I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice who uses Somatic Experiencing in the treatment of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Somatic Experiencing is an approach to trauma treatment that was developed by Dr. Peter Levine who noticed that animals in the wild do not exhibit symptoms of trauma, despite frequent life threatening situations, and he asked the question, what is it about humans that we develop symptoms of trauma? We share the basic mammalian neurophysiology and we respond to threats in the same basic ways, so what is different. The difference is our highly developed neocortex, we use our cognitive functions to override the limbic and brainstem instinctual responses and as a result the excess survival energy of Flight and Fight are not fully processed by the body. The definition of trauma as understood by an Somatic Experiencing Practitioner is that something happened that was too much and too fast for the body to integrate and process. This leaves excess survival energy in the Sympathetic Nervous System that feels like fear or anger stuck in the nervous system. Of course, I am oversimplifying the process quite a bit, but clinically this is what shows up in my office. The freeze response comes into play when a person is unable to fight or flee and similar to a car with both gas and brakes fully extended, the body appears to be in a low energy immobilized state, but there is the full charge of excess survival energy underneath that. This can look like depression and feeling numb that alternates with anxiety and panic or anger and rage. 

 People come to my practice with anxiety, difficulty sleeping, hypervigilence, anger issues, depression, and dissociation that result from some overwhelming experience. Symptoms, as viewed by a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner are the body’s attempt to return to balance  following overwhelming experience. Mammals in the wild are resilient to trauma because they have the opportunity to complete the body’s hardwired Fight, Flight, or Freeze response to threat. They live instinctually. A human being frequently halts the completion of these responses when we don’t get a chance to flee or fight and we go into a physiological freeze response. We talk ourselves out of taking the time that the body needs to shake and tremble, then settle after an accident or a fall. When our body can’t fully process the threat response energy, it can get stuck in the nervous system where it becomes a symptom. 

In my practice, I guide people through this threat response cycle, helping them bring in the resources and support that wasn’t there at the time so that the body can balance itself. The most exciting aspect of my job is that I get to sit with people’s inherent, biological resilience. Our bodies are fully equipped to heal from trauma when we have the right kind of support.