Somatic Experiencing is a body-focused trauma therapy that was developed by Peter Levine. It is based on the idea that trauma is not mainly a problem of memory or attachment. The theory is that survival energy that was mobilized during dangerous situations could not properly dissolve (usually because of limited ability to move the way our body wanted to) and therefore got ‘stuck’ in our nervous system. The goal is to release that energy to restore balance. Somatic Experiencing is not a single tool, it is its own therapy approach. That makes it hard to explain it all in one article. We’ve been teaching you tools that were taken from SE for years now and I will link the articles you can check out for a deeper dive.
.
Stabilization
SE is heavily based on the polyvagal theory and uses the polyvagal ladder to explain stress responses. In the stabilization phase we will learn how to recognize our stress responses and accept them as a normal reaction to danger. Because a felt sense of safety is key to regulation, we learn how to become aware of safety by looking around and allowing ourselves to fully notice what is happening (and what is not happening) to promote natural regulation. If we are stuck in chronic dysregulation (either chronic hyperarousal or chronic hypoarousal) we can learn how our window of tolerance was affected by trauma, what to expect from the process of getting grounded again and practice exercises that can help us to return to body awareness. We will also work on establishing resources that we can use to support our regulation.
.
Main strategies
The 2 overarching strategies in SE are Titration and Pendulation.
Titration means taking the smallest possible steps, allowing ourselves to have a reaction to them and for that reaction to dissolve before taking the next step.
Pendulation describes a way of moving our focused attention from a stressful experience to a resource and back to invite processing and integration of the things that got stuck.
Both of these strategies are important in all of trauma therapy and can easily be included in every other therapy approach. Most of my own success in coaching myself is based on a keen intuition on how to use them together to regulate myself when facing difficult tasks and how to co-regulate other parts using the same principles.
.
Main tools
Regulation tools in SE come down to a simple sequence. First you establish safety. Then you look around to get oriented towards that safety. Then you add resources that will further help your nervous system to regulate itself. It’s always these 3 steps in this order until you do it automatically. Here is a detailed example of how to get out of a freeze response using this SE tool that also explains how to track the development of body sensations through the process..
Since our window of tolerance is probably very small, we can work on gently widening it. In this technique we approach whatever makes us feel stressed in a titrated way, only about 3% or until we notice that we are starting to respond with stress. Then we take time to regulate ourselves (pendulation) and start a new tiny attempt to approach it. Over time, we will be able to tolerate more of the stressor because our body learned how to regulate itself when we face it. This will increase our freedom in life when we are dealing with triggers.
The other approach that SE is relatively famous for is the actual release tool for trauma processing. It can be used to resolve every kind of stress that got stuck and where we failed to regulate ourselves. With this tool, we approach the traumatic scene and check our instinctive movement impulses. Then we step slightly away from the scene and follow those movement impulses either in imagination or in real life. Doing it slowly and repeatedly helps the brain to notice that we are finishing the past action. It can lead to a release of the stuck energy through the body. To avoid overwhelm this too is done using titration and pendulation.
Your SE therapist would only approach these harder tasks after establishing proper resources, grounding and your ability to regulate yourself.
.
Benefits of SE over other approaches
SE teaches actual regulation skills instead of distraction skills like many of the DBT skills you might know. It makes us independent from carrying a skill kit and having to rely on artificial stimulation that can draw attention to us. The grounding skills are simply speaking a lot more suited for (c)PTSD and its specific problems of perceived danger.
It also includes a whole concept of how to get out of chronic states of dysregulation. The way grounding or mindfulness is taught in PTSD programs might be too difficult for us and cause more harm than good and SE is aware of it and offers a more gentle and manageable approach.
SE is suited for working with very early trauma where memory was not stored as a story but as states and sensations. It is not necessary to know what exactly happened to us. We can still resolve these stuck states. Other trauma techniques that have less body-focus heavily rely on memory and make work with preverbal states more difficult.
The tools consume a lot of physical energy because it is hard work to regulate our bodies but it is an overall very gentle approach that works without harsh confrontation or force. The tiny steps make processes more manageable and can lead to progress we wouldn’t get using other techniques. We will be physically tired but we will not feel like we just had to go through hell and back to process something. That is a huge benefit over other techniques for trauma processing that can feel rather violent at times.
That makes SE a good tool for working with people with severe trauma and high level stress responses. As long as there is a movement impulse we can make use of that while avoiding a full confrontation with the other elements of the memory.
Relief usually happens instantly within the session. We can feel a release of energy that can be a bit scary at first but we also feel exactly how things resolve and result in a light, free and peaceful feeling. When we go home after a session with a resident therapist we don’t have to expect major backlash, additional flashbacks, scary feelings or the like. If the process could be finished within the session, it is done for good. Grief is always a part of integration and it will also happen with SE. It will probably just be a lot more grounded in the current reality.
