Somatic Experiencing® is a robust healing modality that resolves many types of traumas. I’ve found Somatic Experiencing® works best for Shock Trauma (such as assault, car accidents, etc), Complex Trauma (when trauma experiences are perpetuated over a long time and the traumatic state becomes the norm), Relational Trauma, Sexual Trauma, just to name a few. Additionally, I was trained and supervised by a team of educators and consultants who are certified in attachment healing (DARe, which stands for Dynamic Attachment Repatterining Experience), which in turn makes the way I facilitate Somatic Experiencing® a highly relational healing experience. Because of this, I’ve found Somatic Experiencing® also helpful in healing Developmental Trauma too.

Somatic Experiencing® is likely the most stunning healing modality I have witnessed and trained in, the ways it reinstalls vitality and life force while finally silencing the echo chamber of trauma is profound.

Somatic Experiencing® starts with orienting to our environment, this is a basic animal instinct that often gets inhibited when we are traumatized and needs to be rebuilt - especially before going into highly activating material like trauma where we can get stuck in the pain without an expert guide. From there we’ll explore body sensations in context to the trauma you are wanting to resolve. This typically takes place over many sessions, as my goal is to listen to the language of your body to resolve what is stuck in the nervous system (your story is precious to me, and I also know its been looping in an activated body for a very long time). During that those sessions we will reactivate annihilated fight responses, discharge flight responses, and metabolize freeze responses (to include dissociation). I’ll help resource you when things get big, and help you move forward and stay with your body so we don’t just stay on the surface - following your timeline of safety. We’ll also deeply embed successes so you can call on them with confidence the next time challenge arises.

We all have experienced trauma in some way, shape or form in the monolithic stories of our lives. By nature, trauma is any event that is too big to make sense of or process. Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing® spent years studying animals in the wild who have an uncanning ability to “shake off” threatening experiences without getting stuck, unlike humans. Through his studies he observed key differences in how the body overcomes threat without chronic activation patterns in physiology. Those activation patterns could be avoiding things that remind us of trauma (either consciously or unconsciously), keep us keyed up, or keep us reentering threat so harm keeps happening to us. One of the things I love about Somatic Experiencing® is how the Fight response is celebrated (not feared) on behalf of the therapist, leading to a sense of competency and mastery when reinstalled in an adaptive way. The language of and the ways a Somatic Experiencing® provider approaches session is vastly different than any other form of therapy I’ve encountered, we are trained to look for and respond to activation patterns. A big difference in SE sessions is that we will work with incomplete survival responses from past experiences. A large part of post traumatic stress is how the incomplete responses stay stored in a loop within the mind and body, completion is our goal.

I have completed the Beginning Level (year) of the 3+ year Somatic Experiencing® program through Somatic Experiencing International (SEI) created by Peter Levine PhD. I am progressing through all 3 Levels as it is formally assigned through the institute. I have received over a year of SE personal sessions from highly trained SEP’s, I am observed in my facilitation of the SE model during training, and receive ongoing consultation by SEI-approved SEP-certified consultants highly involved in SEI trainings. I am on the pathway to certification myself with upcoming trainings in order to attain the certified SEP credential upon completion.

• Being a fellow therapist with curiosity about body centered therapy & the impact on their own healing.

• Living through chronic stress or trauma.

• Wanting to prevent trauma from being traumatizing.

• Difficulties with sights, sounds, people, or places that remind you of trauma.

• Feeling like you have been doing all the right things with little relief. Maybe you’re worked with several great therapists, but find yourself in similar problems.

• Body sensations or discomfort unrelated to any medical conditions. This could be tension, ticks, jerks, GI issues, acid reflux, fatigue, etc.

• Having lived through a single event or chronic trauma including sexual, physical or emotional abuse.

• Difficulties with anger, anxiety or depression, stuckness, and frozen in life.

• Relationship difficulties.

• Ping-ponging between activation, people pleasing, and not being able to get out of bed.

• Avoiding hard tasks, feeling like you just can’t succeed at the goals you’ve made for yourself.

• Chronically worried people will hurt you.

Somatic Experiencing® works in deep study of the Central Nervous System and how physiologically holds the legacy of traumatic shock causing symptoms in the system. It is a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics. Trauma can range from acute perceived life-threat to a cumulative end point of chronic ongoing stress, with a vast range of “big” and “little” T traumas sitting in the middle. Somatic Experiencing® is very much about completion: completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body that cause trauma. Dr. Peter Levine spent years studying animals in the wild and how they regularly overcome threatening conditions such as death in the animal kingdom without issue. When fight and flight are not options, we freeze and immobilize, similar to “playing dead” to become less of a target, SE does incredible work at unfreezing the human system. Somatic Experiencing® providers are highly trained in (normalizing and) helping support the body in discharging shakes and trembles to complete the immobility so the body can finally register the threat is over and the charge is no longer trapped (or suppressed). Somatic Experiencing® deeply trains providers on identifying and tracking and gently guiding clients through the completion arc following bodily micro-movements traditional therapists overlook. Somatic Experiencing® uses tools such as Orienting, Pendulation, Felt Sense, Completion of Survival Responses, and Resourcing. Somatic Experiencing® cannot be performed alone or incognito in the community (such as in a martial arts studio), it requires a highly trained and empathic SE witness to guide the process, as relationship is a large part of the process.