What is Somatic Experiencing ?

Somatic Experiencing® has been created and developed by Peter Levine Ph.D.  He has found there is a critical difference between those who become traumatized and those who do not become traumatized in the same traumatic situation based on recovery process of animals after they are attacked by other predators.

You may have experienced heart beating, sweating, tension in the shoulders, stomachache and so on under certain circumstances. These are physical signs manifested in the body due to irregular or stagnant energy in the nervous system.

When trauma becomes triggered by a certain situation or a person, your body becomes activated in the Sympathetic Nervous System. Trauma makes your nervous system overwork, and energy in the nervous system has not become able to be regulated within the normal range. Dr. Peter Levine calls this irregulation in the nervous system stagnant energy and has discovered that releasing this stagnant energy release you from trauma, PTSD, Panic attacks, anxiety, and anger. Somatic Experiencing has been applied to work on Eating Disorders and Substance Dependence as well. 

Somatic Experiencing Practitioners truly believes that human beings possess their own natural and organic healing ability. Compared to talk therapy,  you will spend most of time on tracking your physical sensation, and releasing stagnant energy out of the nervous system in Somatic Experiencing sessions. 

1 – The Official Web for Somatic Experiencing.

Sample structure of Somatic Experiencing® 

In sessions using Somatic Experiencing, I will assist you to pay more attention to your physical experiences in the body such as tension, tingling, hotness, coldness, and so on. Then, I will help you keep track of your sensations very slowly. Slow pace is one of the crucial components in this modality in order to track the physical sensation and release the traumatic energy out of the nervous system since physical sensation manifests and moves very slowly. Simultaneously, I will assist you to build or rebuild positive experiences involved with Parasympathetic Nervous System.  Building positive experiences will build your strength of the nervous system and reinforce your self-esteem in order to fight against trauma.

Releasing the stagnant energy from the nervous system will help separate (dis-associate) negative emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations from traumatic events, and will, in turn, help integrate (re-associate) positive emotions, thoughts and physical sensations with them. In other words, it gradually transforms an old pattern.

Here is some example. Say, you have had a car accident before. You feel anxious whenever you see cars on the street. This means that the car accident is associated with the anxiety. I will help disconnect the anxiety from the car accident while rebuilding positive experiences in you. You will gradually re-associate the car accident with the positive experiences.

Using Somatic Experiencing principles, I will assist you to figure out behavioral patterns as well. For example, you did something wrong at work. You kept thinking about it over and over. You tried to distract yourself from the negative thought by working on something else. Somehow, it kept coming back to your mind. There is normally some physical & sensational pattern before negative thought starts to keep bothering you. First, your eyelid becomes narrow. Second, your face looks down, Then, your negative thought comes up in the mind. Normally, you skip a physical and sensational pattern and your negative thought just sticks to you so that you feel  that your negative thought suddenly comes up to your mind. In a session, I will assist you to become aware of your own physical and sensational pattern, and to release stagnant energy out of the nervous system, utilizing Somatic Experiencing principles.  

Benefits of Somatic Experiencing® 

1 – Enhance an ability to notice your physical sensation,

2 – build resilience and positive resource via nervous system.

3 – discharge nervous energy built up from nervous system securely.

4 – relieve symptoms of anger, anxiety, depression, fear, frustration, guilt, hypervigilance, irritation, phobia, trauma, stress and

5 – change your perspectives and perception of the past trauma and oneself.

6 – reconnect mind and body more in harmony.  

7 – feel less triggered by traumatic memories and current life situations.

9 – allow a sense of coherence or wholeness.

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