Healing Soma: Integrating Trauma Through Somatic Experiencing

There is an embodied revolution occurring in the field of psychotherapy, counselling, and mental health. Somatic psychology, which is the psychology of the body, prioritizes an individual’s living experience of embodiment as the foundation for experiences in life. Somatic therapies work with a person’s body, mind, and spirit.

Trauma is inherently an embodied response, although the physiology of trauma has only received professional attention in more recent years. Providing safe physiological outlets for pent up energy within the body can help to resolve traumatic tensions for individuals, as it turns out that trauma isn’t defined by any specific event in life, but rather reflects a person’s inability to discharge survival energy.¹ Trauma isn’t a disease or a disorder; trauma reflects how we can become fragmented when we become completely paralyzed, helpless, and overwhelmed within a variety of situations in life.²

Dr. Peter Levine, who pioneered and developed somatic experiencing, realized traumatic experiences affect far more than just our thoughts. Despite many best intentions in the field of therapy, it turns out we can’t think ourselves out of traumatic experiences; fundamentally, trauma is a felt sense experience and not an entirely cognitive or rational process.

Source: Photo by Nidhi Bhat on Unsplash

That’s why somatic experiencing guides people to connect to their bodily sensations, emotions, behaviours, deeper meaning, and the unconscious images associated with their suffering. Instead of focusing on people’s narratives or cognitive understandings of trauma, somatic experiencing works with the body’s physiology to discharge survival energies safely. somatic experiencing supports individuals to connect with their felt sense experiences in a new way, and to develop a deeper relationship to their internal resources in a supportive therapeutic environment.

One of the unique hallmarks of somatic experiencing is that trauma responses, such as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, can be experienced in small, incremental, and manageable steps rather than evoking overwhelming distress.³ This approach is highly compassionate, as the gradual nature of the therapy helps avoid re-traumatization as it doesn’t expose people too quickly to their own traumatic experiences. Dr. Levine refers to this as titration, which means, less is more. Pausing, slowing down, observing, becoming more mindful and more curious about our internal experiences is a gradual process.

Over time, individuals who have experienced trauma are slowly able to expand their arousal states, and their personal range of resiliency for tolerating distress. This is what is known as pendulation, which is a delicately paced process of moving in and out of internal sensations. The ability to experience strong sensations with less tension takes time as noted above, and pendulation needs to occur at an attuned pace that isn’t too overwhelming or underwhelming. Eventually, people can experience new embodied sensations that help them feel safer, more well-regulated, and empowered in day-to-day life.

Is There Evidence to Support Somatic Experiencing?

Yes. Here are three key examples of somatic research for trauma:

• Field based research demonstrates how many individuals have had partial or complete resolution of trauma-related symptoms in relation to natural disasters, within both acute and long-term settings.^4,5
• A quasi-experimental study found that somatic experiencing had a significant reduction of post-traumatic stress for refugee women, in addition to increasing mindfulness levels.⁶
• A randomized control trial has demonstrated how somatic experiencing significantly reduced PTSD symptoms associated with chronic lower back pain.⁷

This research list is a valuable starting point, but it is not exhaustive by any means. Yet, it is also difficult to comprehend the full effectiveness of somatic experiencing as this therapeutic orientation is not as well researched in contrast to other mainstream therapeutic approaches. More holistic and integrative approaches to healing routinely face political and systematic barriers, which means less funding for research.

It's also important to note that there is a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence for somatic experiencing’s efficacy from clinicians themselves, and people who have been the recipient of this unique healing modality. Moreover, somatic experiencing is slowly building up an impressive volume of research demonstrating its efficacy. As a reasonably accessible therapy (with somewhat accessible training for therapists), somatic experiencing as an intervention is extremely valuable for further research to explore. The modality’s value is further demonstrated given that is a non-pharmacological intervention that requires no equipment, can be practiced in-person or virtually, and has an intuitive embodied component that translates well cross-culturally.

Trauma Essential Reads

The Debate Over Trauma in the New DSM Revision

How We Help Each Other Heal

Connecting to soma (body) is essential if we hope to re-discover a felt sense of vitality and well-being after a traumatic experience. The body doesn’t have to be only a source of pain, stress, or fear; it can be a profound place of connection, pleasure, and wonder.