What is Somatic Experiencing (SE)?

From the Somatic Experience Trauma Institute:

The Somatic Experiencing method is a body-oriented approach to the healing of trauma and other stress disorders. Somatic Experiencing releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma.

Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, invasive medical procedures, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear and conflict.

How does Somatic Experiencing work?

From the Somatic Experience Trauma Institute:

The Somatic Experiencing approach 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. In Somatic Experiencing, the traumatic event isn’t what caused the trauma. Trauma is the overwhelmed response to the perceived life threat that is causing an unbalanced nervous system. The aim is to help you access the body memory of the event, not the story.

Here we introduce the concept of titration – slowly releasing energy. Somatic Experiencing® operates in cycles, where you sense your way through the normal oscillations of internal sensation – contraction/expansion, pleasure/pain, warmth/cold – but only at the level that you can handle. This repeated, rhythmic process helps you to develop a greater capacity to handle stress and stay in the present moment, where you belong.

Like other somatic psychology approaches, Somatic Experiencing professes a body-first approach to dealing with the problematic (and oftentimes physical) symptoms of trauma. This means that therapy isn’t about reclaiming memories or changing our thoughts and beliefs about how we feel, but looking at the sensations that lie underneath our feelings and uncovering our habitual behavior patterns to these feelings.