Somatic Experiencing
Release, Recover, and Become More Resilient
Providers:
Providers:
Somatic Experiencing is a therapeutic model that combines making meaning, sensing our bodies, and noticing and feeling “what is going on with us”. It is a therapy rooted in physiology that believes stress, trauma, fight/flight/freeze need resolution so that our nervous systems can return to regulation and therefore health.
In Somatic Experiencing (SE) the practitioner is trained to guide you in connecting with your body, noticing your nervous system, and integrating any experiences which are connected to challenging symptoms. SE can be used for anxiety, depression, stress, trauma – but also to support any other health issues like sleep issues, addictions, attachment trauma, intolerance to certain situations like driving for example, and so on.
In SE we help the body release and integrate any stressful experiences so that the nervous system can be come back into regulation. Trauma can be from known stressors such as: war, neglect, natural disasters, birth trauma, sexual or physical assault, accidents – or the product of chronic accumulated stress that may not be so obvious but over time has put our body into patterns of fight/flight/freeze.
Trauma
101
As we are born into life, develop, grow and learn we also experience challenges. When challenges are overwhelming to our nervous system they become stored trauma. Trauma is not always about "what happened" but "how we felt about what happened" and how that is stored in the body.
How SE
Works
SE
Training
SE practitioners are trained in a three year professional program to deeply understand the physiology of the nervous- system and how trauma is stored (and can be integrated). In SE a practitioner supports the body (or physiology) to guide integration. It is client centred work.
Sitting face to face (now virtually) the practitioner will lead the client in exercises and conversation to support the integration and education of whatever is present. The SE practitioner follows what the body speaks and if the client isn't ready to talk about something - it may usually be because the physiology would be flooded! There is wisdom here. We pace to the body and client.