Therapy

I’m a Somatic Experiencing®️and Ecosomatics Practitioner

What is Somatic Experiencing? It was developed by Peter Levine around 50 years ago, he wrote one of only two books at the time on trauma, and it was in part a response to his observation of the fight, flight, freeze response in animals and how they release survival stress. It’s set up like a regular talking therapy session, except the emphasis is on accessing sensation. This enables the meaning and emotions to come from the body rather than established thinking patterns. Trauma isn’t in the event, it’s in the nervous system and that’s how we find our way in, around and through.

“If it repeats it’s incomplete” our trainer Lael Keen used to say. We discuss, then observe and track habitual patterns in sessions, and slowly start to unpick and reconfigure them.

Sensations are the alphabet of the body. Our attention is the most valuable thing that we have. Learning to attune to what is internal in addition to the external enables us to access our deep intent. There’s a lot competing for our attention, if that is easily hijacked we’re more susceptible to dominant narratives which are not developed to serve or support us.

My experience of SE as both a client and practitioner is that it’s very creative, can be full of metaphor and meaning making. It’s a co-creation between two people moving in and out of bodily states. My role is to gently choreograph your states to move between discomfort and ease, to coax the body to embrace all that arises, to engage with curiosity. It’s a slow process, our nervous systems are very sensitive so it needs patience and care. I titrate the process, which means dropping in very small pieces of the challenge amongst lots of resourcing. Another technique is called pendulation in which we move back and forth between differing sensations to keep momentum and ensure things can pass through.

I offer one to one Somatic Experiencing or Ecosomatics (combination of SE and Ecotherapy). There’s a short video about this below.