The Benefits of Somatic Experience Therapy

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-based therapy specifically designed to help people heal from trauma by working with the nervous system. Trauma isn’t just stored in the mind—it gets trapped in the body, causing symptoms like anxiety, hypervigilance, dissociation, or chronic tension. SE helps release this stuck survival energy and restores a sense of safety.

How SE Treats Trauma

• Addresses the Nervous System: Trauma can leave the nervous system in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. SE gently guides the body back to balance without forcing re-exposure to painful memories.

• Uses Body Awareness: Instead of reliving the trauma, SE helps clients notice physical sensations (like tightness, numbness, or tingling) and slowly process them to release stored stress.

• Discharges Trapped Energy: SE prevents trauma from staying "stuck" by helping the body complete its natural self-protection responses, reducing symptoms like panic, dissociation, or chronic pain.

• Restores a Sense of Safety: By working at the body’s pace, SE helps clients rebuild trust in their own sensations and emotions, creating lasting healing.

• Supports Long Term Healing: By working at the nervous system level, SE promotes deep, lasting healing rather than just coping with symptoms.

• Improves Emotional Regulation: SE teaches people how to track their body’s signals and to respond to stress in a healthier way, reducing emotional overwhelm.

• Reduces Anxiety & PTSD symptoms: By gently working through bodily sensations rather than reliving trauma verbally, SE helps ease anxiety, flashbacks, and hyper-vigilance in a safer way.

Trauma Symptoms SE Can Help With:

✔ PTSD & flashbacks
✔ Anxiety & panic attacks
✔ Hypervigilance & dissociation
✔ Chronic pain & tension
✔ Emotional numbness & overwhelm

Why It Works: SE focuses on how trauma lives in the body, not just the mind, making it a powerful, gentle approach for healing without retraumatization.