Somatic Experiencing for trauma held in the body
Understanding Somatic Experiencing: When Trauma Lives in the Body
When people think about therapy for difficult issues, they often imagine talking through painful memories. Talking can be an important part of healing, but it’s important to remember that trauma and difficult emotional experiences are not held solely inside our minds. Very often they rest in our bodies too. It’s so easy, when we’re caught in cycles of rumination, self blame, and uncertainty that can lead to anxiety depression and stress to make the connection that it is our thoughts alone that are causing the symptoms we are experiencing.
Many people notice this without fully understanding why. They may feel constantly tense, anxious, emotionally shut down, exhausted, hyper-alert, or disconnected from themselves and others. Even when life seems outwardly safe, our wonderful nervous systems which have evolved over millennia to protect us can continue responding as though a very real danger is still present.
This is where Somatic Experiencing can help.
Developed by Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (often shortened to SE) is a profoundly gentle, body-based approach to trauma therapy that works with the nervous system to support healing after emotionally overwhelming experiences.
Rather than focusing purely on our thoughts and memories, SE helps us reconnect with our bodies in a safe and gradual way and supports our nervous system to move out of survival mode and towards greater balance, peace and regulation.
What Is Somatic Experiencing?
This approach is based on the understanding that trauma can become ‘stuck’ in our bodies, and then go on to cause us emotional difficulties.
When we experience something very frightening or overwhelming, the body naturally prepares to protect us through the fight, flight, or freeze responses. Sometimes those responses can’t fully complete, especially when those experiences are long lasting, frightening, or inescapable. The nervous system can stay caught in patterns of tension, shutdown, hypervigilance, or overwhelm for a very long time after the original event has passed.
SE works gently with bodily sensations to address this protective response, instead of pushing people to repeatedly revisit traumatic memories.
In my sessions, clients may be invited to notice things such as:
tightness in the chest
changes in breathing
trembling or tension
sensations of heaviness, numbness, warmth, or movement
impulses within the body that may never previously have been noticed
This kind of work is always gradual, collaborative, and slowly paced. The aim is not to overwhelm the client, but to help their nervous system experience safety, regulation, and completion.
Trauma and the Nervous System
Shock to our nervous system is never just a difficult memory, it’s a deeply connected whole body experience. When we start to notice what our bodies are telling us, we find that we can find within us a sense of aliveness, steadiness, and hope and confidence about the future. Often we already know that feeling, we recognise it and want to go back there again. For instance when we have experienced times of deep peace and calm in our lives while doing something we love, something that gives us joy and feels involved with nature perhaps, or is appealing to our innate creativity, or is anything that passionately interests us. At these times we remember how these experiences ‘took us out of ourselves, lost in the moment’, because we were so immersed in the simple pleasure of just being who we really are with no thoughts of the future or the past, just grounded in the present moment, and becoming our true authentic selves.