What Exactly Do You Do In Somatic Experiencing?

[sun seeker]

So I chose the therapist I am working with because she is the only one I have access to who has even a little training in somatic experiencing, which I feel is the best fit for me. I like her and find her open to suggestions, but so far, the SE we have been doing hasn't been very much. What we do is mostly her asking me where I am feeling an emotion and to describe the sensation, and pointing out things I am doing like putting a hand on my chest when scared. Once we did a visualization exercise involving going to an imaginary safe place. She has agreed to talk to and ask suggestions from a therapist with more SE experience, which I hope will help. I'm really getting desperate for SOMETHING to shift to give me the sense I'm getting somewhere.

It just seems to me there is supposed to be more to it than that. She is open to new ideas, but I'm not sure what to suggest. To clarify, the source of my trauma is mostly preverbal and not something I would be able to tell a coherent story about, so it's a bit different from someone working on, say, a concrete experience like a car accident. If you have done this kind of therapy, what exactly did it involve?

 

[Chava]

First, especially if it's early trauma and stuff you don't have memory of, it could take a while. There has been a sort of long process of me simply being able to tune into my body. When your body feels safe it will start to reveal more, if that makes sense. So it takes time and working on noticing sensations for a while is probably okay. With complex trauma I have NOT found it to be like videos I found online where a client is on day 2 of their SE therapy and they experience some major trauma release and their life seems to totally change. Nope. I felt very impatient waiting for that at times. But it makes sense that it's a longer process of more subtle releases and shifts, and always going back to basic safety. I need a ridiculous amount of safety.

It might not always be the case, but it seems like the body works backwards on this stuff, like I probably did release adult traumas pretty early on and these early childhood ones are feeling sort of impossible at times. But it's really different stuff, which you might start to notice, and requires different possible actions and responses. As an example, adult stuff has more fight-and-flight reflexes that were thwarted. Early childhood involves more self-protective postures, detaching from my therapist and everything at times, and "disappearing"...also feelings of being trapped or immobilized. So it helps to work on rewiring that stuff...feeling safety in therapy now, connection (I can keep talking to my therapist when she asks questions usually, even if I feel a little bit far away, so I don't totally disappear), and also finding ways to remind myself that I am not immobilized. Lately my therapist helped me create a small circle made of pillows to sit in (my idea) so I could feel okay moving away from my safety against the wall and more out into the space. I had to curl into a ball, but I made it a few feet beyond my safe spot. This was just something I imagined doing because it "felt" like a way to move forward. I literally moved forward. I had to change my position and not feel so stuck. So keep listening to your body....sometimes it's very strange, but that's often when it is also most in line with something really early that doesn't make logical sense to our adult brains.

Anyway, most of our sessions involve my "noticing" what is happening in my body, naming it, and trying to figure out what my body wants to do. Sometimes my therapist has ideas if I'm stumped, based on her read of my body language or other things going on. She helps me separate "freeze" stuff (conflicting impulses like wanting to connect with someone but also wanting to protect myself by getting away from all humans....wanting to reach out but also push away or run, etc....these are not pleasant sensations). I think SE is pretty complicated. I know it's hard to find an SE therapist, but if you really want to do it, especially for early trauma, don't rule out finding someone with more experience if it's ever an option (I have to travel some). Since neither of you know the story I believe it takes a good amount of body-reading skill, early childhood psych awareness, and a big toolkit of possible responses. But whether this therapist or someone else, be willing to work at it without resolving it super fast...probably unlikely. But I do think SE makes good sense for early childhood trauma...not much else seems useful.

 

[Chava]

p.s. helps to understand too that early childhood protective responses include connecting with others (fighting isn't an option but babies are pretty well wired to connect to an adult for their protection and survival...why unhealthy attachment has lasting effects, particularly harmful if the attachment figure is abusive....baby wants to connect and also can't possibly feel or learn safety in any form...I experience chronic feelings of unsafety and somehow I'm pretty sure that connects to my dangerous and destructive behavior and wanting to just get out of here). A lot of my sessions have felt like me just sitting there, feeling very small or a little far away, doing nothing in particular. But I'm moving between not knowing if I'm safe and feeling safe. I trust my therapist, but the traumatized little self doesn't trust anyone. So just sitting quietly, noticing, breathing, and coming out okay at the end seems to be part of a process of rewiring for me. Also lots of stuff about boundaries and me having a "self"...therapist always presents things as choices and I can say yes or no to anything, ask her to move closer or further away, etc. That's good.

 

[Leigh925]

I don't think I could add much to what Chava had to say. It is a great explanation. I would just chime in and reinforce that for me it was also slow going.....very slow.

