Somatic Experiencing® (SE) offers a new and positive perspective of trauma.
Somatic Experiencing® is a powerful psychobiological method to resolve symptoms of trauma and discharge chronic stress.
With this method, it is possible to restore the nervous system, the body’s internal balance, improve resilience towards stress, increase vitality, equanimity and the person’s ability to actively participate in life.
Developed by Dr. Peter A. Levine, Somatic Experiencing® is a short-term, naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma based on the observation of wild animals. This observation provides the knowledge that, although animals are routinely threatened, they are rarely traumatized. They use innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energetic excitation associated with survival behaviors.
Although we humans are born with the same regulatory mechanisms as wild animals (like any other mammal), the function of these innate systems can often be invalidated or inhibited, mainly because of the specific culture or society we live in.
Our tendency to force responses that contradict our instinct prevents the survival energy from being completely discharged. Such undressed energy can remain “blocked” in our body and in our nervous system, causing physical symptoms or emotional disorders.
By uniting the highest cerebral functions of the refined consciousness with the most primitive instincts, it is possible to “modulate” the trauma by incorporating the same “immunity” of the animals into ourselves.
Thanks to SE, trapped survival energies can be released and transformed, allowing us to return to a balanced state after going through overwhelming experiences such as fear, anger, impotence, loss, etc. that we are faced with when there’s an event that impact us.
In other words, we are able to restore and develop our innate and natural capacity to thrive after having experienced extreme events.
It is possible to transform the trauma and, in this way, be more fully human and return to the course of our own life.