What is Somatic Experiencing®

The Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) method is a therapeutic practice that focuses on traumatic, overwhelming or stressful experiences that are stored in the body.

It is a body awareness approach to release stress and restore your well-being by trusting the body’s innate ability to heal and reinstate a capacity for self-regulation.

According to Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, “SE is not a form of exposure therapy; it specifically avoids direct and intense evocation of traumatic memories, instead approaching the charged memories indirectly and very gradually, as well as facilitating the generation of new corrective interoceptive experiences that physically contradict those of overwhelm and helplessness.”

The goal of the SE approach is to help you attune to your body, establish safety and bring yourself to a more grounded, safe, relaxed state

What to Expect in an SE™ Session:

The Somatic Experiencing method is a body oriented approach that focuses on both the experience of trauma and the responses that have become frozen or “stuck” in time as a result of the body’s inability to complete its innate self protective fight or flight response in the face of threat.

As an SE therapist, I watch for physiological and emotional patterns that reflect this experience and offer my clients ways to move through these “stuck” self-protective responses.

Change can come through movement, as well as sensory and emotional discharge. For more information, please visit the SE website.

I am now offering the Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) to enhance and facilitate the work of Somatic Experiencing, as well as The Sensory Spa to help support nervous system regulation.