SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®
Somatic Experiencing® is an effective psychobiological method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress. It is a body-awareness approach that releases traumatic shock. SE® developed from the observations and research of Dr. Peter Levine.
Somatic Experiencing® is a naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine. Somatic Experiencing® is based upon the realization that human beings have the innate ability to overcome the effects of trauma, and restore their nervous system and self to a balanced state. SE® restores self-regulation of the emotional and nervous systems, thereby allowing the traumatized individuals to return to a sense of aliveness, relaxation, and wholeness, gifts that they had taken away from them.
Dr. Levine has applied his work to combat veterans, rape survivors, Holocaust survivors, auto accident, post surgical trauma, natural disaster survivors, man-made disaster survivors, chronic pain sufferers, and even to infants, who suffered traumatic births.
SE® offers a framework to assess where in the autonomic system an individual is "stuck", whether it be in the flight, fight, freeze, or collapse responses. Somatic Experiencing® provides clinical tools to facilitate the resolution of these fixed physiological states.
Somatic Experiencing® is based upon the observation in nature 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 the animals with a built-in "immunity" or protection to trauma, that enables them to return to normal function in the aftermath of highly activating life-threatening experiences.
How SE® works
SE© was developed by Peter Levine, PhD. SE® is supported by research. It is founded on studies observing that wild animal prey are rarely traumatized after an attack, due to internal self-regulating mechanisms that enable healthy discharge of high levels of energy associated with the flight or fight response of the animal.
SE® utilizes awareness of body sensations to help individuals "renegotiate" and process rather than re-live or re- enact the traumatic event.
SE® technique will help the body feel and gradually discharge aroused survival energies.
SE® may employ touch in support of the renegotiation process.
SE® purposefully “titrates” (breaks down in small steps) the therapeutic experience, rather than provoking a large discharge - which could overwhelm the regulatory mechanisms of the body.
For more information about SE® please note the following references:
Levine, P. and Frederick, A. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Kline, M. and Levine, P. (2007). Trauma Through A Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
For further references and information online about SE® go to http://www.traumahealing.com
SE® could result in a number of benefits to you, such as a decrease or relief of traumatic stress symptoms, increased resiliency, and increased resourcefulness.
SE® facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted 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.
Somatic Experiencing® 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® catalyzes corrective bodily experiences that contradict those of fear and helplessness. This resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people's vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.
Dr. Peter Levine talks about how to feel safe.
What do Others have to say about Somatic Therapy?
What is somatic therapy?
Somatic therapy explores how the body expresses deeply painful experiences, applying mind-body healing to aid with trauma recovery.
July 7, 2023
By Maureen Salamon, Executive Editor, Harvard Women's Health Watch
Reviewed by Howard E. LeWine, MD, Chief Medical Editor, Harvard Health Publishing
Trauma can register within our bodies on a cellular level. What that means to an individual — and how best to heal from serious traumas encountered in life — is the focus of a newer form of mental health counseling known as somatic therapy.
The resounding success of The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk— a fixture on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years running — testifies to mounting public awareness that trauma affects people deeply. Thus far, though, somatic therapy hasn't caught up to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and related techniques in understanding, use, or research proving its worth, a Harvard expert says.
What is somatic therapy?
Most people likely haven't heard of somatic therapy, says Amanda Baker, director of the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders and a clinical psychologist in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. Unlike other mind-body approaches such as mindfulness meditation, mind-body stress reduction (MBSR), and mindfulness and self-compassion (MSC) — which are steadily growing in use — somatic therapy hasn't hit the mainstream.
What's the fundamental concept? "It's a treatment focusing on the body and how emotions appear within the body," Baker explains. "Somatic therapies posit that our body holds and expresses experiences and emotions, and traumatic events or unresolved emotional issues can become 'trapped' inside."
Who might benefit from somatic therapy?
Since disturbing feelings often show up in the body in debilitating ways, somatic therapy aims to drain those emotions of their power, relieving pain and other manifestations of stress, such as disrupted sleep or an inability to concentrate.
These types of emotions can stem from a variety of conditions and circumstances that somatic therapy may potentially help alleviate. They include
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
complicated grief
depression
anxiety
trust and intimacy issues
self-esteem problems.
"Anxiety can lead to muscle tension, particularly in the neck, shoulders, jaw, and back," Baker says. "It can cause a lot of discomfort, pain, stiffness, and trouble with daily activities. If we're experiencing chronic anxiety or distress, it's almost like we have our foot on a gas pedal. It's not a panic attack, but we're never feeling a reprieve and there's a constant wear and tear on the body."
How does somatic therapy differ from talk therapies?
Typical talk therapies such as CBT engage only the mind, not the body, encouraging people to become aware of disturbing thoughts and behavior patterns and work to change them.
