What is Somatic Experiencing® (SE)?
Somatic Experiencing® is a pioneering approach to physical and psychological symptoms of stress, shock and trauma. It works with your body’s natural self-regulating systems, and doesn't necessarily involve touch or bodywork.
Knowledge of trauma’s patterns can both help transform traumatic reactions as well as potentially prevent symptoms developing after an overwhelming event. Practising SE can be a significant support not just in your own life but those around you.
Nature’s wisdom
SE® is based on the work of American psychotherapist Dr Peter Levine who believes trauma is primarily biological - a physical phenomenon - not an incurable disease only marginally controllable as psychologists have chosen to view it.
His theory is based on observations of wildlife. Animals are regularly threatened with death yet rarely traumatised; their survival instinct kicks in, flooding their body with highly charged energy ready for fighting back or running away. When the threat’s passed, that intense energy is discharged and the animal returns to full normal health.
We are all equipped with the same capacity to overcome an overwhelming experience. Yet we also have an upper rational brain that frequently ‘rejects’ the powerful primal instinct of the body. The result is that huge fight/flight energy gets trapped in our nervous system where it can lead to all sorts of symptoms; sometimes immediately, sometimes not until years later.
The power of presence
Through moment-to-moment awareness of sensations in your body (soma), SE® aims to gently re-establish the natural flow of your life energy, supporting the safe release of symptoms from the nervous system, putting the past where it belongs, and restoring body, heart and mind to a relaxed wholeness.
The SE model
For an SEP, your experiences belong to five core components of a therapeutic model called SIBAM:
Sensation - for example, tension, heat, relaxation
Image - internal (memory, dreams, metaphors) or external (an object in the room)
Behaviour - for example, posture, facial expressions, speech
Affect - feelings and emotions
Meaning - beliefs, judgments, thoughts, analysis - often expressed through words
Suffering stress, shock or trauma can feel like it cuts right through you - body, psyche, and spirit. When that happens it points to a compromise in the components of SIBAM, meaning you have become either:
SE’s long-term goal is for you to live a rich and full life with equal access to all parts of SIBAM. In other words, help you become whole again.
The work of Dr Peter Levine and his associates can be found at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.
To watch a short video of Peter Levine giving a summary of Trauma and SE, please go to the Resources page
Somatic Experiencing® is a pioneering approach to physical and psychological symptoms of stress, shock and trauma. It works with your body’s natural self-regulating systems, and doesn't necessarily involve touch or bodywork.
Knowledge of trauma’s patterns can both help transform traumatic reactions as well as potentially prevent symptoms developing after an overwhelming event. Practising SE can be a significant support not just in your own life but those around you.
Nature’s wisdom
SE® is based on the work of American psychotherapist Dr Peter Levine who believes trauma is primarily biological - a physical phenomenon - not an incurable disease only marginally controllable as psychologists have chosen to view it.
His theory is based on observations of wildlife. Animals are regularly threatened with death yet rarely traumatised; their survival instinct kicks in, flooding their body with highly charged energy ready for fighting back or running away. When the threat’s passed, that intense energy is discharged and the animal returns to full normal health.
We are all equipped with the same capacity to overcome an overwhelming experience. Yet we also have an upper rational brain that frequently ‘rejects’ the powerful primal instinct of the body. The result is that huge fight/flight energy gets trapped in our nervous system where it can lead to all sorts of symptoms; sometimes immediately, sometimes not until years later.
The power of presence
Through moment-to-moment awareness of sensations in your body (soma), SE® aims to gently re-establish the natural flow of your life energy, supporting the safe release of symptoms from the nervous system, putting the past where it belongs, and restoring body, heart and mind to a relaxed wholeness.
The SE model
For an SEP, your experiences belong to five core components of a therapeutic model called SIBAM:
Sensation - for example, tension, heat, relaxation
Image - internal (memory, dreams, metaphors) or external (an object in the room)
Behaviour - for example, posture, facial expressions, speech
Affect - feelings and emotions
Meaning - beliefs, judgments, thoughts, analysis - often expressed through words
Suffering stress, shock or trauma can feel like it cuts right through you - body, psyche, and spirit. When that happens it points to a compromise in the components of SIBAM, meaning you have become either:
- too connected to some, such that the same old pattern appears no matter what;or
- disconnected from others, in which you’re numbed and possibly no longer able to experience them.
SE’s long-term goal is for you to live a rich and full life with equal access to all parts of SIBAM. In other words, help you become whole again.
The work of Dr Peter Levine and his associates can be found at the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.
To watch a short video of Peter Levine giving a summary of Trauma and SE, please go to the Resources page
