Somatic Experiencing^® (SE) is a body-awareness approach to the resolution of trauma developed by Dr. Peter Levine and refined over the past 40 years.  There are approximately 5,000 SE practitioners across the globe. 

SE is based on the awareness that trauma involves a response in the body (the fight or flight response) and that symptoms resulting from trauma are often based in the incompletion of this physiological response.

From the SE perspective, trauma is not necessarily limited to what we typically view as traumatic, such as war, natural disasters, violent attacks, and car accidents.  A trauma response can also result from feeling helpless or overwhelmed during a medical procedure, lack of safety with a parent or even a sudden fall.  For some, adapting to a complete change in life circumstance might cause a feeling of overwhelm and result in traumatic effects.  One person may experience an event as overwhelming and therefore suffer from residual effects while another person might have the same experience with no apparent effects.  Additionally, residual effects of trauma may not show up for years, or even decades after the incident, perhaps triggered by another event or by a reminder of the event.

The fight-or-flight response is instinctual in humans, as it is in other animals, and is designed to keep us alive. Our bodies gather energy and there is a physical change in the nervous system from rest to vigilance.  The decision is made to either fight, or flee.  Sometimes when the situation is overwhelming, the body may also choose to freeze.  Once the threat has been averted, animals eventually discharge the energy that they have gathered and return to an alert but relaxed state. With humans this discharge might take the form of shaking, trembling, sighing or even crying. Unlike animals, however, our thinking minds sometimes circumvent this discharge and the energy gathered to address a potential threat remains locked in our bodies even after the threat has passed.  In some ways, the body continues to react as if the threat still existed, locked in that fight or flight response and unable to let it go.

The symptoms associated with this interrupted fight-or-flight response can vary from being easily startled or scared by something that reminds you of the incident (or person), to difficulty in social situations; a sense of constant lack of safety; difficulty concentrating or inability to relax; intense or overwhelming anger or irritability; problems with digestion, the immune system and the nervous system and sometimes even to debilitating physical ailments. 

The SE approach is that given the opportunity the body can be assisted to come back to balance, eventually returning to that alert but relaxed state.  This process might be fairly brief, or may take some time, depending on a number of factors.

Body-centered awareness is also helpful to address the anxiety that can arise as a result of the sometimes overwhelming pace of modern life.

If you think you might be helped by Somatic Experiencing, please feel free to give me a call.  We can talk briefly about what you're experiencing and I can let you know whether I might be able to help or refer you to someone who can. 

I can be reached at 773-531-8513 or you can email me at fran@francinekelley.com .  Please be aware that although I do not allow anyone else to read my emails, it is impossible to ensure the confidentiality of email correspondence as it travels over the internet.

Wishing for you peace of body and of mind.