Somatic Experiencing Therapy
Rachel Millsted Somatic Experiencing approaches to healing trauma
What is Somatic Experiencing ?
Many people who are interested in finding ways to understand their traumatic experiences have read Peter Levine’s book ‘Waking the Tiger’. This book explains that humans have lost their natural ability to process trauma in the way that animals in the wild are able to and offers a way to work with trauma via the nervous system. Somatic Experiencing Therapy is the treatment approach developed by Peter Levine. It works with the body and nervous system to allow for a discharge of the trapped survival energy that is stored at the time of the traumatic experience. It is a naturalistic approach, meaning that it aims to restore a natural process.
Somatic Experiencing Therapy works with the nervous system to allow fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses to be released and for the nervous system to regulate. This allows for shifts in people’s day to day experience of life, shifts in how people behave and for shifts in how people view themselves.
Somatic Experiencing Therapy is a truly amazing process, powerful yet gentle, and is something that I have benefited from having myself. The Somatic Experiencing Therapy sessions that I had as part of the training were lifechanging . I find it incredibly rewarding to work with people in this way.
Why do people have Somatic Experiencing Therapy?
People can come to Somatic Experiencing Therapy for many reasons, there are obvious examples of when people have experienced a traumatic event such as a car accident or fall that they are struggling to recover from and wish to work with the event. People also come when there has been no specific trigger event, maybe they experience high anxiety levels, but they can’t explain why, maybe they have had talking therapy that has helped them to some degree but it has not got rid of the anxiety and they want things to change. Working Somatically offers a different way of working and the possibility of different result.
Are you constantly stuck in Fight/Flight or Freeze?
Do you feel at the mercy of your nervous system?
Do you want to heal trauma, not just manage it?
Do you want to be free to live your life?
Somatic Experiencing Therapy may be what you’re looking for!
Somatic Experiencing Therapy Sessions with Rachel Millsted
Somatic Experiencing Therapy is what’s known as an adjunct therapy. This means that it can be used by people who are trained in other professions to offer as either an additional treatment method or interwoven with what they already do. I am trained in both Psychotherapy (Dance Movement Psychotherapy) and in Body/Energy work (Acupuncture).
Somatic Experiencing Therapy sessions in Stockon Heath, Warrington and online can be stand-alone Somatic Experiencing sessions or part of an acupuncture treatment plan.
If you wish to have Somatic Experiencing Therapy within a psychotherapeutic framework, sessions are available at The Sand & Sound Centre, Reddish, Stockport.
You can contact me on rachel@rachelmillsted.com to ask any questions you may have.
