Somatic Experience Therapy

A woman with short blonde hair smiling gently with eyes closed, holding her hands over her chest, surrounded by lush green plants in a bright, natural light setting.

Somatic Experiencing™ (SE) offers a powerful approach to healing stress, shock, and trauma by focusing on how these experiences are stored and expressed within the body and nervous system. Unlike traditional trauma treatments that primarily address the narrative or cognitive aspects, SE recognizes that trauma is fundamentally a physiological experience—“Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence,” as Peter Levine reminds us. The essence of trauma lies in the dysregulation of the nervous system, which can trap us in persistent patterns of fight, flight, or freeze responses. These patterns shape how we experience ourselves, others, and the world around us.

By gently guiding individuals to access bodily sensations and release these ingrained survival responses, SE facilitates recovery and resilience. This body-oriented therapeutic model is uniquely adaptable and widely applied across diverse fields—psychotherapy, medicine, coaching, education, and physical therapy—within the practitioner’s scope of expertise. It draws on a rich blend of disciplines including physiology, psychology, ethology, neuroscience, indigenous healing traditions, and medical biophysics, with a clinical history spanning more than forty years.

Peter Levine explains, “Trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you.” This distinction highlights how trauma imprints itself deeply onto mind, brain, and body, often long after the original event has passed. As Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., states, “Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.”

Trauma can originate from a sudden, acute threat or from the gradual accumulation of stress over time. Whether caused by accidents, invasive medical procedures, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, or systemic and intergenerational influences such as epigenetics and chronic fear, trauma can profoundly impair one’s ability to live with ease, balance, and resilience.

Through Somatic Experiencing, healing is not about erasing memory but about restoring the nervous system’s natural capacity to regulate and self-correct. As Levine affirms, “The goal is to return to a state of balance and equilibrium by helping the nervous system complete the defensive responses that were interrupted or incomplete.” This restoration opens the path to renewed vitality, presence, and well-being.

Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is a body-focused approach to healing trauma and chronic stress. It gently helps release tension, restore balance, and build resilience—without needing to relive painful memories.

What SE Can Help With:

  • Trauma (accidents, injury, assault)

  • Anxiety & depression

  • PTSD

  • Chronic pain

  • Burnout & emotional overwhelm

  • Sleep & digestive issues

Seeing a Chiropractor?

X-ray illustration of a human body with highlighted lower back pain area showing electrical activity and glowing spot in the lower back.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) therapy and chiropractic care can complement each other well, as they both aim to support the body’s natural healing processes—just from different but synergistic angles.

Here’s how they work together:

    • Chiropractic care primarily focuses on the alignment and function of the musculoskeletal system, particularly the spine, which affects nerve communication throughout the body.

    • Somatic Experiencing focuses on resolving stored trauma and chronic stress in the nervous system by helping the body complete self-protective responses that were interrupted or suppressed.

    Together, they address both the physical structure and the nervous system’s regulation, offering a fuller path to healing, especially for those with chronic tension, pain, or trauma-related symptoms.

    • Many people hold trauma in the body that shows up as chronic tension, misalignment, or pain.

    • Chiropractic adjustments can bring physical relief, while SE helps release the underlying emotional or physiological trauma that may be contributing to those physical symptoms.

    • SE can also prepare the nervous system to better receive and integrate chiropractic adjustments.

    • Clients who receive SE often become more attuned to body sensations and more present, which can help them better respond to and retain chiropractic adjustments.

    • Likewise, chiropractic work can make people more comfortable and open in their bodies, making SE sessions more effective by reducing physical barriers to emotional release.

    • Both modalities can downregulate the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight), which supports healing, immune function, and overall well-being.