allow their bodies to shake, discharging the nervous energy in its body before rejoining the herd.

In humans, it doesn’t always work this way. Our cognitive and emotional capacities—though a gift in many ways—override the primitive part of our brain that governs survival. On the heels of a traumatic event, our thoughts and emotions distract us from physically discharging stress.

If we don’t discharge the stress of a traumatic event, it remains locked in our body as "freeze" -- the same state of immobility an animal assumes if they cannot fight or run away. In this state the animal is preparing for one of two things: death or a last minute escape. The unprocessed survival energy can also be locked in as “fight” energy or “flight” energy.

Though often calm-looking on the outside, unprocessed survival energy is internally comparable to what happens in a car when we step on the brake and the accelerator at the same time -- a huge amount of energy is revving, usually below our conscious awareness, and this often creates some of the symptoms listed above.  

This unprocessed survival energy can be experienced as immobility, high sympathetic charge (too much energy in your body that is hard to tolerate, so you need to move a lot), or functional freeze (the feeling that I am here, but I am not present). And from these various states, symptoms emerge.

Somatic Experiencing utilizes the language of the primitive brain, sensation, to discharge unprocessed survival energy and allow the nervous system to settle back into its natural state of well-being. After sessions, clients often report feeling more agency, capacity, clarity, coherence, ease and ability to focus.

Like CranioSacral Therapy, Somatic Experiencing is rooted in the premise that we, like animals, are biologically designed to heal. Finding the right support for yourself is key in this process.

How It Works

The SE 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

For What Disorders is Somatic Experiencing (SE) a Good Approach?

Being in a regulated state can help everyone! Many physical, mental, emotional and interpersonal conditions can be served by SE ™ treatment. Higher performing athletes and professionals are using the SE ™ approach as a form of optimizing their professional careers. In a more regulated state, our brains work better with decision making, creativity and high performance.

Below is a short list of issues for which the somatic approach is commonly used: