"Trauma is a fact of life, but it does not have to be a life sentence."
About Somatic Experiencing Therapy
Somatic Experiencing Therapy is a gentle body-centered approach to trauma that is based on the research and clinical work of Dr. Peter Levine. Somatic Experiencing assumes that we all have the innate ability to heal from overwhelming events when the right conditions are created. Somatic Experiencing restores physiological and emotional balance and helps people feel more alive, balanced, and whole. This work is experiential and is most useful with those who have difficulty regulating emotions, are unable to feel calm and relaxed, and need more effective ways to manage stress. Somatic experiencing helps us resolve difficult experiences from the past that are affecting our ability to live life more fully in the present.
Certified practitioners complete a three-year training course (216 hours of instruction) and must complete 18 hours of case consultations and 12 hours of personal sessions.
How does it work?
At Oasis, we believe that traditional talk therapy is important but not sufficient for working through trauma. Brain research suggests that trauma is stored in parts of the brain that cannot be accessed verbally. (American Journal of Psychiatry, January 2004) This is why some traumatic experiences are difficult to access verbally: they are literally not “speakable”. The body bears the burden of trauma and therapy must help the body tell its story. In our work, we use Somatic Experiencing to gently unlock old trauma so that it can be processed and find its rightful place in the past.
Helping the body process trauma this way brings increased resiliency to challenges in life, more empowerment, and more willingness to take healthy risks.
Who benefits from SE?
- Anxiety, panic disorder, phobias & PTSD
- Depression
- Sexual, physical and emotional trauma
- Bullying, racism & discrimination
- Medical trauma
- Physical health issues
Somatic Experiencing is used for shock trauma, pervasive trauma, and developmental trauma.:
- Shock trauma is loosely defined as a single-episode traumatic event such as a car accident, natural disaster, battlefield incident, physical attack, etc.
- Developmental trauma refers to less obvious/visible effects of insufficient or detrimental attention from primary caregivers in childhood, which are no less damaging.
- Pervasive trauma is multiple or ongoing exposures that may include microaggressions, exclusion, racism, war, abusive homelife, harassment, spiritual abuse, etc.
Current Somatic Experiencing practitioners at Oasis:
Laura Grace
Beth Fuller
