Release stored tension, promote natural resilience and restore balance.
Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented approach used for healing and resolving trauma. It is based on the observation and understanding of how animals in the wild respond and recover from stressful and life-threatening situations.
Somatic Experiencing works on the principle that trauma gets trapped in the body when there is interference in the renegotiation process of our autonomic nervous system (ANS), leading to post-traumatic stress symptoms. SE provides a gentle way of working with sensations, arousal and activation, and thwarted survival responses by increasing resiliency and resources, as well as building capacity to tolerate what is happening inside us in small, incremental amounts (a technique called titration).
SE utilizes “bottom-up processing” which means utilizing afferent (from body to brain) pathways. It directs attention to our internal sensations, both visceral and Musculo-skeletal, as well as environmental awareness and imagery. This differs from regular talk therapy that utilizes “top-down processing” which is primarily based on cognitive or emotional experiences which misses many avenues of healing.
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