What is Somatic Experiencing®?
Somatic Experiencing (SE™) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. It is a body-oriented therapeutic model applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.
The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states. SE provides effective skills appropriate to a variety of healing professions including mental health, medicine, physical and occupational therapies, bodywork, addiction treatment, first response, education, and others.
How it works
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. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.
Why Somatic Experiencing®?
The Somatic Experiencing® (“SE™”) Professional Training provides a rich theoretical framework for understanding and addressing trauma physiology.
Our educational model is highly experiential, offering you tangible skills that can be immediately integrated into your professional practice. The training is delivered through a combination of lectures, live demonstrations, guided practice sessions with fellow students, audio visual case studies, and suggested readings. Because competent practice of SE requires direct clinical experience, as well as a refined somatic awareness and capacity for self-regulation, becoming an SE Practitioner (SEP™) also entails receiving personal SE sessions to deepen your experiential knowledge of SE.
Because SE supports regulation of the autonomic nervous system, which underlies every aspect of our physical, emotional, and psychological functioning, the applications of SE are diverse.
- For example, by working directly with a client’s physiology, SE enhances the depth, effectiveness, and outcome of psychotherapeutic interventions focused on relational, developmental, and psychodynamic issues.
- SE supports mood regulation, the reworking of addictive patterns, and the prevention or resolution of PTSD.
- Since trauma can contribute to the formation of many complex syndromes and diseases, SE aids medical professionals in unwinding challenging medical cases.
- SE techniques are also effective in reducing or eliminating chronic pain and trauma-related symptoms presenting in the musculoskeletal system, making it useful for bodyworkers and other physical-care providers.
