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Somatics Q&A with Rebecca
What are Somatic Experiencing™ sessions like?
I offer both Somatic Experiencing™ and Somatic Experiencing Touch™ sessions.
Both invite a felt sense of the body.
In a standard SE session, we work together to track your nervous system and support your goals, and we might spend most of our time sitting in chairs, or occasionally standing or moving in space. There may be some physical contact if we are exploring content that requires some moving of the body, but it is not the primary interaction. SE Touch is a form of energy work that happens with the support of a massage table, fully clothed. There will often be more focus on finding and supporting a felt sense of more spaciousness and ease in the physical body with gentle presence and touch.
Who is Somatic Experiencing™ for?
Somatics can be for everyone! The precarity of this moment in time, both ecologically and politically, can make it hard to feel connected to our own felt sense in our bodies, to our inner knowing, and our longings and imagination.
Embodied practices and somatics techniques like SE can be powerful tools for accessing greater playfulness, aliveness, joy, and freedom. They also can support you to stay with and present to your oh-so necessary and protective experiences of rage, grief, and activation. These feelings when met and channeled with love become the drive we all have towards making a difference in our own lives and the lives of our communities. Somatic Experiencing is about meeting you and your body in the present moment, and tuning into what is present and alive to support healing. This might look like supporting you to access a greater sense of resource and connection, connecting with the innate rhythms of your body, or the release and completion of stored-up protective responses like fight or flight.
I've heard of Somatics in the context of healing/managing trauma. Is that part of it?
The modality was originally designed to support people preparing for or healing from traumas. From people preparing for surgeries, and working on better personal boundaries, to car accidents and more serious attacks.
It can be a useful modality for returning to a felt sense of safety after your body has experienced something it perceived as life-threatening. SE as a stand-alone practice is not a replacement for psychotherapy. It can be helpful in healing trauma.
However, the process through which it explores trauma involves building up more resilience and resources in the body and felt sense. It is a gentle modality, grounded in the wisdom of less is more, and little by little. Your discomfort and activation should never exceed a 3/10 in a session. [You can also look into the work of Dr. Peter A. Levine for more resources on SE and trauma.]
How did you get into Somatics?
I began training in SE in Arizona in 2017. I had found that SE helped me tap into my own body and experiences in a way that felt more profound and integrated than when I just talked about them. I continued my training after moving to North Carolina, where I also began and completed a PhD in human geography from UNC-Chapel Hill. My dissertation focused on the intersections of healing and justice in the contemporary US. I focused on the ways that the social conditions of oppression live in the body, and the importance of relationships for healing from these social traumas, which happen at the relational level.
I incorporate these insights into my work as a practitioner.
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