Somatic Experiencing (SE) was developed by Peter Levine. It is a psychotherapeutic approach for dealing with and resolving trauma. Animals in the wild are exposed repeatedly to stressful events, but hardly bear the marks of trauma that human beings seem to retain and suffer from.
Levine set out to observe and discover whether human beings have the same potential that animals in the wild have to regulate their nervous system and avoid traumatization.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) and How the Body is Involved
Somatic Experiencing uses “tracking” of body sensations through dialogue to access high energy arousal of the nervous system. Trauma is an incomplete biological process in which the fight/flight mechanism has been activated without having had the possibility of discharging it.
It is this aroused “high energy” within the nervous system that leads to a multitude of physical and psychological suffering. Focusing on body sensations facilitates accessing trauma which is held within the body-memory tissues, or in other words, the unconscious.
Trauma is an incomplete biological process in which the fight/flight mechanism has been activated without having had the possibility of discharging it.
Trauma, from a physio-biological point of view, is a disruption of the free flow of energy within the nervous system. This will lead to hyperactivation of the nervous system with the following symptoms: anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, inability to relax, emotional flooding, sleeplessness, rage, and hostility. When the nervous system is negatively discharging through hyperactivation, it tends to vacillate in a counterpoint mode to the opposite extreme of hypoactivation, followed by these symptoms: lethargy, stasis, disconnection, exhaustion, depression, and disequilibrium.
It is as though the high energy arousal of an adverse event or period in one’s life hasn’t been able to discharge through fight or flight mode and has paralyzed itself within the body’s systems.
Working Safely towards Resolution: Titration and Containment
Somatic Experiencing (SE) allows the accessing of trauma through listening to and observing body sensations. It does this in a way that is not overwhelming for the patient; it slows down the whole process and gives the patient the ability to regulate and integrate the release of energy. This goes by the term “titration.”
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It uses vacillation between a state of regulation, where the patient feels safe, and dysregulation, where the trauma becomes apparent and activated, to step-by-step assistance in digesting the energy of trauma and dysregulation into the regulation of body systems and related psychopathologies.
Have your used Somatic Experiencing to help heal trauma? Leave your comment below.