The body in trauma treatment
Trauma is not just stored in memories — it is stored in the body. Physiological responses, muscle tension, breathing patterns, and the nervous system itself carry the imprint of overwhelming experiences. Traditional talk therapy primarily engages the thinking brain; somatic therapies directly engage the body's experience and nervous system.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Developed by Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing is based on the observation that animals in the wild instinctively discharge stress responses after threatening situations — shaking, trembling, or moving through the activation. In humans, this natural completion is often interrupted. SE gently guides the completion of these interrupted responses, allowing the nervous system to return to regulation.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy integrates somatic approaches with cognitive and emotional processing. It tracks body experience in real time during sessions and uses physical interventions — movements, postures, breathing — to process trauma held in the body.
Somatic therapies are particularly valuable for people who have tried talk therapy without sufficient resolution of trauma symptoms, those with significant body-based symptoms (chronic pain, tension, somatic complaints), people who dissociate or become overwhelmed in standard trauma therapy, and complex trauma and developmental trauma.