Somatic Experiencing® (SE) offers an inspiring vision for the resolution of trauma. Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, this body-centered, naturalistic approach to healing trauma is based on the observation that animals in the wild, though routinely threatened, are rarely traumatized. Wild animals utilize innate mechanisms common to all mammals, including humans, to regulate and discharge the high levels of energy arousal associated with survival behaviors.

When we experience fear or threat, the subcortical structures of the brain are activated, while at the same time the higher cortical structures associated with language, observation and planning are shut down. What this means is: working only with the neocortex, the conscious abstract-thinking part of the brain, will not get to the trauma. To resolve trauma, we have to go deeper into the brain and work with the limbic and primitive structures that access the nervous system via the body.

Natural instincts: Fight, flight, or freeze
SE focuses on developing and expanding the resource-repertoire of our clients in the safety of the therapeutic environment. Learning how to experience resources in our bodies enable us to work with trauma symptoms safely. The instinctual fight, flight, freeze responses to perceived threat, particularly the freeze response, are vital to the SE model. If we are not able to discharge the energies of the fight/flight response, we go into the freeze — our last-ditch effort to survive. In the wild, predators are not generally interested in innate prey, or the predator may hide the prey while it gathers its clan. This gives the prey a chance to come out of the freeze and run away. The wild prey instinctually comes out of the freeze by trembling, shaking, and taking deep breaths.

The good news is that we humans have these same instinctual survival mechanisms and the same capacity to come out of the freeze and discharge the highly activated energy of the fight/flight state as our wild animal friends. This is the same energy that allows a 100 lb. mother to lift a car to rescue her child. It is powerful. As counselors, we need to know how to work with this powerful energy. This is what SE is all about. We work with our clients to help them come out of these freeze states safely.

The neurochemistry of the freeze state is not clearly understood as of yet, but we have some clues. In a simplified explanation of a highly complex phenomenon, the chemicals utilized for the fight-flight state come from the sympathetic branch of the nervous system, while the chemicals of the freeze come from the parasympathetic branch. These two branches of the autonomic nervous system are meant to function reciprocally. In the freeze state, they are both on simultaneously. It’s like an accelerator and a brake on at the same time. Over time, these chemicals create the dysregulation of the nervous system and neurohormonal changes that are deleterious to the body/mind, giving rise to an array of symptoms and syndromes, including addictions.

What does the freeze state look like in our clients? We all have some clients who are shut down, unaware of feelings or body sensation. Other clients have extreme emotional liability, and others may vacillate between the two. The key observation to be aware of is that they do not have choice. There is a stuckness, a fixity with little range of experience. In many clients, it goes beyond symptoms to becoming an identity. The trauma is the life. It’s about the past. There is a perceived absence of a future. We want to be working in the now, that is where healing happens.

Beyond the freeze
Underneath the freeze state is the highly charged energy of rage and terror. As humans, we fear these energies because we have no control over them, although we have many defenses to avoid going into these states. SE therapists become expert trackers of the nervous system, observing the subtle signs of freeze and of the thwarted defensive responses of the fight-flight state. In SE, we titrate the energy by working with small pieces of the energy and allowing it to settle rather than evoking catharsis, which can overwhelm the regulatory mechanisms of the organism once again.

The healthy nervous system is constantly in a state of expansion and contraction, called pendualtion. We want our clients to have this kind of flexibility and fluidity. The SE therapist assists clients to start pendulation. Traumatized people can’t trust the pendulation when it begins to happen. When the energy starts to release, it scares them.

With addiction, there is an attempt to manage this energy. Whether the energy appears explosive or numb it is high activation. The addictive behavior is an attempt to control this energy. The addict avoids the feeling states because they feel overwhelmed or they try to feel something to avoid the numb frozen state. Recovery will be difficult without this basic ability to self-regulate.

Working with small pieces of the energy in the therapeutic environment with someone trained to recognize pendulation, clients can begin to have a safe experience of expansion contraction. The client can start to trust their body and its natural instincts to heal, creating the fluidity and flow necessary for nervous system regulation.

We access this energy through the felt sense in the body. In SE, we help clients to come back into their bodies to have the experiences necessary to change the brain. In bringing together the highest cerebral functions of refined awareness with the primitive animal instincts, we are able to develop our own natural ability to heal and transform. Transforming trauma in this naturalistic way through the body/mind allows us to become more fully human and live our wild nature — our connection to our aliveness and our vitality.

So I invite you, therapists, to get wild with yourself and your clients.

Note: The practice of Somatic Experiencing® requires proper training and certification. For more information about SE, see www.traumahealing.com.

Maya Youngblood, MA, LPCC, LMT ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is a licensed psychotherapist and massage therapist. She practices Somatic Experiencing at Sierra Tucson, in Tucson, AZ, where she also has a private practice.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, December 2004, v.5, n.6, pp. 46-47.

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