What is Somatic Experiencing?

I practice Somatic Experiencing as a way to process distressing experiences. Somatic Experiencing is a type of therapy that involves bringing attention to your emotional and physical sensations. 

Somatic Experiencing was developed by trauma therapist, Peter Lavine, with the idea that animals naturally release trauma immediately after a near miss. For example, imagine an impala who is almost eaten by a leopard. The impala has a freeze response and plays dead until the leopard is scared away by hyenas. Once the danger has passed, the impala breathes really deeply and begins to shake before getting up and walking off unharmed. 

As a therapist who practices Somatic Experiencing my job is to help walk you through this trauma release process. You might not shake like the impala but the idea is to let the traumatic experience move through and out of your body. If we don’t, our bodies hold on to the trauma and it can show up in other ways like in chronic pain, stomach issues, and migraines. My job is also as a guide to help titrate the experience so that it is never too overwhelming for you or your nervous system. We don’t just focus on traumatic memories in Somatic Experiencing, we also want to resource with positive experiences too. 

I work a lot with the nervous system and helping you to be able to move towards more appropriate states of arousal. Vigilance, calm, and connection are all appropriate responses in different situations. For example, when you are in danger it is right for you to be looking out for yourself and to get to safety as soon as possible. If you were calm in those situations that would actually put you in great danger. Also, if you are hypervigilant even in situations where there is no immediate threat that is also a problem. We want appropriate responses to different situations so that we can stay safe, connect with others, and be able to think clearly enough to come up with solutions. 

Another element of Somatic Experiencing is curiously experimenting with different body postures or movements to assist in moving the trauma through the body. Your therapist might ask you “I wonder what it might be like to…” or “How would it feel to…” The only goal is to connect into your intuition and check in with your feelings and sensations in the moment. Maybe you notice that a particular thought pops into your head or something changes in your body - we’ll talk through that. 

If you’d like to check out Somatic Experiencing, schedule a free consultation and get started.