Healing from trauma and addiction requires more than cognitive understanding — it requires nervous system restoration, emotional regulation, and reconnection with the body. At Living at Reflections, Somatic Experiencing® (SE) is one of our core therapeutic modalities, allowing clients to process trauma safely, gently, and effectively without needing to revisit painful memories before they’re ready.
Somatic Experiencing helps clients rebuild a sense of inner safety, develop emotional resilience, and release stored tension that traditional talk therapy alone cannot reach. For many, SE becomes the doorway to experiencing peace, presence, and relief for the first time in years.
What Is Somatic Experiencing?
Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing is a body-centered trauma therapy designed to resolve symptoms of stress, shock, and chronic emotional overwhelm by working directly with the nervous system, not just the mind.
SE is based on the idea that trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by how the body stores the energy of that event. When the nervous system becomes overwhelmed — during childhood adversity, emotional harm, physical danger, or prolonged stress — the body may become “stuck” in survival modes:
- Fight
- Flight
- Freeze
- Fawn
- Collapse
- Shutdown
Somatic Experiencing helps unstick these physiological patterns so clients can move through life with greater regulation, stability, and emotional freedom.
How Somatic Experiencing Works
Rather than forcing clients to revisit traumatic memories or push through discomfort, SE uses gentle, titrated (pacing-based) techniques to help the nervous system renegotiate stress patterns slowly and safely.
Sessions typically involve:
✔ Noticing internal sensations
Such as warmth, pressure, tightness, tingling, numbness, or movement.
✔ Tracking nervous system shifts
Learning to recognize cues of activation or calm.
✔ Pendulation
Moving between sensations of discomfort and safety to strengthen emotional flexibility.
✔ Resource building
Identifying supportive sensations, thoughts, movements, or memories.
✔ Completion of survival responses
Allowing the body to finish fight/flight energy that was never resolved.
✔ Grounding practices
Strengthening the client’s ability to come back to safety in the present moment.
SE does not retraumatize — instead, it slowly unwinds the pressure held inside the nervous system, allowing clients to regain control, confidence, and inner stability.
Why Somatic Experiencing Is Essential in Addiction & Mental Health Treatment
Trauma and addiction often coexist. Many of our clients arrive with histories of:
- Childhood trauma
- Chronic stress
- PTSD
- Emotional neglect
- Relationship trauma
- Abuse
- High-performance burnout
- Dissociation
- Anxiety and depression
Substance use often begins as a way to numb or regulate overwhelming internal sensations. SE helps clients understand and heal these internal states rather than escape them.
How SE supports recovery:
✔ Reduces emotional reactivity
Clients learn to respond rather than react when triggered.
✔ Helps regulate cravings and compulsions
By stabilizing the nervous system pathways connected to impulse.
✔ Resolves the root causes of dysregulation
Including trauma stored in the body.
✔ Supports long-term sobriety
By giving clients the tools to feel safe in their own bodies.
✔ Strengthens resilience
Making it easier to manage real-life stress without self-destructive coping.
✔ Complements talk therapy
Creating deeper breakthroughs and emotional clarity.
Clients often report that Somatic Experiencing helps them:
“feel present again,”
“finally feel safe,”
or
“understand what my body has been holding for years.”
What a Somatic Experiencing Session Looks Like
A session typically lasts 45–60 minutes and may include:
1. Orientation to the present moment
Helping clients sense the room, their breath, and their surroundings.
2. Gentle tracking of body sensations
Clients learn to notice internal cues without judgment.
3. Titration
Small, manageable steps into challenging sensations — never overwhelming.
4. Pendulation (expansion and contraction)
Moving between discomfort and safety to retrain the nervous system.
5. Somatic release
Clients may experience warmth, breath changes, tears, shaking, tingling, or stillness — all signs of the body completing stored survival energy.
6. Integration
Clients end grounded, calm, and more connected to themselves.
SE works slowly and safely. There is no forcing, no reliving trauma, and no pressure to share details until the client is ready.
Who Benefits Most From Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing is effective for clients with:
- PTSD or complex trauma
- Anxiety and panic
- Depression
- Emotional overwhelm
- Dissociation
- Chronic stress or burnout
- Childhood trauma
- Neglect or relational trauma
- Substance use disorders
- Physical tension and somatic symptoms
- Sleep disturbances
- Perfectionism or high-achievement stress patterns
It is also beneficial during detox and early stabilization phases, where the nervous system is often dysregulated or overstimulated.
Somatic Experiencing as Part of Reflections’ Holistic Model
At Living at Reflections, SE is not an isolated modality — it is woven into a deep, comprehensive system of healing that includes:
- Trauma-focused psychotherapy
- Sound bath therapy
- Meditation and mindfulness
- Breathwork
- Nutritional healing
- Therapeutic outings
- Executive-level accommodations
- Medication management
- Psychiatric care
- Group therapy
- Wellness and body-based modalities
This whole-person model creates multiple pathways for healing, allowing clients to recover physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Why Clients Choose Somatic Work at Reflections
Clients often share that Somatic Experiencing helped them:
- Feel safe in their body for the first time
- Understand why they react the way they do
- Release shame
- Reduce anxiety dramatically
- Improve relationships
- Recover from trauma that talk therapy never touched
- Develop tools for long-term regulation and sobriety
- Build a new relationship with their emotions
SE offers a path forward for clients who feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or “stuck” in old patterns.