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Somatic Experiencing
Somatic
Experiencing® is a body-awareness approach to trauma-related disorders being taught throughout the world. It is the result
of over forty years of observation, research, and hands-on development by Dr. Levine based upon the realization that human
beings have an innate ability to overcome the effects of trauma and trauma-related disorders including PTSD, anxiety, stress
and depression. Somatic Experiencing® has touched the lives of many thousands, restores self-regulation,
and returns a sense of aliveness, relaxation and wholeness to traumatized individuals who have had these
precious gifts taken away.
Somatic Experiencing® is a therapeutic tool used
to treat stress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related disorders, Somatic Experiencing focuses on the patient’s “somatic experiences,” or perceived body sensations.
I use Somatic Experiencing in my sessions as a means to help clients open to and work with past trauma, stress, anxiety and
sensations in the body, as well as the fear and resistance that are coupled with experiences in the body. Through Somatic
Experiencing we feel more open, safer and more comfortable in our bodies. After the SE sessions are complete clients often
reports a feeling of being free and more engaged with life, as well as decreases in levels of physical pain and the absence
of other problems with mental connections. SE offers the client a set of tools that can help them learn to find their own innate healing capacity. Peter
Levine says “ Most trauma therapies address the mind through talk and the molecules of the mind with drugs. Both these
approaches can be of use. However, trauma is not, will not , and can never be fully healed until we also address the essential
role played by the body. We must understand how the body is affected by trauma and it’s central position in healing
it’s aftermath. Without this foundation, our attempts at mastering trauma will be limited and one sided.”
Somatic Experiencing® understands that when someone is unable to return to a state of equilibrium after a traumatic
experience, these high levels of stress that they’re holding neuro-physiologically, over time can lead to serious health
problems. Therefore symptoms are addressed at their origins within the body, brain, and nervous system which hold the key
to their resolution.
We humans have the natural capacity to "thaw"
these frozen moments, and move on with our lives. We do not have to cling to the past, reliving devastating events
again and again. By gently awakening this innate capacity for resilience that we share with all living organisms,
the straitjacket is loosened. As we are unbound
from the past, a future abundant with new possibilities unfolds. Our ability
to be in the present expands, revealing
the timeless essence of the "now". -Peter Levine
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