Somatic Experiencing (SE) - Body Based Trauma Therapy
What to Expect From an SE Meeting
“Be truthful now,
See yourself as you really are.
You’ve got a hidden wound,
and this is no time for posing.
When inward tenderness
finds that secret hurt,
the pain itself will crack the rock
and, ah! let the soul emerge.
Jalaluddin Rumi
Finding the Hidden Wound, An Opening for Healing
The wound is the place of where Trauma happens, and finding it is an opportunity for ongoing engagement for real healing, opening the door for self discovery and finding joy by being present with life.
Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that disrupt our normal sense of safety and security. Traumatic experiences can often involve a threat to life, a violation, or an attack on our sense of safety. However, any situation that leaves us feeling overwhelmed and isolated can be traumatic; even if it doesn’t involve physical harm. The trauma can leave us with a deep sense of insecurity and fear and a painful disconnection from the body.
It is not necessarily the objective facts of the experience that determine whether an event is traumatic, but rather our subjective response and emotional reactions to the event. And the more frightened and helpless we feel, the more likely we are to be traumatized. When humans are overwhelmed by threat, our instinctive survival mechanisms can leave us ‘frozen’ in fear.
However, animals in the wild, though routinely threatened, appear to be rarely traumatised. By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, provides an insight into the resolution of trauma in humans.
Working Together to Heal the Wound
In my work, I aim to help people expand their body awareness and reconnect with their body's innate resources in order to regain their sense of self. My orientation and passion is in finding the point where mind-body and spirit meet. In my experience, it is this spark, which ignites profound healing and transformation.
Healing the rupture in the sense of self is a life-long journey. My intent is to help the person embark on this journey by finding their inner compass, through the process of Somatic Experiencing, to reconnect to the body. This reconnection often establishes a healthier and more secure sense of self and an ability to be present with the body.
Reconnect Through Somatic Experiencing
Reconnecting with the body requires active engagement with the body. We teach you simple and effective skills that activate physis, which is your body’s innate healing mechanism, through regular practice of these skills both in and out of the session, bringing about self-regulating abilities. We work at a pace that is set by you, and it is always gentle. We place great importance on providing a safe therapeutic holding space.
We work on reconnecting, because we disconnect from our body and our feelings at such an early age in response to overwhelming and traumatic experiences. Over the years our defensiveness, behavioral patterns and modern lifestyle reinforce and harden this division. As a result, we become disembodied and dispirited. We lose our enthusiasm for life. So, coming back to the body means "rolling up our sleeves" and doing the basic work, in therapy and in our lives.
As mentioned, the process entails gently revisiting developmental issues from childhood or shock trauma with in-depth somatic work, to increase awareness, foster emotional expression, and restore the body's feeling capacity. This creates a centered space inside so that the self can emerge. In the therapeutic relationship the disowned aspects of the self are recognized and mirrored, thereby anchoring them in the felt sense of the body.
Areas We Can Explore Together:
• Anxiety, fears, phobias, and panic attacks
• Stress & feeling overwhelmed
• Depression, shame, grief, loss, lack of self worth and esteem
• Relational or Developmental Trauma Issues
• Psycho-somatic issues; Digestive issues, eczema, migraines, tension headaches, unexplained infertility, menstrual issues
• An inability to love, nurture or form a connection/bond with others
• Compulsive thoughts & OCD
• Chronic Fatigue, Exhaustion & Muscular- skeletal Pain
Session Fee £50 - For 60 minutes Somatic Experiencing session
Understanding the Benefits of Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a different perspective on trauma. SE is a short-term naturalistic approach to the renegotiation and resolution of post-traumatic stress reactions. It is based on the observation that animals in the wild use innate mechanisms, which regulate and neutralise the high levels of arousal associated with our defensive survival behaviours.
Somatic experiencing focuses on bodily sensations, rather than thoughts and memories about the traumatic event(s). By concentrating on what is happening in the body in the present moment, it is possible to release pent-up trauma-related energy through the gradual identification and gentle physical release of the trauma that is held within the body. This is done by releasing those ‘frozen’ physiological states of overwhelm, tracking sensations, feelings, emotions, and movements in the body.
SE normalises the symptoms of trauma, which are expressions of the aroused state, and offers the steps needed to resolve trauma responses sometimes known as ‘activation’ and ‘dissociation’ and heal trauma. Although humans possess the regulatory mechanisms virtually identical to those in animals, these systems are often overridden and inhibited by our rational and conscious mind; our advanced human cognitive processes.
This cognitive restraint leads to the formation of trauma related symptoms which may include; anxiety and agitation, fear, feeling sad, anger, irritability, mood swings, difficulty concentrating, hyperarousal, feeling disconnected (dissociation), hypervigilance, insomnia, anxiety, fatigue, isolation, withdrawal from others, denial, guilt and shame.
Through a focussed awareness of body sensations, individuals can access the restorative physiological action patterns and allow the highly aroused survival energies to be safely and gradually renegotiated and neutralised. Unregulated arousal that was previously ‘locked in’ the neuromuscular and central nervous systems can be gently discharged and completed, thus preventing and resolving traumatic symptoms.
Understanding Trauma Better: Some Quotes and Facts on Trauma
Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the event itself. They arise when residual energy from the experience is not fully ‘discharged’ from the body, but rather remains ‘trapped’ in the nervous system where it causes ongoing distress and discomfort. (Levine)
Trauma is “a breach in the protective barrier against stimulation leading to overwhelming feelings of helplessness”. (Freud)
“Psychological trauma is the state of severe fright that we experience when we are confronted with a sudden, unexpected potentially life-threatening event over which we have no control, and to which we are unable to respond; no matter how hard we try” (Flannery) (Known as the freeze response)
“Trauma happens when the organism is strained beyond its capacity to adapt to and regulate states of arousal. The traumatised nervous system disorganises, breaks down and cannot reset itself. This state manifests itself in global fixation, in a fundamental loss of the natural rhythmic capacity to self-regulate arousal, to orientate and be present in the here and now. (Levine)