I hesitate to describe Somatic Therapy, but I will tell you my experience.
First if I may recommend Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine. That describes it best. He is sort of credited with discovering that kind of release.
You know how animals in the wild face mortal danger on a daily basis? They instinctually know how to physically release the stress hormones that naturally flood their systems when faced with Freeze, Flight, Fight (or Collapse) once the danger is passed or they wouldn't survive.
When human beings are exposed to a threat to survival particularly over a prolonged period and do not have the opportunity to release, the theory goes that the incompleted act of release stays bound up.
When a PTSDer is triggered, etc., it is as if it is all happening again in real time - according to the information the limbic or instinctual brain has. What then?
So in Somatic Therapy - at least for me - an incident of trauma might come up. I go near it peripherally sometimes, like seeing it for a second or feeling what I can't remember but have an idea of. I sort of stick my toe in the water by talking in an oblique way about it. I will feel the build up inside like I felt it then. I will feel very cold in my chest pre-release, but not from the environment. Blankets or heat don't help. And I start shaking. I can't stop the shake. Usually I will stand up and walk around. (I am no longer trapped.) Maybe I will talk, maybe not. Maybe I will yell or cry. If it is too overwhelming I will describe what is real in the room - ground myself. Or maybe I will go into detail about a memory of safety with my grandmother when I was young.
When it is over, sometimes I feel supremely good. The best one brought a feeling of silk laid against my back. I have literally had the sensation of my face and fingers and feet coming out of a freeze, like when you come in from the cold into the warmth. I feel the thaw.
The Body Remembers is another great book describing what happens in safe release therapy.
That's a little of what it is for me.
