If I’m supporting a creative goal, we can resolve or re-organize a great deal — in real time — over one or two sessions.

How does Somatic Experiencing work?

Dr Peter Levine created this technique after observing animals in the wild vs those in captivity. The animals in the wild did not exhibit symptoms of trauma. Those in captivity did. The defining difference?

After stressful events, animals in the wild let their bodies do the talking; shaking off the stress…or moving their bodies according to the needs of their Autonomic Nervous Systems. (The same system we as humans have, that controls our fight/ flight/ freeze/ fawn responses).

So…it’s like we’re working with your inner “creature” to help it feel safe again.

Once we establish a feeling of relative safety, it is often surprising how much our thinking shifts, and our habits and behaviors change with greater ease. If we could think our way out of our issues, we already would have.

Somatic Experiencing is what we call a “ground up” technique—meaning it’s less focused on verbal processing or talking, than other traditional “top down” or talk therapy and coaching modalities. As a result, it works extremely well for both children and adults. We work with what comes up in the body in real time in the way of sensations. We are looking to support energy that’s been trapped or stagnant, to move. We are looking to support any incomplete survival processes in your body, to help them complete. For example if we are experiencing anxiety, our Nervous System is perceiving a threat. This work helps you to not only identify that threat energy in your body and move it through, it helps you to train your Nervous System to properly identify whether the threat is occurring in real time or from your past, so we can then we provide your system with what it needs to move on and not send out those threat signals any longer.

SE is also extremely compassionate because the process is “titrated”— meaning rather than focusing on the feelings of overwhelm, we work the edges of the stress energy as it comes up, slowly and gently, “resourcing” the nervous system frequently (by bringing focus to pleasant sensations) to make sure clients do not re-traumatize. We also never have to completely re-visit the stressful event. We let the body do most of the talking and tell us what is ready to move through.

What results should you expect with this technique?

Clients frequently experience increased mobility and range of movement after accidents and pain reduction/ resolution, change in cognition and executive function, improved sleep, resolution of fears and phobias. With more complex cases over time, healthier attachment, resolutions of/or vast improvements with complex traumas, digestive disorders, migraines, panic and anxiety attacks etc. the list goes on. What I personally love most about this technique, is how effective the client's own imagination is, when recruited to herald the shifts they usually experience in real time. In that regard I find it is extraordinary for children. They usually take to this work much faster than adults as they have not spent a lifetime in their heads.

The work iterates in infinite ways through each individual practitioner, though the core work and tools are universally applied. By that I mean, we often end up specializing, though are qualified to support the healing of everything from stress symptoms all the way to survivors of extreme acts of terrorism etc. Trauma is broad, our training covers all categories. But our scopes of practice differ. You may find that SEPs specialise in the areas where this system supported them most.

I personally have learned that I’m good in a crisis and seldom had help during mine, so I love to help people in this arena and I lose sleep knowing that people are not reaching their potential because they don’t have access to these kinds of tools and resources.