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Somatic Experiencing®

With Mark Myran

The Approach

In most places, you will see trauma described as events that overwhelm our ability to cope with them.  Somatic Experiencing takes a different view – that trauma is about how our nervous system has adapted to our experiences.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness.”

– Peter A Levine, PhD

SE is a body-oriented approach to heal trauma and other stress disorders.  It recognizes that we have several instinctual strategies for survival (including fight, flight, freeze, and fawn).  Our nervous systems can become stuck, rejecting or relying soley on just one of these survival responses.  The goal of SE is to essentially wake your internal tiger – that part of you that wanted to fight, but felt powerless; that part of you that wanted to flee, but was unable to move.

How It Works

 The SE approach is to guide clients to become aware of the connection between emotions and bodily sensations, and to build up the capacity to experience suppressed or difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed.  If you work with me, you will hear me say, “Would it be okay to hang out with that for a little bit?” referring to a moment of anger, a flutter in the belly, or something similar.  And the next instant, we could be discussing your favorite hobby.  This is part of nervous system regulation – feeling difficult emotions, allowing them to run their course, and then experiencing more enjoyable emotions.
The work is gentle.

There is a reason you suppress your anger or try to keep your fear locked away somewhere safe.  We approach these emotions gently, with kindness, and “hang out” with them only as much as you are ready for.  Over time, you will build your capacity and they won’t feel so difficult.

SE therapy is experiential.

This can include finding safe and meaningful ways to complete self-protective responses that were thwarted, releasing the survival energy the body has been holding on to.  For example, sometimes a client’s body can become fidgety, and they express an urge to flee out of the office.  So we may get up and move those parts that want to run, all while staying connected to the nervous system’s response.

Bottom-Up Approach

Some types of therapy start at the “top,” with our thoughts and beliefs, and the idea that the problem is not what happened, but how you think about what happened.  SE starts at the “bottom,” with the sensations that lie underneath our feelings and beliefs.  When you start at the bottom, nothing is irrational and everything you’re experiencing makes sense in the context of surviving until today.  The goal, then, is to restore the ability of the nervous system to regulate itself.  Imagine feeling fear without it leaping immediately to terror, and calming down when the danger has passed.  Or feeling anxious, and then noticing it pass as you find joy in the moment.  What if you could allow yourself to be angry, then watch it pass as you advocate for yourself?

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