I provide a limited number of sliding scale spots, please contact me to see if I have any openings. Sessions can be in person or virtual depending on what the client prefers.

Somatic Experiencing® for shock trauma

When working with single-event shock trauma, I utilize Somatic Experiencing® (SE) a body-based trauma healing modality developed by Dr. Peter Levine. SE understands trauma not as the event itself, but as the body’s incomplete response to it. When fight, flight, or freeze reactions are interrupted, trauma symptoms can develop. The word trauma in this sense covers a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms that result from the effect of acute and/or accumulated stress on human physiology.

SE is partially based upon the observation that wild prey animals, though routinely threatened, are rarely traumatized. Animals in the wild utilize innate mechanisms to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy associated with self-protective survival behaviors. These mechanisms provide animals with built-in resilience that enables them to return to healthy functioning in the aftermath of highly charged, distressing, or life-threatening experiences.

These built-in responses are often inhibited in humans by other humans, social and cultural conditioning, and/or our inability to find safe enough conditions that we can fully move through them. SE supports individuals in completing fight, flight, and freeze response patterns that remain in the physiology after stressful or traumatic experiences or conditions.

The completion of these survival patterns can bring a greater capacity for self-regulation, as well as an increased sense of social engagement, well-being, and integration. Even though SE primarily targets issues of trauma, it is also seen as an effective way of supporting individuals interested in expanding their ability to authentically be in the world. People often report feelings of greater ease physically, psychologically, relationally, and spiritually.

SE can support:

• Restore balance in the autonomic nervous system—between fight/flight and freeze

• Regulation, connection, and embodiemnt

• Reduce symptoms like anxiety, dissociation, and chronic tension

• Reconnect individuals with a sense of safety and aliveness

• Clients may experience discharge or release like trembling, crying, deep breaths, chills, yawning, or sweating, signs that the body is completing unresolved survival responses. The process emphasizes resourcing and resilience, building a foundation of safety before engaging trauma material.

Key tools include:

• SE employs awareness of the body and the body’s “voice” to help people “renegotiate” rather than relive or re-enact traumatic experiences in their efforts to heal.

• Bottom-up processing—focusing on bodily sensations rather than cognitive retelling of the story. Tracking of the nervous system (noticing body sensations, imagery, emotions, movement impulses, etc.)

• Using tools like titration (working in small, manageable pieces) and pendulation (gently moving between distress and safety), SE helps the nervous system safely release stored trauma energy.

• Nervous system education

• SE may employ (with the client’s consent) coregulatory touch work (not massage) in support of the renegotiation process.

If you’re dealing with the lingering effects of shock trauma, this approach may be supportive for you.

For more information about SE please see the following references:

• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Dr. Peter Levine

• In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

  by Dr. Peter Levine.

• For further references and information online about SE you can go to: traumahealing.org

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Who is somatic therapy for?

Somatic Therapy sessions are designed to support healing from complex, developmental, and relational trauma, as well as shock trauma.

• Somatic Therapy is a slow process best suited for individuals who have a stable foundation and are ready to explore the inner landscape of the body and psyche.

• It is not intended for those in acute crisis or in need of immediate stabilization. If you're currently experiencing intense trauma symptoms, this approach may not be the best fit at this time.

• This work may also not resonate with those seeking direct advice, quick fixes, or symptom-focused strategies. Instead, it emphasizes introspection, symbolic exploration, and gradual self-discovery. 

• If you're not drawn to working with the unconscious, dreams, archetypes, or subtle body-based processes, this may not be the approach for you. However, if you're ready to engage in a thoughtful, embodied, and often slow process of personal transformation, Somatic Therapy can offer meaningful support for your journey.