Somatic Therapy
Emotions and the accompanying body sensations and thoughts can sometimes be overwhelming and intolerable. This often leads to avoidance, distraction, depression, excessive worry, rage, collapse, relationship difficulties, and when extreme, self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, sex, video games, and other addictive behaviors.
When we're activated (triggered), the root cause is usually something from our past: messages from our families or peers that we interpret as being unloveable, too much, that something's wrong with us (shame), or that our needs cannot be seen and met. We use our minds and body patterns to protect these vulnerable parts of ourselves, resulting in maladaptive patterns of behavior, mood issues, and chronic physical distress.
My approach is to identify, build-on, and use your strengths and resources, while also exploring negative patterns that stop you from living a full, integrated life. Together we cultivate your inner wisdom through gentle focused attention and presence (mindfulness), awareness of and building capacity for the somatic (body) sensations response to triggers, and quieting the accompanying internal dialogue. The result is more choice, freedom, and possibility for your life.
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®
Somatic Experiencing® (SE) aims to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. When we are stuck in patterns of fight, flight, or freeze, SE helps us release, recover, and become more resilient. It is a body-oriented therapeutic model for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is based on a multidisciplinary intersection of physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics and has been clinically applied for more than four decades. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming PTSD and the wounds of emotional and early developmental attachment trauma. It offers a framework to assess where a person is “stuck” in the fight, flight or freeze responses and provides clinical tools to resolve these fixated physiological states.