Releasing Trauma
This is the second in a series of posts about trauma: awareness and acknowledgement of it, working through it (usually, with help) and releasing it.
With my clients, as a LifeCoachNYC & Mindset Coach & Hypnotherapist, and within my own life experiences, I know how vital a subject this is. Let’s face it; most of us have had some kind of trauma or another in our lives, some Big T trauma and some, small T trauma, which, with repetition over time, can be even more harmful, particularly in the developmental stages of childhood.
Just to repeat, most of what our subconscious absorbs is presented to us in our earliest years (0-7 years) and these beliefs, behaviors and actions stay with us throughout our lives. This is why we often repeat behaviors, even if, consciously, we know they’re not what we really want. Our subconscious is stronger than our conscious.
There is good news, though. You can change these repetitive and often negative thoughts, beliefs and behaviors with help (ie: coach, therapist, somatic practitioner, other trauma-informed practitioners).
It takes effort, time, patience and lots of empathy, particularly for yourself. It’s frustrating, can feel like a roller-coaster ride and can be challenging. As they say, ‘anything worth it takes effort’…..
Talk-therapy can be wonderful; in my experience, it has been amazingly helpful and other times, not so much. Additional learning about the body/mind connection and how our nervous system is affected with trauma can be informative and even, enlightening. It adds tools to our ‘tool box’ of self-awareness, self-acceptance and eventual self-love.
In the last post, we discussed different techniques for releasing trauma from your body. Again, we humans are the only animals who do not necessarily release trauma from our bodies (usually, by trembling or shaking). Instead, we talk ourselves into ‘getting through it,’ when our innate sense of releasing it is the correct thing to do. You can’t change the trauma but you CAN prevent it from turning into PTSD, where so many problems can occur.
This week, let’s talk about the 4th technique mentioned in the last blog post:
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING (SE):
Please look over the previous post, where I’ve explained a bit about this technique.
It was developed by Dr. Peter Levine and deals with the interrelationship of trauma and PTSD. They are not the same thing. You can get PTSD if you’ve experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, but you don’t have to. PTSD doesn’t happen without a traumatic event to trigger it, but at the same time, just because someone experiences trauma isn’t a guarantee that they will also experience PTSD.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-centered approach to treating PTSD. The word ‘somatic’ lets us know that SE is ‘of, relating to, or affecting the body.’
What is SOMATIC EXPERIENCING? (Read previous blog post: Releasing Trauma from the Body)
It’s aimed at treating trauma and stressor related disorders like PTSD. Its primary goal is to modify the trauma-related stress response. To achieve this, its major interventional strategy builds on bottom-up processing (unlike the top-down of talk therapy).
SE expands the focus of therapy to include the bodily energy created by trauma and seeks to repair and complete the natural cycle our bodies possess to release it.
It’s based on the idea that traumatic experiences can lead to dysfunction in your nervous system, which can keep you from fully processing the experience.
I wondered for many, many years why I was constantly anxious, hypervigilant and fearful of so much. My nervous system was exhausted, my adrenal glands were not functioning very well and I couldn’t enjoy my achievements and accomplishments and couldn’t figure out who I was (my authentic self). You can’t figure out who you are when you’re concerned with safety and survival. These always come first…..
Dr Levine believes that we humans possess the same ability to release physical energy from stress but often thwart it by ‘keeping it together’ through a tough experience. This ability to over-ride an innate mechanism for self-care is what may set the stage for PTSD. When you stop this natural cycle of release, the energy becomes STUCK, and we may stay in a perpetual state of fight or flight (constant stress response). We can’t return to our relaxed, balanced state.
So many of my clients come to me with anxiety, feelings of constant stress and a hyper-aroused, hypervigilant nervous system. This takes up so much energy and effort and doesn’t allow us to quiet and calm our bodies (and minds) down, to be able to hear our inner voice and to discover (or re-discover) our authentic selves.
SE is based on the idea that traumatic experiences can lead to dysfunction in your nervous system, which can keep you from fully processing the experience. The goal is to help you notice bodily sensations and use this awareness to acknowledge and work through painful or distressing situations. We are, so often, in our heads…SE helps keep us in our bodies so that we may complete the release of stress and trauma caused by these painful situations and experiences.
