Release stored tension, recover from stress, shock or trauma, and promote natural resilience.
Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented approach used for healing and resolving both the psychological and physical symptoms of trauma. SE helps release traumatic shock, works with overwhelm, intense emotion/sensations, as well as physical sickness, which helps to transform patterns that impact people’s daily lives.
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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