Somatic Trauma Therapy

Based on Somatic Experiencing - a safe and effective approach to working with trauma through the body

Do I have trauma or PTSD?

…you might ask?

Trauma is much more common than most people think. It does not just involve the obvious situations, such as war, assaults, accidents or natural disasters. There are many ways we can get impacted in traumatic ways.

Here is a definition of trauma:

Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or threatening event or circumstance that overwhelms our ability to cope.

Most of us have experienced deeply distressing or threatening events or phases during our lifetime. When we go through an event or phase like that our survival responses activate in order to deal with that situation. And once our survival responses are activated they do not necessarily come back to a state of regulation or balance and quite often this survival state becomes chronic which creates lasting trauma symptoms.

Somatic trauma therapy helps these symptoms by helping the body discharge the survival energy that is still stuck there. It helps the part of your body that creates the survival state - the autonomic nervous sytem - to come to a “regulated” state of safety, rest and ease.

Read on to learn more…

Situations or circumstances that might trigger your survival response

  • one time threatening events, such as car accidents, other accidents, falls or injuries, sexual assault, other types of assault, natural disasters

  • experiences of war or violence

  • losing a loved one

  • medical procedures, such as surgeries

  • severe illness or chronic illness

  • giving birth

  • our own birth ( yes, even from that long ago - our birth can have a lasting impact on our nervous system)

  • being in an unsafe intimate relationship

  • adverse childhood experiences

  • growing up in an environment that was not safe and/or nurturing

Common trauma sypmtoms

  • chronic pain and tension

  • feeling anxious and hyper-vigilant

  • feeling chronically depressed

  • feelings of panic

  • frequent emotional or mental overwhelm

  • chronic high stress state

  • not being able to relax

  • feeling numb or shut down

  • not being able to sleep

  • getting irritated and stressed with minor triggers

These symptoms indicate that you might be experiencing the accumulation of past traumas or stresses that have not been processed in your nervous system. Any time our survival system gets activated and does not discharge all the way, that energy gets trapped in the nervous system and keeps cycling, leading to more sensitivity to the stress response and symptoms like anxiety and hyper-vigilance. You might notice these types of symptoms after an accident or other traumatic event or you might not remember any specific events when that happened – it could have happened a long time ago or you were not even aware that that is what was happening.  The fight/flight nervous system response can also get activated with chronic stress.

“The centrality of the body, the living, sensing, knowing body, that’s what’s going to be the big paradigm shift.”

- Peter Levine, founder of the Somatic Experiencing method of trauma healing

Why is it important to work with the body in trauma healing?

Trauma affects our survival system and a crucial part of our survival system is our autonomic nervous system. When our autonomic nervous system is in a survival response it affects the physiology of our body. In a fight & flight state for example our heart rate goes up, our breathing gets faster, glucose is released into our bloodstream, our muscles get ready for action and so on. When we have lasting symptoms of trauma, they involve those body responses. If we have chronic anxiety, our heart rate is elevated all the time and our breathing is fast and shallow. The primitive, unconscious part of our body that is our survival system still reacts as if we are in danger, even though we are not. So, we need to communicate to that primitive part of us that we are actually safe now so that our body can regulate to a state of safety physiologically, meaning our heart rate slows down, our breathing slows down and our muscles can relax. And we reach that unconscious part of us by working directly through the body, because that is how it operates.

Somatic Experiencing, which is a form of body-centered trauma therapy enables your body to integrate traumatic experiences and other stresses in our life and bring regulation and balance back to the nervous system. It employs awareness of body sensations to safely and gradually allow the nervous system to discharge survival energy. It lets the body “catch up” with what happened, since at the time of an incident it was too overwhelming for the nervous system to process . But there does not have to be a particular incident and you don't have to be able to remember anything in particular in order to work with the activated energy.

It is done in a gentle and safe way, and it is not about re-living the experience, but rather taking little steps to digest it..When the survival energy is discharged, people frequently experience a dramatic reduction in or disappearance of their symptoms, including pain and physical, emotional or mental symptoms.

 

Recovery from trauma and processing stress is about helping the autonomic nervous system to regulate. The autonomic nervous system consists of the Sympathetic (fight or flight) and Parasympathetic (relax, repair, repose). The sympathetic is the activator and the parasympathetic the de-activator. A healthy nervous system is able to move fluidly between those states to respond to situations at hand.

When our sympathetic nervous system carries a lot of “charge”, meaning non-discharged survival energy, we get stuck in that charged state and cannot easily access the de-activator. Then we live with a deregulated nervous system which can lead to a variety of symptoms (listed below) The social nervous system is also part of the autonomic nervous system, which helps us regulate through connection to others.

It is important to realize that the effect of trauma happens in the nervous system and is not the event”. That means that some people might be “traumatized” by a certain experience that would not be traumatizing to somebody else, because we all have different nervous systems.

