somatic experiencing™ (SE) is a modality
that was developed by Peter Levine.
it focuses on healing trauma + chronic stress and
is primarily practiced in a one-on-one setting,
mostly through conversation.
movement + touch can be included.
A: your body + the tools we use
0 - in the first sessions you can get to know how we work together
1 - we will be guided by your awareness, and by small experiments in exploring what it means to be 'here', in the present moment
2 - you can choose what you want to explore
3 - i am here to join you in this journey
4 - we work with what is emerging in each moment
5 - re-telling of an incident can be one option to guide a session,
6 - and we give your body a comfortable space to tell the story, too:
- we observe how you hold your body,
- what movements want to emerge,
- what sensations + emotions you notice, and what happens when they get to take up a little more space
7 - my role is also to mind your nervous system, making sure we stay within the range of activation that is digestible for you.
8 - if you do not want to talk about a certain topic but would still like to work with it, we can do this: it is not necessary to explore topics literally.
exploring just the emotions + sensations that emerge is possible,
as well
B: what is trauma? an example:
imagine an animal going into a freeze state
while being chased by a predator.
by pretending to be dead,
the predator might lose interest and walk away.
once the animal comes out of the freeze state,
you can observe how it is shaking its body:
with this shaking, the nervous system completes its cycle
from (a) walking around without threat
to (b) fight/flight to (c) freeze,
back to (a) walking around without threat.
the animal can move on.
trauma is created when this 'shaking' cannot happen:
the cycle cannot complete,
the experience gets stuck in the nervous system,
impacting the nervous system's capacity
to respond appropriately in the future.
with that, SE could be seen as creating experiences for your nervous system that aid you in completing past trauma cycles.
note: what if threats are on-going, und not in the past?
here we can explore if there are ways in which you could hold yourself with just a little bit more ease. the threats might stay real and present, but your nervous system might have more capacity to be here and functioning, despite