Somatic Experiencing

Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) is a powerful modality that I utilize when working with single-event traumas (car accidents, falls, assaults, medical procedures, etc) and developmental or complex traumas (more prolonged issues often stemming from chronic stress or recurring traumas during childhood, while in utero or later in life).

How can Somatic Experiencing support chiropractic?

For symptoms that don’t resolve through chiropractic adjustments, muscle work or other forms of hands-on bodywork, Somatic Experiencing can help us address potential underlying imbalances in the nervous system, specifically within the body’s autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic).

If we are experiencing an event that causes our body’s fight/flight response to kick in, adrenaline and cortisol are released into our bloodstream with the effect of increasing breath/heart rate and causing muscles to tense in anticipation of fighting or fleeing.

This is our body mobilizing to try to protect us, to escape danger and to keep us safe.

If the energy generated to protect us doesn’t release or dissipate, it can lead to symptoms, such as:

• Muscle tension

• Chronic pain

• Headaches including migraines

• Feeling “unsafe” with movement

• Hypervigilance

• Sleeplessness

• Digestive problems

• Exhaustion

• Chronic fatigue

Somatic Experiencing can help to release that energy, return balance within the autonomic nervous system and reduce symptoms that previously were “stuck” or not resolving completely through chiropractic care or other types of bodywork.

How does Somatic Experiencing work?

Somatic Experiencing 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 applied in multiple professions and professional settings—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, teaching, and physical therapy—for healing trauma and other stress disorders.

The SE approach releases traumatic shock, which is key to transforming patterns that get stuck and impact people’s daily lives. It can be used to support the resolution of PTSD and 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.

The Somatic Experiencing method works to release stored energy and turn off this threat alarms that cause dysregulation and dissociation. SE helps people understand this body response to trauma and work through a “body first” approach to healing. Within their scope of practice, SE Practitioners work with these responses in a way that supports their ongoing work with clients.

The Somatic Experiencing approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms. This is approached by gently guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions and working to complete defensive responses previously thwarted from bringing resolution to the nervous system and, therefore, to the individual.

For more information about Somatic Experiencing and my Somatic Experiencing practice, please visit danielgaustad.com.