When we have experienced something that is interpreted as trauma in our nervous system, we generally react in two different ways: we go into fight or flight or we freeze. The fight or flight response happens completely automatic and is not controlled by our rational thinking. Sometimes we react to events that we “think” should not be a big deal.

The fight or flight response

Fight or flight is our survival response. It mobilizes an incredible amount of energy in our bodies. It creates the kind of energy where mothers are able to lift a car from their child.

That huge amount of energy is designed to be used up by action, like fighting or running, which then allows it to discharge. But often, when we are in a situation like that, the energy does not discharge completely and then keeps cycling in the nervous system.

It can lead to symptoms like:

  • feeling hyper-vigilant, being startled easily

  • feeling anxious or depressed

  • excessive thinking/worrying

  • being unable to relax and slow down and settle down inside oneself

  • fast breathing, fast heartbeat

  • pain and tension in the body

  • insomnia

  • reliving a traumatic event over and over

  • phobias

  • panic attacks

  • attraction to extreme sports and dangerous situations

  • hypersensitivity to light or sound or touch

The Freeze response:

When there is a perception during a traumatic event that the fight or flight response will not be successful (we won't be able to get away, we feel overwhelmed and are not able to fight), then we might resort to the freeze response. This is similar to animals playing dead so the predator will leave them alone. In the freeze response our bodies contract and become more still. But underneath that stillness is the charge of the fight or flight response. It is like having a foot on the gas and another on the break at the same time.

It can lead to symptoms like:

  • strong holding and tension in the body

  • shallow breath

  • slowed down heartbeat

  • feeling numb

  • feeling disassociated

  • parts of the body do not want to move

  • depression and anxiety

Read more about nervous system regulation here.

I highly recommend the experience I have had and the professional work I experienced working with Ines Manteuffel.   I came in to work on past trauma and in the process experienced body centered trauma therapy, cranial sacral, orthobionomy, and massage.   Fully believing the “issues are in the tissues” I knew I needed to heal from the effects of the past in an embodied way.  Through my sessions and work with Ines, I have come to find relief from the layers of the past being released.What has also helped me to heal is who Ines is as a professional and how she is presents in her work.   She listens and knows how to guide, is safe and caring and guides using her many talents and capabilities to meet the needs of what presents itself to be addressed in each session.   I can honestly say I have found profound relief from the effects of my past and believe I am on the path to recovery and living a fuller life.   

-Donna H                                                                               

What if I have trauma symptoms and I don't remember that anything happened to me

Quite often people have trauma symptoms, but cannot link them to a particular event that happened. We might have experienced events during our childhood as “traumatic” that we can't remember or don’t realize they affected us in that way or have imprints in our nervous system from our own birth. Also, if we did not receive the nurturing and supportive holding environment as infants or children, our survival system might be chronically activated. The beauty of this approach is that we can still work with the activated energy, even when we don't know where it came from, because we are working what shows up in the present in your body and nervous system.

How we work in a session:

Body-centered Trauma Therapy aims at helping the charge that is present in the nervous system to discharge in a way that feels safe and manageable to you. It is not about reliving a traumatic experience and going into a state of overwhelm. The process is tailored to you, going at your own pace and creating safety in a way that works for you. It is centered in the body, working with body sensations and processing directly through the body.

The main goal is for you to develop the ability to become present with the experience in your body. That is done by connecting to body sensations and finding out where and how your body is still holding charge, which can show up as buzzing, tingling, tension, anxiety etc.

Your presence with and feeling of what is happening inside yourself actually allows you to digest, or metabolize the experience.

However, that is not always easy, because after a traumatic experience it might not feel safe for you to feel what is going on in your body. So, the first step is always to establish safety.

We first develop what is called “resource”. Resource is anything that makes you feel safe and comfortable in your body. Then, after establishing safety and connection, we start to touch slowly and gently into any activation that might be present by tracking body sensations. We do that slowly enough so that it feels safe and manageable, staying in touch with the resource at the same time, so you get to take little pieces at a time and digest them.

It is like catching up with everything that happened. Usually a traumatic event is very intense and happens fast. Here, you get to slow down and listen and really hear what your body is telling you about what has not been processed. Through that process often discharge will start to happen, because the safety is there to allow it to happen. Discharge means the body is letting go of the energy that has been stored in the tissues and the nervous system.

It can feel like:

  • tingling or streaming sensations

  • trembling or shaking

  • softening or letting go of tension

  • calmness and relaxation

  • feeling tired, yawning

  • reconnecting to body parts that were feeling disconnected

Once some of the energy has discharged there is usually a noticeable reduction in symptoms.

If you are dealing with complex trauma and/or childhood trauma we might need to work with other layers as well, such as attachment issues, emotional issues, relational issues etc.

The work can be done sitting in a chair or lying down on the table. I often combine this approach with Craniosacral Therapy, where you would be lying fully clothed on a bodwork table. Or, I might support the process with gentle touch on areas of the body that are holding tension. Often, we will spend some time sitting and some time lying down in one session, depending on what works best for you.