What is Somatic Experiencing® (SE)?
Somatic Experiencing® is a pioneering, body-oriented method to relieving the physical, psychological, emotional, and physiological effects of acute or chronic stress and PTSD.
Somatic Experiencing® is a short-term, nature-focused method to processing and resolving trauma, developed by Peter A. Levine PhD. It is based on the observation that wild animals, though often facing life-threatening situations, rarely become traumatized. Wild animals use instinctive, innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the immense amount of energy mobilized for survival. This ability makes animals internally immune to trauma, enabling them to return to their balanced state even after a single, highly stressful, life-threatening event.
Although humans theoretically have similar regulatory mechanisms to animals, our instinctual systems are often overridden or blocked, among other things, by the rational part of our brain. This limitation prevents the full discharge of survival energy and stops the nervous system from returning to balance. The unresolved, undischarged survival energy becomes trapped in the body and nervous system, often leading to various symptoms such as anxiety, depression, psychosomatic issues, and behavioral disorders. The body carries these symptoms or tries to contain the unresolved energy.
SE® uses the awareness of bodily sensations to help individuals “renegotiate” and transform trauma, rather than relive it. With proper guidance, through the body’s instinctive "felt sense," the individual can access their natural self-healing capacity, allowing for the safe and gradual release of accumulated survival energy. When these energies are released, individuals often experience a significant reduction or disappearance of their traumatic symptoms.
Since traumatic events are often connected to encounters with death, they can trigger extreme responses. The transformation process enables individuals to perceive themselves and others more fully. The healing journey can awaken untapped resources and a sense of one’s own agency. With the help of these new allies, individuals can open doors to rebirth and experience increased vitality and flow in their lives. The experience can be a true spiritual awakening, one that helps individuals reconnect with the world.
The structure of trauma, including hyperarousal, dissociation, and freezing, is based on the predator/prey survival strategy. Trauma symptoms result from a highly activated, incomplete biological response to a threat that is “frozen” in time. By supporting the thawing and completion of this frozen response, trauma can be transformed.
Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the triggering event itself, but by the residual, frozen energy that hasn’t been discharged or released from the body.
This energy gets trapped in the nervous system, causing havoc both physically and emotionally. Wild animals have the ability to "shake off" this accumulated energy. For humans, the key to healing traumatic symptoms lies in our ability to imitate the flexible adaptation of wild animals.
Dr. Levine has developed a safe and gradual way to support people who have experienced trauma in accessing their natural ability to release the energy accumulated as a result of a shocking event.