Somatic Experiencing
“You don’t have to know the facts of your story to be able to reprogram the symptoms or the outcomes.”
— Peter A Levine, PhD
The Science Behind Somatic Experiencing
Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person’s ability to function with resilience and ease, and live in the here-and-now.
Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, racial discrimination, oppression, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressors of ongoing fear, conflict, and chronic shaming.
In addition, the Somatic Experiencing approach releases traumatic shock, a key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. Somatic Experiencing offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight, freeze, or collapse responses, and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated psycho- physiological triggers.
When acutely threatened, we mobilize vast energies to protect and defend ourselves. We duck, dodge, twist, stiffen and retract. Our muscles contract to fight or flee. However, if our actions are ineffective, we freeze or collapse. This “last ditch” innate defense of shutdown, when observed in animals, is called tonic immobility and is meant to be a temporary state of paralysis. A wild animal exhibiting this acute physiological shock reaction will either be eaten, or if spared, resume life as before its brush with death.
Humans, in contrast to other animals, frequently remain stuck in a kind of limbo, not fully reengaging in life after experiencing threat as over- whelming terror or horror. In addition, they exhibit a propensity for freezing in situations where a non-traumatized individual might only sense danger or even feel some excitement. Rather than being a last- ditch reaction to inescapable threat, paralysis becomes a “default” response to a wide variety of situations in which one’s feelings are highly aroused. For example, the arousal of sex may turn unexpectedly from excitement to frigidity, revulsion or avoidance.
Although humans are also designed to rebound from high-intensity survival states, we also have the problematic neocortical ability to override the natural regulation. Through rationalizations, judgments, shame, enculturation, and fear of our body sensations, we are able to disrupt our innate capacity to self-regulate, essentially “recycling” disabling terror and helplessness. If the nervous system does not reset after an overwhelming experience, sleep, cardiovascular, digestion, respiration and immune system function become disturbed. Unresolved physiological distress can also lead to an array of cognitive, emotional and behavioral symptoms.
Disclaimer: Currently in training and completing training in Jan 2026.
Bottom Up Processing
Trauma affects brain, mind and body. However, the body often is neglected in the psychotherapy of trauma.
Somatic Experiencing teaches that trauma is not caused by the event itself, but rather develops by the failure of the body, mind, spirit and nervous system to process extreme adverse events. Many approaches to treating trauma aim to correct faulty cognitions and/or access and express emotional content. In contrast, the approach presented here, engages the “Living Body,” through contacting primal sensations that support core autonomic self-regulation and coherence. Work at this level allows the Body to speak its mind. In doing this, the processing moves upwards from these core sensations, upwards, towards feeling/emotions and cognitions. This way both mind and body are given an equal place in an integrative and holistic treatment of trauma.