I had craniosacral therapy, which is closely related (Waking the Tiger is a standard text for it) but different in that you aren't taken through anything cognitively/consciously, it's all with the central nervous system and body directly.
I can't imagine doing trauma work without somatic therapy. It released so much fear and horror that I would have otherwise spent years and huge distress trying to work through with some other more talk-based therapy.
It reconnected me to my body in a safe way. It let me trust in my body, which was important because some of my trauma specifically turned me against my own body as being the enemy.
It strengthened my belief in healing and our natural ability to heal. The somatic healing reactions I experienced made it clear to me that there was a natural process taking place that knew what to do. (As Peter Levine says, all we have to do is get out of the way.)
It was validating. The strength of the somatic reactions and the things the therapist sensed helped me stop minimising the trauma.
I've still needed psychotherapy, to work through the meaning trauma has had for me and the devastating effect on my self, my life and my beliefs. I see the two things as working together.
I can imagine craniosacral therapy backfiring in the sense that the therapist needed to contain the release of trauma energy and not just do the equivalent of blowing up a dam and letting it all come out at once. He was able to do that because he was experienced and knew what he was doing, but I was making sure of that myself anyway because I do a lot of my own work for safety and psychic protection and don't leave all that to the therapist.
I can't really comment on how somatic experiencing itself might backfire, since I didn't have somatic experiencing as such. I have wondered about having to think or talk about an experience in somatic experiencing, and I'm glad that what I did didn't involve that at all. I know that at the end of Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine makes a reference to perhaps not needing to work on the trauma consciously at all, and I'm not sure how much he has gone on to develop the work in that direction.
I'm afraid I don't really understand your question about short term and long term. Could you say how you think it could be short term? What scenario would be an example of that?
What are you finding weird and confusing?
