Somatic Experiencing: Using Interoception And Proprioception

[Xisca]

Somatic experiencing: using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy

Presentation of the theory + a typical case study of a situation where the cause and effect relationship between event / symtoms were so clear that the person sought for help.

Somatic Experiencing is about trauma, but this Word is not understood in all its aspects, as we would like to not see our traumas, only stress.... Trauma seems something about big big events, and if we did not have that much, we generally do not believe we have trauma.
But the only difference is if we had or have a way out of the stressful event, or not. And it is not so easy to tell! Stress is easy to see, trauma is not, because it made us create some distance with the event, so that we do not suffer as much. Our lives are all full of stress and of traumas. No problem if we know how to regulate ourselves.
And trauma disregulates the biology, the physiology.
Whatever syndrom we have at metabolic level should raise the question of why our body is no more able to deal with all its job, why the coherence is gone. Ask the vagus nerve for example....
You can regulate your endocrine system, but if you find a way to regulate the autonomic nervous system, the endocrine system will get back enough energy to help a lot!

 

[Marilynn]

Thank you for this reminder!!! I had some SE therapy a year and a half ago, and I was starting to see some results. Unfortunately, I lost my insurance and had to stop going to the therapy. I will dig out the book and revisit this, trying to do the exercises on my own. Thank you again!

 

[Heidi]

Thanks for posting this Xisca. It was a very good article. I appreciated all the details of the case study.

I especially resonated with the gentle approach:

This going back and forth between charge/activation and discharge/deactivation needs to be finely tuned. Too much of one or the other, and the process of re-establishing balanced functioning is interrupted. This distinguishes SE from exposure therapies, which do not tend to avoid extremes of activation. SE terms this back and forth process “pendulation.” When skillfully nurtured it tends to occur spontaneously as the system seeks to restore balance (Levine, 1997, 2010).

I've been continuing to work with relaxing any subtle physical tension around stress, contraction, or holding patterns in the body. Ongoing gentle release seems to be key in unraveling trauma. It also has been key for me with breathing and increasing CO2 and my CP. I'm learning to not push or try too hard, but instead keep gently and persistently moving in the right direction.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Now THAT's good therapy. It did read almost a bit too cartoonish, though. Is that a real patient?

 

[Xisca]

Now THAT's good therapy. It did read almost a bit too cartoonish, though. Is that a real patient?

Very interresting what you said!
Yes, real patient, and real way of talking.
This is a way of talking that is made for talking to the unconscious nervous system, thus the style!
I had almost forgotten it....
Yes it can sound strange, but not when you get the sesión.

We have to bypass the brain.... so we speak to the inner child, maybe we can say it like this? It is not meant to think but to feel the body and follow the subtle changes.

Thanks for your interresting remark!