Somatic Experiencing | Healing Gateway LLC Laurel, MD

What Is Somatic Experiencing®?

Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (SE)® is a naturalistic approach that focuses on the impact of trauma on bodily sensations and overall mental health state. Unlike a traditional psychotherapy approach (i.e., talk therapy), which targets and explores the thought pattern and set of belief systems, the SE approach concentrates on the mind and body connection.

When a traumatic event occurred, our biological system prioritizes a protective response. When we face a threat, our body receives the signals and prepares for a fight or flight response by increasing the heart rate, breathing fast, and constricting the muscle. However, when we are unable to mobilize the response, we start to freeze, and we can get stuck in freeze response long after the event passes. As a result, the energy of the trauma lingers and prevents you from recovering from the experience.

For example, when someone was violently attacked, their body may hold on to the tension for months or even years after the original event. The emotional distress from trauma, such as fear, hopelessness, or anger, also remains idle. The combination of repressed emotion and the incomplete protective response will cause the body to react as if the original traumatic event is not over.

Traumatized Individuals tend to suppress the memory and avoid any reminder of the past due to the fear of re-experiencing emotional distress or receiving negative judgment from others. Over the years, I have heard trauma survivors report their apprehension of being labeled as 'crazy' or 'irrational' when trying to communicate or share their negative emotions (e.g., anger, despair, or terror) related to the past trauma with friends, family, and others. Unfortunately, the avoidance of working toward the resolution of their trauma response can worsen their overall mental health and health problems. Thus, it is uncommon for trauma survivors to suffer from chronic pain, persistent headaches, digestive issues, and more.

Somatic Experiencing (SE)® employs the awareness of body sensations to help individuals renegotiate and heal their trauma. By learning to build awareness, trauma survivors can develop coherence and self-regulation. The result is a deeper understanding of body/mind connection.

Learn More

How Somatic Experiencing® Can Help?

Aims to restore the body’s ability to self-regulate and achieve balance and integrity.
Teach individuals how to feel safe in their own bodies, manage their emotions, and experience a truly relaxed state. The awareness of the bodily sensation will help individuals in working through painful emotions (anger, guilt, shame, etc.), sleep issues, aggression, and somatic pain, The work of establishing and maintaining a sense of safety are paramount in SE sessions, and SE practitioners will use various techniques in doing so. When individuals feel safe, they can build a meaningful connection with themselves and others.
Employs the awareness of body sensation to help people renegotiate and heal their traumas rather than relive them. With appropriate guidance with the body's instinctive "felt sense,” individuals are able to access their own built-in immunity to trauma, allowing the highly aroused survival energies to be safely and gradually discharged. When these energies are discharged, people frequently experience a dramatic reduction in or disappearance of their traumatic symptoms as evidenced by improvement in self-regulation and a deeper understanding of body and mind connection.

If you would like to learn more about the Somatic Experiencing International page website, please click the link below:

Trauma is not what happened to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness

Peter Levine