SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®

Are you seeking a path to healing trauma that truly resonates with your deep needs, works from an embodied way, addresses your core issues and provides lasting results?

Imagine a therapeutic journey that gently guides you back to a state of balance and well-being, allowing you to thrive with ease, confidence, and resilience. Somatic Experiencing® is a transformative approach to healing trauma and stress that empowers you to reconnect with your body and unlock your inner vitality, strength, and health.

Are you…

  • Tired of trying therapies and methods that don’t address your core issues?

  • Seeking the right support, safety, and resonance but haven't found it yet?

  • Feeling dismissed by therapists or other providers when you tell them your needs and concerns?

  • Feeling puzzled and overwhelmed by your symptoms and lost in your healing journey?

  • Distrustful of talk therapy because you haven’t seen improvements in your symptoms?

If yes, you are in the right place!

FAQS:

  • The Somatic Experiencing® method is a body-oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders.

    SE™ was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, designed to address and resolve the physiological effects of trauma and chronic stress.

    The SE™ approach is key to recovery from PTSD, C-PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental trauma.

    By focusing on the body's natural responses, this method facilitates the discharge of accumulated stress energy and traumatic shock, supporting the restoration of the nervous system's equilibrium, through the use of several specific tools and techniques, that allow a gentle renegotiation of traumatic experiences, reducing symptoms such as hyperarousal, dissociation, and emotional dysregulation.

    Somatic Experiencing aims to enhance the body's inherent capacity for healing, promoting resilience, emotional stability, and overall psychological well-being.

  • Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.

  • 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.

    In Somatic Experiencing®, the traumatic event isn’t what caused the trauma, it is the overwhelmed response to the perceived life threat that is causing an unbalanced nervous system. My aim is to help you access the body memory of the event, not the story. So we don’t discuss what happened if you don’t want to.

    It is not important to talk about traumatic events, because what we really need to address is the effects of it on your body systems.

  • The SE trauma resolution method does not require the traumatized person to re-tell or re-live the traumatic event. Instead, it offers the opportunity to engage, complete, and resolve—in a slow and supported way—the body’s instinctual fight, flight and freeze responses. This resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people’s vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.

    As an SE Practitioner, I offer an environment of impartial and compassionate support to facilitate the release of trauma throughout your body.

  • As an SE practitioner, I can successfully work with developmental trauma (such as conception, pre and perinatal trauma, childhood neglect/abuse and ongoing medical and/or physical issues), with relational trauma, complex trauma, transgenerational and systemic trauma as well as with shock traumas (such as motor vehicle accidents, assaults, operations, NDEs, falls, drowning, etc).

    SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® (SE) psychobiological trauma resolution works with all ages of individuals who have experienced all these types of trauma.

  • The length of time and number of sessions will depend on several factors, including the severity and duration of the trauma and the degree to which the trauma has affected the individual’s nervous system. A conversation with me in the introductory call may be helpful in providing this kind of information.

  • Yes, absolutely. SE is a powerful method for the treatment of trauma, and there is plenty evidence and research which demostrates that Somatic Experiencing can be an effective treatment for traumatic symptoms.

    SE also empowers clients to become their own resource by teaching them techniques they can use on their own, outside of sessions in order to access regulation and deep settled and empowered states.

The Somatic Experiencing® approach offers a framework to assess where you are “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.

Somatic Experiencing® is more than just a trauma healing method; it's a profound exploration of the mind-body-soul connection. Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, this innovative approach recognizes that trauma and stress are not only stored in our minds but also deeply embedded in our bodies. Through Somatic Experiencing, you will learn to tune into your body's natural wisdom, releasing shock, tension, and traumatic stress and restoring health and harmony. This process gently supports you in building a sense of safety, agency, and empowerment, allowing you to face life's challenges with resiliency and ease.

In Somatic Experiencing®, the traumatic event isn’t what caused the trauma; it is the overwhelmed response to the perceived life threat that is causing an unbalanced nervous system. The aim is to help you access the body memory of the event, not the story. So we don’t discuss what happened if you don’t want to.

what does a Somatic experiencing session looks like:

  • I ensure that clients feel safe and comfortable in the therapeutic environment. This may involve discussing boundaries, expectations, and any immediate concerns they might have.

