Heal Trauma & Restore Balance with Somatic Experiencing
Do you feel stuck in patterns of stress, anxiety, or overwhelm? Are past experiences affecting your well-being, even if you’re not sure why? Somatic Experiencing (SE) offers a gentle, body-centered approach to healing trauma, helping you release stored tension and restore a sense of safety and ease in your life.
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Developed by trauma expert Dr. Peter A. Levine, Somatic Experiencing focuses on the connection between the body and nervous system. Unlike traditional talk therapy, SE does not require you to relive traumatic events. Instead, it helps you slowly and safely process unresolved stress by guiding your awareness to bodily sensations, restoring your nervous system’s natural balance.
Who Can Benefit?
SE is a powerful approach for individuals struggling with
- Anxiety & chronic stress
- PTSD & trauma-related symptoms
- Dissociation & emotional numbness
- Chronic pain & tension
- Feeling stuck in fight, flight, or freeze
- A sense of disconnection from yourself or others
How Does SE Work?
Through gentle, guided awareness of body sensations, SE helps you:
- Release stored trauma in a safe, manageable way
- Build resilience and emotional regulation
- Feel more present, grounded, and connected
- Regain a sense of ease and empowerment
What does this mean for me as a client?
When trauma happens to us at any age, our nervous system has a response. If you hear a car’s screeching tires your body has a response, this is a nervous system response. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn, these are the self-protection responses that can present. So, your heart can race, you feel energy in your legs, your body is getting ready to fight or flea. Or you feel that freeze response you cannot move or speak. Fawning is when you try and make the other person happy to defuse the situation. These responses are important, they happen to keep you safe. But sometimes the response does not get to complete and the energy from that is stored in the nervous system and changes can occur, you can start to be hypervigilant, always on guard, or you startle easily, or have emotions that are unexplained.
Somatic experiencing works with the nervous system through the body to allow the original self-protection response to complete, releasing the stored energy and allowing the system to return to a healthy state. This type of therapy moves slowly, at the speed of the nervous system and allows for integration of the information that you learn from your body. You can be present to process the emotions and the other information that comes up for you. It works whether you have a memory of the event or not.
Things to keep in mind, self-care is important with any kind of therapy, Somatic Experiencing is no exception. You can experience fatigue after treatment, so making sure you drink water, maybe have your favourite tea, a hot shower or bath, having some time to read and rest, these things will be important for after treatment.
Can a session be run online?
Yes absolutely. Here are some of the benefits of having a somatic experience session online. Part of the process of doing the work is building resources and having things in the environment that you find supportive or that bring you joy. If you are at home in a safe space where you feel comfortable this may be more supportive of your nervous system. Being at home allows you to have your own objects that bring you joy ready and available in the room with you during the session. Often after the session is complete there is a level of fatigue, if you are already at home, it is easy to crawl into bed and rest or have a soothing shower and use the things at home to take care of yourself. The session and the benefits of having the session remain the same whether in person or virtually.
Your Healing Journey Starts Here
At Next Step Counselling, we believe that healing is possible, and you don’t have to do it alone. Whether you’re experiencing the effects of recent stress or long-held trauma, Somatic Experiencing can help you reconnect with your body’s innate ability to heal.
