Trauma Healing

In Person and Online Appointments Available

What is Trauma Healing?

Somatic Experiencing (SE), developed by Dr. Peter Levine, is a body-oriented approach to healing pain and trauma and to help regulate the nervous system.  Some of the many symptoms of trauma are chronic pain or illness, digestive problems, dissociation, fear, anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. Trauma can disconnect us from our body and make us feel like we can never really relax.

Whether trauma is physical or emotional, it is the body’s attempt to manage the intense survival responses of fight, flight and freeze. Nervous system regulation is helping the body to complete survival responses so that our body and mind don’t continue to react as if the threat still exists. Then we can begin to recover our sense of safety and wholeness.

Many clients who have been in therapy sense that there is an aspect of their healing that’s missing, as their body is still experiencing tension, pain, anxiety or fear.  I work with people who have had car accidents, falls, injuries, medical trauma, chronic illness, developmental trauma, physical or sexual abuse, and many other causes of PTSD.

a helping hand somatic therapy

It is not necessary to relive an event to heal trauma.

Holding hands walking down a path to Healing

What is a session like?

It is not necessary to relive an event to heal trauma. Somatic Experiencing addresses how the body continues to play out a habitual response to a past event. We use body awareness to notice how both the body and mind respond to a threat. When the body and mind work together, we can discharge the excess survival energy as well as identify emotions that may be part of the pattern so that we can move through them.

We will use a combination of body awareness, talk, and touch to explore the relationship between trauma and the body. I will also guide you through a series of “embodiment” exercises that nurture a deeper connection with the body and support you to regulate your nervous system through changing the inner patterns that support the survival response. As you safely rewire your body and mind, your pain, anxieties, and fears will diminish over time.

 

  • Settle yourself when you are feeling unsettled or anxious.
  • Strengthen trust in your body’s ability to heal itself.
  • Increase your feeling of security and connection to self and others.
  • Cultivate a better connection to your body and your sense of vitality.
  • Increase your sense of healthy boundaries and healthy aggression.

 

For more info on Somatic Experiencing: https://traumahealing.org/se-101/