Embodied Trauma Healing
with Somatic Experiencing®

Embodiment means being present in the body. The more attuned we are to our inner landscape, our feelings and sensations, the easier it is to hear the body speaking. Over time we begin to live more from the wholeness of somatic intelligence rather than cognitive intelligence - the mind becomes more grounded in the sensations of the body and more in touch with simple satisfactions. Our body becomes a faithful and steady resource in an ongoing process that flowers into feeling totally at home in your bodymind, living with more vitality, joy and an unshakeable trust in life itself. We are home and can surrender to the flow of life as it unfolds.

Your soma is your whole being. Somatic is often defined as relating to the body, as distinguished from the mind. However, the apparent separation of body and mind is merely cognitive - when your body is comfortable and happy, then your mind will be clear and integrated.

Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat (an overwhelming experience that happens too fast, too soon) or as the end product of cumulative stress (overwhelming experiences resulting from too little for too long, or too late). Traumatic residue results from any experience that is so overwhelming that we are unable to cope and process fully, leaving a residual imprint in the organism.

Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, loss or neglect, birth trauma, war, natural disasters, trans-generational trauma including epigenetics, or the stressors of ongoing fear, conflict or oppressive systems.

What differentiates trauma from adaptive stress is that trauma results in disconnection - from the body, emotions, our authentic Self, and in relationship to others. Disconnection is our way of coping with the unbearable and is a necessary survival response to the presence of real or perceived danger in the moment. However when the disconnection continues, it can result in us feeling reactive, defensive, unsafe, isolated and shut down, affecting our present moment experience of daily life.

Ultimately, unresolved trauma can be thought of as being like an unhealed wound from the past, which continues to show up in the present every time it gets triggered.

SE was developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D., and is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics with more than 45 years of successful application.

Dr. Levine was inspired to study stress on the animal nervous system when he realised that animals are constantly under threat of death yet show no symptoms of trauma stuck in their systems. What he discovered was that trauma has to do with the third survival response to a perceived life threat, which is freeze. When fight and flight are not options, we freeze, shut down and collapse, like “playing dead.” However, this reaction is designed to be time-sensitive, in other words, it needs to run its course, and the massive energy that was prepared for fight or flight gets discharged, through shaking and trembling. If the immobility phase isn’t complete, that charge stays trapped, and, from the body’s perspective, it is still under threat. SE sessions works to release this stored energy and turn off this threat alarm that causes dysregulation and dissociation. SE helps people understand this body response to trauma and work through a “body first” approach to healing.

The SE approach offers a framework to assess and identify traumatic shock and where a person is “stuck” in the patterns of fight, flight, or freeze responses, and uses clinical tools and techniques to release and resolve these fixated physiological states so the person can enjoy more flexibility and resilience in the nervous system, and live more in present-moment awareness.

The Somatic Experiencing 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. In a therapeutic process, the client is gently guided to develop a felt sense of safety in the body along with tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions (and in the case of shock trauma working to complete thwarted defensive responses) to bring resolution to their nervous system.

Emotional: severe neglect and abandonment, attachment wounding, severe loss, ongoing abuse;

Physical Injuries and Medical: surgeries, anaesthesia, burns, poisoning, hospitalisations, assault injuries such as being shot or stabbed;

High-Impact: surgery, ether extraction of tonsils, electric shock, hallucinations, drowning, suffocation, foetal distress (hypoxia, hyper-cardia), traumatic birth, intrauterine stress, invasive gynaecological procedures;

Inevitable and Inescapable Attack: animal attacks, kidnapping, war, bombing, physical abuse, sexual abuse, incest;

Physical defence failures: falls, high-impact accidents, head injuries;

Natural disasters: tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, social change in the community or homeland;

Horror: witnessing an accident, witnessing abuse, abduction, death or torture, killing or injuring someone;

Systematic Torture and Abuse: war torture, war abduction, concentration camps and systematic abuse including cults;

SE is also effective for working with clinical syndromes, such as fibromyalgia, digestive disorders, panic disorder, chronic fatigue.

The main difference is that the body is included as an essential part of the conversation because the body is where memories are stored, where wholeness resides, and where integration happens.

We can’t think our way out of trauma. The baseline state of our nervous system is the foundation of our experience of safety in our body and the world around us.