I bet those who are trained in SE will find more benefits. This is what has been most important to me after 6 years of receiving it.
.
Limitations of SE
SE therapists like to work with spontaneous movements that we make while we share about our experiences. They ask us to stop talking and to repeat the movement with intention. Some trauma survivors don’t move spontaneously. They were taught to always hold still and not even fidget. It makes it a lot harder to identify the movement impulses that could be useful for our work.
Extreme trauma experiences sometimes lead to states where we don’t have any movement impulses anymore. Our instincts are to hold still and let things happen to us because we gave up fighting for our life. We bury ourselves deep inside and persevere. Since SE heavily relies on life energy, our will to fight for survival and to get out of a trauma situation, it fails in moments where we disconnected from this life energy. There is nothing to work with in this memory.
The way I experience the approach to emotions, beliefs or relationships in SE is no better or worse than in other techniques. There is only so much that we can reach through work with the body and stress responses. Complex Trauma is indeed a bit more than just energy that got stuck. SE is good at teaching us to tap into our intuition and body intelligence and to stay connected to ourselves in different situations, which can be valuable when making decisions. Its just not a huge advantage over other therapy techniques.
The biggest limitation I encountered is when we are dealing with dissociative parts.
.
Somatic experiencing and DID
There is a concept of ‘parts’ in SE but it is one where different emotional or physiological states are simply called parts to create a personification we can work with. It can serve as a way to externalize the things that scare us so we can learn how to approach them. This can be a valid way to learn how to tolerate scary parts but it won’t get us much further.
SE has no concept for parts who are stuck in different stress responses at the same time in a parallel fashion. It observes the response that is currently happening in the body. If the front person is calm, then there is nothing to regulate. I have been in several situations where a dysregulated part switched to the front, was guided to ground themselves but they actually didn’t. Orientation and Grounding just led to the host switching back front, with the distressed part moving to the back and this was seen as a successful intervention. It gets really hard to explain to non-DID therapists who work with SE that it is in fact not all good because nothing has changed for this part. They simply don’t get how all these states can be stuck in different experiences right next to each other while the front looks calm. There are no tools for that.
There is also no concept of parts that acknowledges that we have our own first person perspective and characteristics that go beyond our stress state. We cannot regulate ourselves out of conflicting needs or opinions and there is nothing to release there. Again, no tools for that.
SE can technically be used to release the trauma energy in a traumatized part, if they can stay front for the whole time and not switch. That is surprisingly hard. Parts usually operate within certain action systems and not others. When the body changes its stress state, that can automatically move a part who functions within this new action system to the front. Trying to work this way can be a hit and miss situation.
A lot of tools for trauma processing with DID invite traumatized parts to be co-conscious while a front part engaged with them and the therapist to work through a memory. This approach doesn’t work for SE. It needs a firm connection to the body, actually being in the body, to release the stuck energy. Front people can go through motions that are witnessed by trauma parts and it will do nothing for them.
The best way to make it work is to use blending between the front part and the trauma part. Blending is a very advanced technique that is usually only used late in therapy and after the worst of the trauma memory has been processed. Otherwise it will just overwhelm the front person. It makes SE an end game option for the treatment process and not something that could get you ahead with traumatized parts.
.
SE and new age therapists
The way that SE connects life energy with body wisdom, intuition, healing and alternative treatment options makes it very attractive to unscientific helpers. While it is based on science and there have been studies, the philosophy resonates with new age/spiritism/alternative medicine types of people. They might be able to separate their practice from their beliefs but they also might not. If you go looking for an SE therapist, please make sure to check their qualifications. If they work as a shaman, prescribe fake-science medicine, push eastern mysticism or do other weird stuff and they mix it with SE, that is not what you want (unless you are into that anyway). The SE training program is long, thorough and safe. It gets messy when people add their own ideas of how healing should work for you. The only times I ever got hurt in an SE setting was when someone pushed their new age worldview on me.
.
.
I have personally made some of my biggest progress with SE techniques. It is where I learned regulation skills that actually work and increased my window of tolerance to allow me to do more hard things in my life. It built the foundation for my ability to support and coach other parts through their dysregulation. The way it teaches regulation is superior to all the other approaches I have tried. Trauma processing is very gentle, even when working with horrible memories. It is also not meant for DID treatment and the moment we bring more than the front person into the therapy room we will face difficulties. I believe it is an important therapy approach for hosts to make them extremely competent and stable to manage life and a system. If you ever run into a DID therapist who is trained in SE you hit gold. When taken on its own, it can only be a supportive treatment for DID while you mainly work with a DID specialist.
.
This article is based on 6 years of working with different SE Ts, only one of them trained in DID treatment, and represents my own educated experience as a patient with DID. You can get a good idea of the approach by reading In an unspoken voice by Peter Levine.
.
.