SOMATIC EXPERIENCING
Somatic Experiencing is a gentle form of therapy aimed at relieving and resolving the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental and physical trauma-related health problems by focusing on the client's perceived body sensations (or somatic experiences) which facilitates their release.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle mind & body form of psychotherapy that can relieve and resolve the symptoms of anxiety, depression and fear. SE helps you tap into your body's amazing ability to release physical tension and re-balance itself.
With SE you will learn simple yet powerful tools to use in your daily life to bounce back to your natural resilient state. You will feel more grounded, present and at ease.
SE can be especially helpful for long-term symptoms that develop when people grow up in stressed or dysfunctional families or experience societal biases and prejudices.
Talk Therapy vs. Mind & Body Therapies
There are three major parts to the human brain. The most sophisticated is the neocortex, which controls language, logic and reason. The mid-brain is called the limbic system; this is what controls feelings.
It is these two parts of the brain that are accessed in talk therapy.
The most primitive part of the brain is what we call the "reptilian brain". It is this part of the brain that controls our instinctual responses to danger: fight, flight and freeze.
The reptilian brain doesn't know the difference between what is real and what is perceived. SE helps it renegotiate past events in ways that are not logical or linear.
Mind & body therapies reach all three parts of the brain, enabling us to fully integrate upsetting events and move beyond them to an embodied sense of safety and freedom.
What is Somatic Experiencing® (SE)? (Adapted from: http://www.traumahealing.com/)
Somatic Experiencing® is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine. It is based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with defensive survival behaviors. These mechanisms provide animals with a built-in ‘’immunity’’ to trauma that enables them to return to normal in the aftermath of highly ‘’charged’’ life-threatening experiences. FROM: http://www.traumahealing.com/
How SE Works
SE facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of unexpressed 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.
SE 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, freeze, and collapse responses. Individuals locked in anxiety or rage then relax into a growing sense of peace and safety. Those stuck in depression gradually find their feelings of hopelessness and numbness transformed into empowerment, triumph, and mastery. SE facilitates corrective bodily experiences that contradict those of fear and helplessness. This "resets" the nervous system, allowing the body to return to a healthy homeostasis,and in doing this restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people's vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle mind & body form of psychotherapy that can relieve and resolve the symptoms of anxiety, depression and fear. SE helps you tap into your body's amazing ability to release physical tension and re-balance itself.
With SE you will learn simple yet powerful tools to use in your daily life to bounce back to your natural resilient state. You will feel more grounded, present and at ease.
SE can be especially helpful for long-term symptoms that develop when people grow up in stressed or dysfunctional families or experience societal biases and prejudices.
Talk Therapy vs. Mind & Body Therapies
There are three major parts to the human brain. The most sophisticated is the neocortex, which controls language, logic and reason. The mid-brain is called the limbic system; this is what controls feelings.
It is these two parts of the brain that are accessed in talk therapy.
The most primitive part of the brain is what we call the "reptilian brain". It is this part of the brain that controls our instinctual responses to danger: fight, flight and freeze.
The reptilian brain doesn't know the difference between what is real and what is perceived. SE helps it renegotiate past events in ways that are not logical or linear.
Mind & body therapies reach all three parts of the brain, enabling us to fully integrate upsetting events and move beyond them to an embodied sense of safety and freedom.
What is Somatic Experiencing® (SE)? (Adapted from: http://www.traumahealing.com/)
Somatic Experiencing® is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine. It is based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with defensive survival behaviors. These mechanisms provide animals with a built-in ‘’immunity’’ to trauma that enables them to return to normal in the aftermath of highly ‘’charged’’ life-threatening experiences. FROM: http://www.traumahealing.com/
How SE Works
SE facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of unexpressed 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.
SE 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, freeze, and collapse responses. Individuals locked in anxiety or rage then relax into a growing sense of peace and safety. Those stuck in depression gradually find their feelings of hopelessness and numbness transformed into empowerment, triumph, and mastery. SE facilitates corrective bodily experiences that contradict those of fear and helplessness. This "resets" the nervous system, allowing the body to return to a healthy homeostasis,and in doing this restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people's vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.