But in somatic therapy, the body is the starting point to achieve healing. This form of therapy cultivates an awareness of bodily sensations, and teaches people to feel safe in their bodies while exploring thoughts, emotions, and memories.
"Cognitive behavioral therapies focus on conscious thought and work on challenging thoughts in relation to anxiety and behaviors, helping desensitize people to uncomfortable sensations," Baker says. "But somatic therapy is more about relieving the tension, as opposed to desensitizing people to it."
Even mindfulness meditation, which some experts consider somatic in nature, differs in one key way from somatic therapy, Baker says. "Mindfulness meditation lets any feeling or emotion come into our minds without judgment, as opposed to homing in specifically on bodily sensations that are happening," she says.
How is somatic therapy carried out?
A somatic therapist helps people release damaging, pent-up sensations and blocked neuro-pathways in their body by using various mind-body techniques. These can vary widely, ranging from stabilizing the client to orient in their environment and be present to their physical experience, breathwork and physical movement.
Other techniques are just as integral and are critical household terms. Some on this list include:
body awareness, which helps people recognize tension spots in the body as well as conjure calming thoughts
pendulation, which guides people from a relaxed state to emotions similar to their traumatic experiences and then back to a relaxed state
titration, which guides people through a traumatic memory while noting any accompanying physical sensations and addressing them in real time
resourcing, which helps people recall resources in their lives that promote feelings of calm and safety, such as special people, places and experiences.
What to know if you're considering somatic therapy
Scant scientific research has focused on somatic therapy and its benefits, Baker notes. That's one reason why she always recommends cognitive behavioral therapy, which has proven benefits, as at least a starting point.
"Anecdotally, I've heard people do find tremendous benefit from somatic therapy, but it doesn't have the same research backing yet as CBT and some other forms of therapy," she says.
Health insurance may be more likely to cover somatic therapy, she says, when a person is dealing with extreme symptoms of mental trauma, such as seizures. Otherwise, insurers are more apt to cover established therapies such as CBT.
Additionally, finding an experienced somatic therapist can be challenging. "I think fewer folks are going to be trained in somatic therapies than CBT, so finding an experienced practitioner is definitely a tricky process," Baker says. One useful resource is the US Association for Body Psychotherapy, which offers a Find a Therapist search tool online.
About the Author
Maureen Salamon, Executive Editor, Harvard Women's Health Watch
About the Reviewer
Howard E. LeWine, MD, Chief Medical Editor, Harvard Health Publishing
Disclaimer:
As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review or update on all articles.
No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
Traditional Therapies versus Neuro-psychobiological Therapies
Harvard and others unfortunately continue to believe that therapies such a Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), because they are so easily measurable in scholarly research, are safer and more reliable avenues to address trauma and other challenges. Unfortunately, CBT and other “talk” therapies do not allow for the discharge of trauma and PTSD from the body, and can cause trauma repetition. As Bessel van der Kolk’s book is titled: “The Body Keeps the Score!”
The Center for Trauma Healing continues to research and publish papers showing the essential value in undertaking somatic therapy to deal with chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and other challenges.
Research Article on the Application of SE©
This groundbreaking article by leading neuroscientist Ruth Lanius, PhD, has direct implications for the application of SE theory and clinical research.
Trauma affects our ability to be in contact with our sense of self through both cognitive (top-down) and somatic (bottom-up) processes. People with trauma report this clearly in phrases Lanius documents in her article such as: ‘I do not know myself anymore,' ‘I will never be able to experience normal emotions again,' and ‘I feel dead inside.'
There is a growing body of research that supports the role of three large-scale brain systems in emotional regulation capacity and mental health. These are: the Default Mode Network (sense of self when quiet), Salience Network (system of importance and relevance), Cognitive/Executive Network (top-down integration of meaning and affect).
The Default Mode Network is active during self-referential, autobiographical processing of memories and creates what Winnicott called the ‘sense of going on being' when there is continuity in the network over time. For individuals with trauma, the resting state Default Mode Network shows significant reductions in system connectivity, indicating a disruption to the sense of self and feeling of continuity in time. This relates in many ways to the relationship between under-coupling and freeze states discussed in the SE theory.
The ability to understand how the Default Mode Network functions can have wide-ranging implications in how trauma is addressed. Under-coupling in this system may account for many of the ‘dissociative’ symptoms of trauma including cognitive fog and other symptoms from long-term COVID.
Read More: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20008198.2020.1807703
Full Article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fuZapwI7GIH3uevLUz5LHkRihtDHtkJS/view?usp=sharing
Lanius, R. A., Terpou, B. A., & McKinnon, M. C. (2020). The sense of self in the aftermath of trauma: lessons from the default mode network in posttraumatic stress disorder. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11(1), 1807703.