Somatic Experiencing (SE™) is a body-oriented therapeutic model for healing trauma and other stress disorders. It is the life’s work of Dr. Peter A. Levine.

Dr Peter Levine developed this approach after observing that prey animals, whose lives are routinely threatened in the wild, are able to recover readily by physically releasing the energy they accumulate during stressful events. Humans, on the other hand, often override these natural ways of regulating the nervous system with feelings of shame and pervasive thoughts, judgments, and fears. Somatic Experiencing aims to help people move past the place where they might be “stuck” in processing a traumatic event.

The Somatic Experiencing method works to release this stored energy and turn off this threat alarm in the body that causes severe dysregulation and dissociation. SE helps people understand this body response to trauma and work through a “body first” approach to healing.