    Once safety and comfort are accessible, the client tunes into their intention for the session in order to work within their will and window of capacity and recover agency over their treatment.

  • Resourcing involves identifying and cultivating internal and external resources that provide the client with a sense of safety, strength, and support. These resources can be anything that helps the client feel more grounded and resilient, and they serve as anchors during the therapeutic process. Resourcing is crucial because it helps clients build a foundation of safety and stability from which they can explore and process traumatic material.

    - Internal Resources: These can include personal qualities or strengths, such as courage, determination, or the ability to self-soothe. They might also include positive memories or experiences that evoke feelings of safety and comfort.

    - External Resources: These could be supportive relationships, places, objects, or activities that bring joy, calm, or a sense of security.

    During a session, I gently guide clients to focus on these resources, helping them access and amplify the positive sensations associated with them. This process can increase the client's capacity to handle distressing emotions and sensations.

  • This process involves gently and gradually approaching traumatic material. I help clients touch into the traumatic memory or sensation in small, manageable doses to avoid overwhelming them.

    Somatic Experiencing operates in cycles, where you sense your way through the normal oscillations of internal sensation – contraction/expansion, pleasure/pain, warmth/cold – but only at the level that you can handle. This repeated, rhythmic process helps you to develop a greater capacity to handle stress and stay in the present moment, where you belong.

  • Somatic Experiencing® professes a body first approach to dealing with the problematic (and, oftentimes, physical) symptoms of trauma. This means that therapy isn’t about reclaiming memories or changing our thoughts and beliefs about how we feel, but we instead gently track the sensations that lie underneath our feelings, and uncover our habitual behavior patterns to these feelings.

    For this to happen, I support clients in paying attention to their bodily sensations. This involves noticing physical feelings (e.g., tension, warmth, tingling) without judgment or analysis. The goal is to help them become more attuned to their internal experience.

  • During sessions, clients might move between states of distress and states of safety or calm (all within their window of capacity). This back-and-forth movement allows them to experience the contrast and reinforces the body's capacity to return to a state of equilibrium.

    Pendulation is a term used by Dr. Levine to describe the natural oscillation between opposing forces of contraction and expansion.

  • As clients become more attuned to their bodily sensations, they may experience a natural discharge of energy related to the trauma. This can manifest as light shaking, crying, deep breathing, heat or cold, shivers or other physical responses. I will gently reasure and support clients through this process, helping them reach a sense of completion and resolution.

  • The final step involves helping clients integrate the experiences and insights gained during the session. This may include discussing how the session felt, what was learned, and how these insights can be applied to everyday life.

  • Throughout the session, my aim is to maintain a supportive, gentle, resonant and non-judgmental presence, helping clients navigate their internal experience and fostering a sense of empowerment, agency and self healing.

let’s talk about trauma Renegotiation

Renegotiation in SE refers to the process of revisiting and transforming the traumatic experience in a way that prevents retraumatization and fosters healing. Unlike traditional approaches that might involve reliving the trauma, SE focuses on changing the relationship with the traumatic memory or sensation.

BENEFITS OF SOMATIC EXPERIENCING® SESSIONS:

  • One of the main benefits of Somatic Experiencing is its use in the relief of physical and emotional symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTSD), such as anxiety, depression, dissociation, hypervigilance, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, eating problems, numbness, and chronic pain. Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of this approach in treating PTSD symptoms among survivors of natural disasters and war. Somatic Experiencing has also been applied with success to the treatment of various forms of addiction.

  • Clients who receive this form of treatment often report less tension, less pain, less irritability, and less anxiety, as well as a greater sense of ease and balance. Somatic Experiencing is also a safe method of treatment since the individual is not re-traumatized during the process. Although traumatic memories are triggered, they are approached indirectly and gradually so arousal remains at a manageable level.

  • An additional advantage of Somatic Experiencing is the way it can help us develop the capacity to self-regulate. Many people find it possible to learn, through the SE method, how to shift quickly and easily out of negative or overwhelming states, and how to settle themselves when faced with stressful situations.