Treating Trauma with Somatic Healing | Dr. Peter A. Levine | Ep. 39

And so, Peter, many of our listeners are recovering from complex trauma and may be hearing about somatic work for the first time.

Mm.

Would you be able to explain what somatic experiencing is, how you came into it-

Sure

... and how working with the body helps the, helps trauma begin to heal?

Let me start.

Um, you know, when I started working with people in the actually late '60s and '70s, um, you know, this was way before trauma was ensconced in the diagnostic manual as PTSD.

So it's still like 12, 13 years before that.

So I didn't know, I was gonna say unfortunately, but I would say fortunately, I didn't know that trauma supposedly was an incurable brain disorder, maybe a brain disease, that could at best be managed with medications and helping people to change their negative thought, their negative beliefs.

And so I kind of got to start from ground zero.

So let's, I'll give a, a s- couple of simple examples here.

Um, let's just say as a child, the person was often hit, punished from a parent or from an older sibling.

And so what they do, what we do, is we learn to protect ourselves by bracing against ourselves.

And if something that only happens once or twice, then it lets go, and we come back to neutral.

However, when it happens again and again, and often is a- a- associated also with, with shame, that response gets stuck.

And so it, it becomes habitual, and the person may not be aware that there's even that tension there.

But, um, you know, after some time, they start developing, um, shoulder pain, and often this pain spreads to different parts of the body.

And so often if somebody is experiencing pain, I'll ask them to explore and to see if beneath the pla- the pain, they can notice some kind of a tension.

And then as they notice the tension, the next question might be, "If that tension were to increase, how would that move your shoulder? How might that move your shoulder?" And usually the person will say, "It's like this." Of course, that's the bracing pattern.

So then I'll say, "Let's do it very slowly together." Because what's happening here, when the shoulder gets stuck in this position, it keeps telling the brain that we're gonna be hit again, so we better prepare for it.

But then, as I say, it gets stuck there.

And so what can we do to gradually help the person release that pattern? So again, instead of just going up quickly like this, I'll s- I'll mirror the person, and slowly e- h- we'll increase our shoulder tension a little bit and then letting it go.

And then, then just resting there, 'cause usually there are sensations, feelings, thoughts, images that might oc- occur.

Not necessary that they occur, but they very likely will occur.

And again, to do it two or three or even four times, each time raising it a little bit higher, and each time releasing it, and then attending to the various sensations that are evoked when you do this exercise.