somatic experiencing

It can be exhausting trying to change old patterns by thinking, willing, and doing it alone. Sometimes it feels like we are asking our body to relate and be in ways that we never learned, or have lost our ability to do. This can set us up to feel stuck and isolated.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented approach to healing trauma. It is useful for metabolizing overwhelming experiences; when an event or stressful condition is too much to process. When something difficult happened too fast or we weren’t supported and given what we needed. When something stressful has been going on for too long. Survival stress gets stuck in the body, impacting our ability to regulate and feel safe.

I work with adults, sharing presence and capacity to observe and find new patterns. During one-on-one sessions, you will be invited to notice experience in an embodied way. We will work with responses in your nervous and other body systems, accessing them through conversation, emotion, memory, sensation, imagery, breath, silence, stillness, gestures, touch or movement. Sessions are an opportunity to find out more about what is showing up for you and to experiment. I will be present with you in a non-judgmental and curious way to discover what is regulating and generative and also what might be stuck or no longer helpful.We start with what is working, even if all that feels like it’s working is that you are breathing and that you showed up. By starting here we don’t ignore what might feel broken, we honour and respect the patterns that have gotten you this far.

Both SE and the touch work I do, can be potent as a stand-alone treatment, or can complement other therapies.  It can be particularly helpful if you find you have reached a point that you’re not progressing in talk therapy, or that your physical therapies are not resolving issues.  It may be that what needs to be listened to are the responses to traumas that are stored in your body.

Somatic Experiencing was developed by Peter Levine and it’s lineage is important to name. The roots of the work grew in indigenous and cultural healing practices, mammalian nervous system study, neuroscience, psychology, and stress physiology.

I am not a psychotherapist or registered counsellor.