What is Somatic Experiencing Therapy
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Traditional forms of therapy to deal with chronic problems are focused solely on the thought and emotions of the client. Changing habits of thoughts and action are treated with cognitive therapy with great success. Processing deeper misconceptions of thought or emotions are addressed with success in more psycho-analytic based treatments that work with unearthing and healing childhood and relational issues.
However these two forms do not readily address issues that are rooted more deeply in the biology of the body. When traumatic events or developmental stressors like neglectful parenting occur, very often cognitive and psychoanalytic therapies do not succeed. The reason for this is that the dysfunctions in the biology of the body and nervous system are not being addressed.
Somatic Experiencing, as developed by Dr. Peter Levine, works specifically within this arena. In studying wild animals, who typically do not suffer from stress disorders in the same way as humans do, he found that there is a natural mechanism in all mammals that self regulates and heals trauma from within.
Natural pulsations and rhythms within the organism, such as breath, heart rate, sleep/wake cycles, digestion, and many more, are part of a natural resilience and resonance that manifests as health, or conversely as disease in our systems. Trained to recognize these rhythms as they manifest in the body, mind, and heart of clients, Somatic Experiencing Practitioners support clients first by supporting the clients “felt sense: experience. The practitioner is also observing the clients nervous system signals, and occasionally gently “nudging” them so that they can move towards discharging stored stress and trauma, and restoring natural rhythms and resilience to the client.
How does Somatic Experiencing Work?
•Awareness Having a “felt sense” of the moment, or orientation to one’s surroundings is an essential first step to moving towards healing. Often this first step is overlooked, and in so doing, a frustration with a lack of progress occurs.
•Resource Most forms of therapy work by looking for where the “problem” is, or the difficulty, and then focusing on that in order to heal it. Somatic Experiencing typically works by supporting what feels or is good in the moment, inviting the experience of the cup being “half-full” or of feeling good and relatively safe.
•Titration: Working from a place of resource, with its inherent safety, moving towards challenging thoughts, feelings, or sensations arise naturally. Somatic Experiencing invites this natural movement to be gentle, and very small, named here titration after the term made famous by the science of chemistry, where only a tiny amount is added to a solution.
•Pendulation: After this arising of a small amount of challenging material, the practitioner will invite the client to redirect their focus back to resource again, allowing the client to maintain a sense of safety even in relation to the challenging material that is present. This then becomes a swinging back and forth between the two sides.
•Discharge:Often after some gentle attention to pendulation, the nervous system will discharge stored stress in various ways. Involuntary movements, skin flushing, nausea, discomfort are among common symptoms that arise, which then allows the body more resilience and less stress.
Benefits of Somatic Experiencing :
o Less pain, tension, and anxiety
o Reframes and transforms current or past negative, abusive, and overwhelming experiences.
o Become more present and engaged in life.
o Increase resiliency to future stressors.
o Greater sense of ease, optimism and hope.
o Greater confidence.
o Greater sense of self and wholeness.
o Stronger sense of clarity and purpose.
o Deeper spiritual connection
o Improved ability to focus and concentrate.
o Greater sense of peace, ease and calm (in body, mind, heart and life).
Somatic Experiencing Certification
Last year I started a new traing in Somatic Experiencing with the Human Enrichment Foundation. I was drawn to the work after doing a one year introduction to Bioenergetic therapy and was referred to the SE work by one of the instructors . What drew me to the work was how it relates to the body and our emotions and how they affect one another. I have just completed the sixth class (Intermediate 3) and two more to go. Advanced 1 in June and Advanced 2 in October. I look forward to contiuing this joureny and to share the work with my clients.
What is Somatic Experiencing (SE for short)?
In short, Somatic Experiencing allows your nervous system to gently release stress and trauma through body awareness, completing healthy instinctual and self-protective responses to events that have had a negative impact on your life.
What should I expect during an SE session?
Similar to talk therapy we will have a dialogue about you and your body. The SE work blends vert well with Cranial Sacral therapy,my Tantric sessions as well as my therapeutic massage. When the dialogue, the touch and enhancing your awarness your nervous system can return to homeostasis.
During a session, I help you to deeply connect with the sensations of your body and help you to become consciously aware of your inner and outer resources that strengthen your health on all levels. Through this awareness, I will help you reduce the impact of mental, emotional and physical stress and trauma. My intent is to provide you with the experience of safety and calm while you transition your focus to joy, healing, and pleasure.
During a session, you may notice a gradual discharge of your nervous system. This occurs in several different ways: trembling, shaking, twitching, tingling and vibrating sensations. You may also become aware of temperature differences, expanded breathing, and skin and digestion sensations. Crying, laughing and yawning may be part of your experience as well. All these responses are therapeutic and often can come with a sense of unfamiliarity. Please be assured that these reactions are welcomed and restorative to your nervous system.
Somatic Experiencing is ideal for psychosomatic issues such as pains in the body that may be related to emotions. If you are suffering from syndromes or symptoms that cannot be explained medically, I strongly encourage you to explore Somatic Experiencing.
My clients have loved the integration of the work and have noticed a difference in there own healing and well being.
Please feel free to ask any questions if you would like to know more.
-Micahel Riley
Healing Trauma- A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body.
I am currently in a 3 year training program in Healing Trauma with the Human Enrichment foundation. This is wonderful book that I have recommended to many clients to help establish the “Felt Sense”. “. Tantra and Embodiment is about being present, being in your body and working with the “felt sense”. This is a wonderful guide with some very simple yet profound exercises. Restoring the wisdom of the body and learning to listen to it signals is essential for your health and happiness.
Product Description
Researchers have shown that survivors of accidents, disaster, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful “acting out” behaviors reflecting these painful events. Today, millions in both the bodywork and the psychotherapeutic fields are turning to Peter A. Levine’s breakthrough Somatic Experiencing(tm) methods to effectively overcome these challenges. Now available in paperback for the first time, Healing Trauma offers readers the personal how-to guide for using the theory Dr. Levine first introduced in his highly acclaimed work Waking the Tiger (North Atlantic Books, 1997), including: * How to develop body awareness to “re-negotiate” and heal traumas–rather than relive them * Emergency “first-aid” measures for emotional distress * A 60-minute CD of guided Somatic Experiencing techniques “Trauma is a fact of life,” teaches Peter Levine, “but it doesn’t have to be a life sentence.” Now, with one fully integrated self-healing tool, he shares his essential methods to address unexplained symptoms of trauma at their source–the body–to return us to the natural state we are meant to live in.
Book Description
Are you experiencing physical or emotional symptoms that no one is able to explain? If so, you may be suffering a traumatic reaction to a past event, teaches Dr. Peter A. Levine. On Healing Trauma, this respected therapist and teacher brings you face to face with an effective new treatment not a talking cure, but a deep physiological process for releasing your past traumas. Medical researchers have known for decades that survivors of accidents, disasters, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain. As a young stress researcher at UCBerkeley, Dr. Levine made a remarkable discovery: that all animals, including humans, are born with a natural ability to rebound from these distressing situations. On Healing Trauma, you will learn Dr. Levines four-phase method of somatic healing. You will learn how and where you are storing unresolved distress, how to become more aware of your bodys physiological responses to danger, and specific methods to free yourself from trauma. Now you can learn to address unexplained symptoms at their source your body and return to the natural state you were meant to live in, with Healing Trauma
Good Energy Massage 