Somatic Experiencing Therapy: Regaining Resilience

Somatic experiencing is a system of healing techniques designed to help your emotions and body return to their naturally regulated and balanced state after responding to a stressful event(s). Although it may sometimes seem hard to believe, nature has beautifully designed your nervous system to maintain and return to a state of internal balance. This ability to respond to stressful events and then return to internal balance is called “resilience”.

The Natural Response to Stress

A stressful event can trigger what is sometimes referred to as a “fight or fight”, or survival, response. You may recognize this response: you startle, your breath speeds up and gets shallow, your heart races, you can feel angry or scared, or both. All of these reactions are caused by your body automatically preparing you to take action in response to the event.

This can happen many times again during the course of a normal day. Events don’t have to actually be life-threatening for the response to be triggered. A heated argument, rushing to meet a deadline, a “fender bender”, or even a simple fall can mobilize your “fight or flight” response in the same way as, for example, an actual physical attack.

When things are operating smoothly, after the event is over your body will put the “brakes” on so to speak, and slow you back down to normal.

The Stress Response Can Get Overwhelmed/Stuck

However, sometimes this process doesn’t work. There are many possible reasons for this. For example, sometimes an event is too overwhelming for your system to handle, which can in turn depend on the age and developmental stage of the person in question. Being left alone for an hour in a cold room may be experienced as irritating to an adult, frightening to a child, and terrifying to an infant. Another example is if your body is prevented from doing what you need to do to in response to the event. For example, your body may want to run away after being in a car accident, but it can’t if you are strapped into the car with your seat belt.

When your stress response gets stuck, you can experience symptoms such as the inability to relax, anxiety, depression or numbness. Sometimes symptoms can manifest in physical form such as aches and pains, headaches or intestinal disturbances. All of these can be symptoms of excess energy from the fight or flight response that has become trapped in your nervous system. The longer this persists, the less resilient your nervous system can become over time.

The Somatic Experiencing Solution

Somatic Experiencing therapy uses gentle, invitational techniques to help you access and then release this trapped tension. By slowly bringing awareness to your body sensations, your nervous system can be encouraged to resume the process of returning your body to internal balance. You will learn different ways of practicing these techniques outside of your sessions to facilitate the process. Once your nervous system has returned to a more regulated state and regained its resilience, you will be able to respond in a more flexible, open, energized way in the present.

I am a Certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner.

The Development of Somatic Experiencing Therapy

Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing therapy, was originally trained as a biologist. He noticed wild animals literally “shaking off” energy (trembling, moving their limbs, etc.) after a stressful event (for example, after a prey animal narrowly escaped from a predator). He hypothesized that for variety of reasons, human beings can fail to allow their nervous systems to release this energy after they have experienced stress. He theorized that energy trapped in the nervous system can lead to the development of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and even physical tension or pain. Dr. Levine developed Somatic Experiencing therapy to facilitate the body’s natural process of discharging stored excess energy from the nervous system to alleviate such symptoms, and to return the nervous system to its naturally resilient state.

More Resources and Information

You may wish to read either or both of the following books by Peter Levine, Ph.D., founder of Somatic Experiencing therapy:

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences

Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body

An excellent self-help book on the use of Somatic Experiencing therapy in recovering from trauma caused by an automobile accident is Crash Course: A Self-Healing Guide to Auto Accident Trauma and Recovery, by Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D.

 

Karen Caffrey,  LPC,  JD Psychotherapy and Counseling in West  Hartford, CT 06107