I am a "let's tackle this project" kind of person so I was frustrated in the beginning. I had to let go of my internal timeline I had placed on myself.

I would definitely suggest reading the book Healing Developmental Trauma. It was a tremendous help for me...and my therapist actually!

Good luck!

 

[Justmehere]

I do a form of somatic experiencing therapy. There actually isn't much to it. A SE therapist does use quite a bit of technique, but SE is really just a means to let your body process the trauma on its own. The SE therapist really focuses on removing roadblocks from letting the body do that on it's own. Noticing what roadblocks are there and helping to remove them is the hard part, but once that happens, it just all happens by just noticing and not stopping what is happening in your body. I have done several self-administered SE sessions to process adult trauma. Kid or pre-verbal trauma is messier and too hard to do alone.

 

[sun seeker]

@Chava, thanks so much for all the information. I'm going to need to read it several times to internalize it all! It does sound like a fine art and that someone with more experience would pick up on the intricacies of this better, and it is possible that by summer I will have a chance to do some work with a therapist who specializes in early trauma work. It's been such a long time I've tried one thing after another, the repeated failures have complicated the original problem a lot. What a difference it would make to my outlook on life to have a sense of moving forward, even if it is slow. And I hear you that it will be.

I need a huge amount of work on feeling safe, too. She keeps asking whether there is a time I can remember when I felt safe and the trouble is, there really isn't. We came to the tentative conclusion that if we spend lots of time tapping into the feeling of "safer" even if it isn't really "safe", it will raise the bar and I may later be able to feel safer still. Does that fit with your experience?

I'm so sorry your insurance won't pay for this therapist anymore. She sounds really skilled.

@Leigh925, I've read Healing Developmental Trauma and love it. I keep recommending it to people. My therapist is reading it. I asked whether there was anything in it she could see herself using and there was one thing (focusing on resource memories) that she is already doing and could to more, but in the main, she would need to take the training.

@Justmehere, thanks for the info. I've tried doing this on my own but really feel I need someone there to keep me on track.

I have another question (for anybody who has an answer). Sometimes when I tap into a feeling she then asks me what the feeling wants to do, or something like that, and the answer is almost always that I want to scream. There's this ongoing feeling of there being a terrified, hysterical child somewhere in me and that's the impulse. The trouble with this is it doesn't work to act on it in the therapy room with other people working down the hall, and when I have tried to work on it on my own (screaming into a pillow or some such) I get a sore throat long before the urge is gone. My throat is one of my body's weak spots. How would you work on processing that feeling? My therapist suggested looking for some alternative means of release, but it didn't work very well.

 

[Justmehere]

My therapist has said the urge to scream is part of the defensive response that didn't get to complete before. Stay with the feeling, the sensations, right up until you scream, but don't give into the urge. There was one trauma that made me feel like I wanted to run. She told me to feel the urge to run, even feel my legs become tense, but don't actually run out of the room. She would stay to be still through it and it will get worse, and then on it's own, it will get better. Other times, I will feel like I need to kick something, and like she says to let my leg move on it's own, slowly, which I'm still not sure yet how to so. The way she does SE, the goal is to notice and keep noticing, let the body process the defensive responses that are stuck in the body.

 

[shell]

I haven't been working on it long as I have other types of therapy, but for me it as been a completion of the acts I didn't get to complete as a child, kicking out, pushing away, punching, running away. When I am talking about things, and react physically which I do alot, we work releasing the body reactions. When my hand curl into a fist while taking etc. I will focus on what it feels like it wants to do. I have got a lot of relief from it, and feeling safer as a result.

 

[Chava]

I will have a chance to do some work with a therapist who specializes in early trauma work. It's been such a long time I've tried one thing after another, the repeated failures have complicated the original problem a lot. What a difference it would make to my outlook on life to have a sense of moving forward, even if it is slow. And I hear you that it will be.

I need a huge amount of work on feeling safe, too. She keeps asking whether there is a time I can remember when I felt safe and the trouble is, there really isn't.

The early trauma perspective, even if difficult to wrap my head around, helps a lot. I've felt so f*cked up. I know I had major medical trauma, pre-birth wasn't even good or very safe, and I did not have a safe or caring connection (I think I reminded my mom of her own abuse or something...she despised me...thinking back I think she was somewhat dissociated in her violent rages...like I really wasn't "there" and she wasn't either...very messed up). I can't recall any safe feelings either, at least not early or in connection to people. I have a memory of feeling safe in the closet, hiding in a big box of mittens. This is sort of how I have felt "safety" for a long time...shut out everything and disappear. Anyway, it's pretty complicated to get the internal safety thing working if you've never had it. But I've been feeling hopeful.

