Somatic Experiencing Therapy
Trauma, stress, and overwhelm in life can cause disturbances throughout the body. Somatic Experiencing (SE) therapy can help to integrate these disturbances and increase a person’s sense of internal peace. People don’t realize that carrying stress, tension, chronic pain, guilt, and shame can have both negative short and long-term consequences to their health, well-being, and relationships. These factors can also suck the joy and energy from an individual’s life.
How Does Somatic Experiencing Work?
Somatic experiencing works to reconnect the brain-body connection, which often becomes disconnected when we face stressors and/or challenges. SE works by integrating past stressful experiences (memories, sensations, emotions, scents, etc) within the body so that these experiences no longer negatively impact a person’s daily functioning. This then helps to regulate the nervous system and body.
SE achieves integration by activating aspects of past experiences and tracking the body’s response until these responses are completed. Bessel Van Der Kolk said it best “The Body Keeps the Score”. SE holds this position as well. Thus, by tracking body sensations and how they move, change, and shift, an SE therapist near you will help you to move from activation to deactivation. Deactivation occurs when we feel settled, safe(r), and connected to ourselves. These sensations may signify that past experiences have been integrated and the activation/deactivation cycle has been completed.
Somatic Experiencing Interventions
A somatic therapist will tailor interventions to meet your individual needs in each session. SE’s interventions are designed to not increase your overall stress nor retraumatize you. SE therapist will use is to invite the client to notice a sensation, emotion, impulse and to track these occurrences throughout the body. Sometimes, an SE therapist will inquire if there is an image or mean that arises throughout the session.
What Can Somatic Experiencing Help Heal?
- Low self-esteem – empower yourself to take on new challenges.
- Medical trauma – SE is a gentle way to heal from past events.
- Anxiety – what is it like to sit with anxiety vs pushing it away?
- Dysregulated Nervous System – build a more responsive life
End with Integration and Meaning
SE’s end goal is the integration of past dysfunctional material and meaning-making. This often occurs when a person’s distress transforms into (could be any of the following or something here not mentioned – so don’t limit yourself!) empowerment, making meaning, resilience, patience, and/or peace when thinking about past events. Thus, people will always have past memories of stress and trauma, but these memories will no longer hold their negative, guilt or shame filled meaning/emotions.
Somatic Experiencing Therapist in Kenosha, WI
At Revitalize Mental Health PLLC, Daniel Gospodarek, is in the middle stages of his training to become a Somatic experience Practitioner (SEP). Daniel currently provides solely SE therapy or a combination of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and SE sessions.
If you are ready to break free from the chains that hold you back in life. Look no further. Call 720.295.6703, or click here to schedule a free 15-minute consultation call.
