Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing is a form of alternative therapy aimed at alleviating symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other health problems related to mental and physical trauma by focusing on the client’s perceptions of bodily sensations (or somatic experiences). It was developed by trauma therapist Peter A. Levine.
Works are usually done in person and involve the client monitoring their own experience. Clinicians are often mental health professionals such as social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists (MFTs), or psychotherapists, but they can also be nurses, physicians, bodyworkers, physical therapists, chaplains, clergy, or members of other professions.
Another element of somatic experience therapy is the movement between regulation and dysregulation. The client is helped to move into a dysregulated state (ie, excited or frozen, as manifested by physical symptoms such as pain or numbness), and then iteratively helped to return to a regulated state.
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In Somatic Experiencingthe goal is to enable the client to resolve physical and mental difficulties caused by trauma, and thus to be able to respond appropriately to everyday situations.
“Resources” are defined as anything that helps the client’s autonomic nervous system return to a regulated state. It could be a memory of someone close to them, a physical item that could ground them in the present moment, or other supportive elements that minimize distress. In the face of excitement, “letting go” is facilitated so that the client’s body can return to a regulated state. Regulation may take the form of tears, a warm feeling, an unconscious movement, the ability to breathe slowly again, or other responses that indicate that the autonomic nervous system is returning to baseline. The intent of this process is to strengthen the client’s inherent ability to self-regulate.
Somatic Experiencing is used for both shock and developmental trauma. Shock trauma is loosely defined as a traumatic event in a single episode such as a car accident, a natural disaster such as an earthquake, a battlefield incident, a physical assault, etc. Developmental trauma refers to various types of psychological damage that occur during a child’s development when the child does not receive sufficient or high-quality attention from primary caregivers.
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