According to Payne et al. (2015, p14), “trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to a threat, frozen in time.”
So, people experiencing trauma don’t suffer from a disease, but rather their bodies have been caught up in a dysregulated state. And this is what SE addresses.
So, SE has to do with the FREEZE response.
A BODY-CENTERED THERAPY:
SE is specifically focused on healing trauma by helping clients draw their attention to their bodies.
The sensations and experiences explored are described as:
-interoceptive: internal awareness of the body
-proprioceptive: spatial orientation of the body
-kinesthetic: movements of the body
Unlike other forms of trauma therapy, SE intentionally avoids directly evoking traumatic memories and therefore, does not focus on thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic experience. It approaches these memories using the body as a gateway, exploring them gradually and indirectly by promoting more adequate, safer, and comfortable bodily experiences.
SE defines stress as “the inability of the complex and dynamical autonomous nervous system to recover to normal functionality.”
This means that trauma resides in the body and not in the nature of the event, and that people will vary greatly in their ways of perceiving and responding to the event, depending on biological, psychosocial, and contextual variables.
Dr. Levine says that the body can get stuck in an overwhelmed and dysfunctional response, which is reversible, though not modifiable by the external event.
SE considers trauma as an interrupted natural and non-pathological response that needs to be brought to closure.
When facing a threat, all animals, humans included, are evolutionarily wired to unconsciously and automatically respond with certain somatic behaviors to protect themselves, including fleeing, bracing, stiffening and collapsing.
As mentioned previously, wild animals recover from these states by engaging in other action patterns such as yawning, trembling and shaking, to release this excess energy generated by the threatening experience.
Unfortunately, we humans have learned to hinder these counter-responses, thwarting the natural response of resetting the nervous system. This interruption leads to nervous system dysregulation, leaving a memory in the body with glimpses of the traumatic experience.
SOMATIC EXPERIENCING SESSIONS:
No two sessions are alike, but there is a set of activities that will typically happen, though no set schedule for when. The specifics are determined by the client and their comfort level at each step.
1)First step: getting comfortable in the therapy environment, both with the therapist and the physical space…to have a sense of trust.
2)With trust, the process of addressing the trauma can begin.
An example: the therapist asks a client to revisit the time around the traumatic event, but not the event directly. This gentle and indirect approach to revisiting the trauma allows our bodies to build the resilience needed and slowly release stuck traumatic energy, a bit at a time.
3)Pace of progress: is determined by the client’s comfort level at each step along the way. This gentle exploration continues until the client builds enough resilience to productively and completely engage and release the trauma energy (ie: a woman was assaulted and wanted to flee, but was trapped by the assailant. In one of her SE sessions, she actually started moving her feet and legs as if she was running away, creating a new script ending of her trauma and completing the release of the energy stuck in her body).
TITRATION AND PENDULATION:
These are both used in SE.
Titration: the therapist encourages the client to approach their physical experience gently and slowly, one drop at a time (like in chemistry).
Pendulation: this is the oscillation between titration and resourcing or transitioning between a state of arousal and a state of calm. The therapist must accept the client’s rhythm.
By learning to embrace discomfort through titration and safely connecting to a relaxation state, the body slowly shifts to a state of homeostasis (balance), without feeling overwhelmed by the response anymore.
We delved into the definitions and explanation of SE. In the next blog post, we’ll get into its benefits and some of the techniques used in SE, some of which I use with my clients, so that you can reconnect with your body as the container of feelings and sensations and find safety and containment in your body.
After that, we’ll start looking more closely at the working of the vagus nerve and Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory.
If you’re interested in the subject of SE, you can read “In an Unspoken Voice,” and other books by Dr Peter Levine.
If interested in the subject of the body-mind connection and trauma, you can read books by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, notably “The Body Keeps the Score” and books and information by Dr Gabor Mate (an expert in the field of trauma).
With smiles and love,
Dr Gigi
PS: Contact me if you have questions, comments or are ready for your free Clarity Call (45 minute call) @www.gigiarnaud.com or at the social media links below.
Change your Thoughts, Change your Mind, Change your World