Listening to the Body to Heal the Mind
What is Somatic Experiencing®?
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a potent psychobiological method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress.
What Is trauma?
Trauma comes in many forms. Most people are familiar with what trauma therapists call ‘shock trauma’ — things like motor vehicle accidents, assaults, surgical operations, and falls. Shock trauma is often tied to diagnoses like PTSD and without treatment can have long-term effects on physical, mental and emotional health.
Often overlooked, but potentially more disruptive is developmental trauma, the kind of trauma that often underlies many of the physical and relational issues people come into therapy to address. These traumas take place early in life, over an extended period of time and include problems like childhood emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect, as well as ongoing medical and/or physical issues. Tests like the ACE score can provide more information.
A key point both in treating the symptoms of trauma and in developing compassion for those suffering from it is that trauma does not stem from the event which caused it, but rather from the person’s nervous system that experienced it. It is this that helps us understand why two people who experience the same trauma may have wildly different reactions, where one person may be devastated by the symptoms of PTSD while the other person walks away seemingly unharmed.
How does SE™ Work?
SE works by releasing traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of early developmental attachment trauma. The process does not require the traumatized person to re-tell or re-live the traumatic event. Instead, it offers the opportunity to engage, complete, and resolve—in a slow and supported way—the body’s instinctual fight, flight and freeze responses. SE™ resets the nervous system, restores inner balance, enhances resilience to stress, and increases people’s vitality, equanimity, and capacity to actively engage in life.
Somatic Experiencing at Mend Therapy
Our SE Practitioners have completed an extensive three year training and are able to help address people’s traumatic symptoms and experiences with great delicacy and expertise. SE provides a strengths-based model that helps people understand, address and grow from their traumatic experiences.
We offer Somatic Experiencing at Mend as our primary method of somatic therapy geared to help and support all those who have experienced trauma. SE also provides novel treatment solutions to people suffering from chronic pain, migraines, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome and other physical conditions that are often associated with a history of trauma.