Somatic Experiencing

Much of the integral healing work that I faciliate with individuals involves working with trauma.  I am trained and certified in Somatic Experiencing (SE)-- a short-term and naturalistic approach to healing and resolving trauma developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D. I integrate the principles and skills of this approach in all of my work, as well as utilize it specifically when working with all forms of trauma.  SE supports people in accessing their innate resilency and their inherent capacity to rebound and recover from overwhelming experiences.  While SE focuses on and integrates all elements of human experience--sensations, feelings, thoughts and images, behaviors, movements--its unique contribution to healing trauma is the added and foundational emphasis on shifting the underlying physiology of trauma as an essential ingredient in the healing process.  SE facilitates the healing of trauma by teaching and guiding those who have been traumatized to release stored or blocked survival energy and to complete interupted phsyiological process that have gotten "stuck" in the nervous system--in a safe, effective and contained way.

Benefits of Somatic Experiencing:                                                               (quoted from the Foundation for Human Enrichment website:  www.traumahealing.com)

SE employs awareness of body sensation to help people "re-negotiate" and heal rather than re-live or re-enact the trauma                                                                                SE guides bodily "felt sense" which allows highly aroused survival energies to be safely experienced and gradually discharged                                                                             SE "titrates" experience rather than evoking catharsis--which can overwhelm the regulatory mechanisms of the organism                                                                         SE eliminates pitfalls of re-raumatization and the spurious generation of "false memories"

Primary Types of Trauma I Work With:

Prenatal and Birth Trauma                                                                                          Familial and Ancestral Trauma                                                                                          Medical Trauma                                                                                                          Chronic Illnesses and Syndromes                                                                            Emotional, Physical, Sexual, Relational and Spirtual Trauma      

Fees:  $100 for 60 minute session;  $125 for 75 minute session

Related Links:

Committee for the Shelterless (COTS):  www.cots-homeless.org                               Foundation for Human Enrichment:  www.traumahealing.com                                       Trauma Vidya Foundation:  www.traumavidya.org                                                                 

Volunteer Trauma Education and Trauma Relief Work:

I have had the privelege to be actively involved in two very important projects, which are "near and dear" to my heart involving trauma education and trauma relief work--one in India and one in my local community--which I would like to share with you.   Since February 2006, I have been part of an international trauma team of Somatic Experiencing Practitioners (SEP's) offering trauma relief work to tsunami survivors in the Tamal Nadu region of southern India This work is being offered through the Trauma Vidya Foundation and includes trauma education for hundreds of social workers, health care professionals, and field workers from over 50 NGO's (non-government organizations), who offer services to diverse populations of adults and children suffering from the effects of trauma.  To learn more about this humanitarian project, as well as to see a photo essay, go to:  www.traumavidya.com.   Simultaneously, within my local community, I am collaborating with two of my SE colleagues in developing ways of teaching, integrating, and offering SE for the staff and participants of a local homeless shelter, COTS, which offers emergency housing and longer-term transitional housing to homeless children and their parents, and to homeless adults.  We are in the process of developing and piloting an SE clinic there, which will offer SE sessions at no charge to the participants.  To learn more about COTS and this truly remarkable, inspiring, and integral program for the homeless, go to:  www.cots-homeless.org.