Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is an approach to health to seeks to understand not so much why pain and dysfunction are present, but why the pain and dysfunction have not gone away.
We recognize that the body and the mind have innate capacities for healing, health, and function. Somatic Experiencing recognizes that overwhelming events threaten our well-being and when these events remain unresolved, they continue to create disharmony to our well being. This disharmony can be expressed as disease, as chronic pain, as emotional distress, as difficulty in focusing our mental capacities, and impacts our ability to relate socially.
Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are words that capture what is an overwhelming event. Trauma can be from physical impacts external to the body such as a fall, a motor vehicle accident, a surgery, and a fight. Or the impacts can be internal, such as sensations associated with helplessness, shame, rage, terror, loss, or disgust. The impact can be spiritual, which is to say, a threat to meaning. The traumatic impact can be mental, with loss of focus, attention, and problem solving skills.
Somatic Experiencing attends to information arising from the body in terms of felt sensations and observed behaviors (e.g. gestures, facial expression, constrictions, postures). SE attends to information from images that arise during a session. SE attends to affects that present. And SE attends to verbalized meanings that spontaneously arise.
SE is a gentle attuned therapeutic intervention in which you are not alone as we carefully navigate what presents, with care and skill to prevent re-experiencing overwhelming material.
SE can be done seated or lying down, it can be done with many words or few words; touch can be an integral part or not. Most importantly, Somatic Experiencing is a SAFE process for the body and the mind to liberate the energies of health and well being that are bound up in trauma.
See www.traumahealing.com for more information.