Like safety, I could not feel comfort or soothing. Not long ago I was able to feel comforted by holding a teddy bear. I never felt that as a kid...like I never felt comfort? WTF. And that explains my self-regulation, drinking, cutting, burning, starving problems (possibly now connected to chronic pain)...I have had no ability to self-soothe or calm myself. So by the time I faced adult traumas I responded by quickly trying to kill myself...just felt like there was absolutely no way to go on or survive. BUT somehow I'm not dead, and it's really interesting and hopeful to realize that I'm not totally broken...my body can still relearn and experience these really natural things. I dared to ask my therapist if I could get the smallest stuffed animal on her shelf. She offered to get in for me. But I wanted to myself...took me AN HOUR of scooting on the floor. She held the end of a blanket that I was holding so we were sort of connected and not alone but I was doing it on my own (trying to access and allow myself this tiniest comfort). I was crying the whole way, not able to look at the puppy, and stopping occassionally to give myself oxygen. It was bizarre and yet felt incredibly deep and real. Now sometimes I can rest my head on my dog and feel calm. Humans are probably long down the road, but just feeling any comfort, or allowing myself to feel that, is really amazing for me...the little things I didn't think were possible.

Of course ask about insurance, etc, if that is an issue for you. Many SE practitioners are private practice and not in the major clinics yet, so the crappier insurance companies can't cover it. My insurance is all f*cked up now and I don't know how long I'll be able to do SE, so it's really depressing to feel like you find something that won't be another failed therapy and then it just stops. I'd like a little control over the timeline and not such an abrupt change (my company switched insurance companies, I had no say in any of it)...like I'd like to have another year and have some pretty concrete goals...or just have until I feel like I have that inner safety more constant. I still have a lot of meltdowns and feel myself as living in a bubble sometimes. I'm really aware of it, which is different, and I feel more connected in many ways. But it's been a couple years and it sort of feels like we're just starting. It took well over a year in order for me to feel like my therapist existed beyond therapy (this sounds crazy, I'm smarter than this, but it helps to understand as really early stuff). Yet I forget that under stress or I fear I'm dead to her or I'll never see her again.

So yes, slow. Maybe the person you're seeing will be a good fit. Maybe not. But there's no harm in having support as you try to slow down and gain a connection to yourself and your own experience. I value that so much. Very few people can do that for us.

 

[sun seeker]

My therapist has said the urge to scream is part of the defensive response that didn't get to complete before. Stay with the feeling, the sensations, right up until you scream, but don't give into the urge.

Okay. Right this minute, I am triggered. Long story. My body is full of fear sensations and I want to scream. I'm going to sit here and pay attention to that without trying to make it stop and see what happens. Aack.

 

[Chava]

My therapists allows for any impulse but encourages it to go slowly. Just punching something doesn't release our trauma. Slow, contained, aware of present. I don't remember what the word is for it, but she has good skills. If I'm pushing something away slowly with my leg, I'm supposedly integrating that newer response...rewiring,,

 

[sun seeker]

Of course ask about insurance, etc, if that is an issue for you.

I don't have any insurance except for the kind everyone in this country has, which doesn't cover the kind of therapy I really need. There is a woman with the experience in SE (the one who I hope is going to give my therapist some guidance) but she can't see me because even though she is covered by the medical system, I don't live in her area. There is no bending the rules. She asked. They want me to see the mental health worker who covers my town, which would be a waste of time because she doesn't have the skills I am looking for. So the one I am working with is the closest there is to what I need, and at that, she had to get special permission to see me. The bus ride both ways takes me most of a day once a week, but it's worth it. The other therapist I may have a chance to see in the summer (she just arrived in the area and hasn't set up her practice yet) is private, which I can't afford, but my mother may be willing to pay for some sessions.

My therapists allows for any impulse but encourages it to go slowly. Just punching something doesn't release our trauma.

Thanks, I wouldn't have thought of that. It really sounds like working with someone who knows what they're doing could make all the difference.

What I found was when working by myself, I do go through a series of responses and releasing (I hope) but get distracted before getting into it very far. There's only so far I can go before spacing out. My goodness, how the fear of losing anything or anyone triggers me. It's a blind terror.

Some of your descriptions sound a lot like the therapeutic processes Laurence Heller talks about in Healing Developmental Trauma. How I wish I could find a therapist like him. It's so unfair that you don't get to keep doing this when it is helping so much but you're not finished.