One of the primary tenets of trauma resolution and education is understanding that trauma is held in the body—not in the event itself.

The real threat is from the body’s physiological response, that becomes stuck in a hyper-aroused state. When the energy from the “fight or flight” response remains un-discharged, this is when someone can experience the symptoms connected with PTSD. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – which Peter Levine renamed  Post Traumatic Stress Responses,  may entail the classical image of  flashbacks ( of visually re-living  a past event in the present ) or ‘over-reacting’ to small stressors. For example, extreme anger when stuck in a traffic jam or feeling threatened by loud and unexpected noises. The symptoms can also be more ‘hidden’:  sleeplessness, IBS, issues with concentration, hyper-tension, immune system compromise and loss of social confidence,  

“Trauma is a highly activated, incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time.“
— Peter Levine

So, how can a herd animal that was hunted and had to flee for its life return to co-existing in healthy harmony with its herd?

Wild herd animals regularly face life-threatening danger, yet they don’t appear to suffer from the symptoms of chronic hyper-arousal that humans often experience under prolonged stress—such as hypervigilance, exaggerated startle responses, or withdrawal from the group.

Why?

The animal moves fluidly through the cycle: 

Threat → Response → Threat Diminishes → Discharge → Return to the group

The Origins of Somatic Experiencing (SE)

In the 1970s, Peter Levine made a radical shift in the field of trauma recovery. He moved away from the purely cognitive approaches, which were also attempting to work with trauma ( Top-down) and began to develop a body-oriented method for healing trauma—emphasizing the body’s innate capacity to self-regulate and heal.( Bottom up) 

His work emerged from the insight that trauma is primarily physiological.

“Trauma is something that happens initially to our bodies and our instincts.  Only then do its effects spread to our minds, emotions, and spirits.”

Levine noticed that wild animals recover from life-threatening events through a full nervous system cycle: fleeing from or fighting the danger (sympathetic activation ). Once safe, they will go into a immobile state that  may look like playing dead/ sleep (  parasympathetic  down-regulation), in this state, they release the tension through shaking.  Then they will look around to re-assess if safe or not ( re-orientation)  before returning to the group and participating in  normal herd behavior.( ventral vagal connection) 

Wild animals don’t suffer from PTSD because they discharge the adrenaline surge produced during threat through spontaneous movement:  shaking—a natural, biological release.

This means that the body systems that are engaged and affected when we are in a threat state: the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, digestive, respiratory, muscular-skeletal – can all return to the natural function, because they body no longer perceives itself to STILL be in the threat state

 Their nervous systems return to a natural, resilient rhythmic state.

It was by observing this natural process that Dr. Peter Levine came to understand what it is that becomes interrupted in domesticated animals—including humans. Essentially, through various social conditioning – we have enabled ourselves to suppress our body’s innate intelligence, in order to …. Carry on!

Getting Stuck: The Human Experience

Levine observed that humans, too, move between activation and relaxation—between regulation and dysregulation. Like the inbreath and outbreath, being awake or asleep, we need both. But when we get stuck in one phase, this is when the body becomes symptomatic.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) gained traction because it recognized the body as the holder of trauma—not just the mind. It brought awareness to the fact that trauma is not defined by the event itself (a car crash, assault, or conflict), but by the unresolved survival energy held in the nervous system.

Even when the mind has processed or rationalized the experience—or even forgotten it—the body may still be trying to complete a response that was never finished.

“The effects of unresolved trauma can be devastating.
It can affect our habits, our health, our relationships, and our decision-making.”

Burnout, for instance, is a form of collapse—when the sympathetic (doing, pushing) energy remains so high for so long that the parasympathetic system (of rest, digest and repair) can’t catch up.

Stephen Porges refers to this as Dorsal Vagal Collapse, the system’s last-ditch safety mechanism. It just shuts everything down until there is enough external safety or internal stability for the system to move again.

The Repetition of Trauma

When trauma is unresolved, the body plays it out as if it were still yesterday. We live in the past.

We may recognize repetitious patterns in our own lives — manic doing, constant productivity or overriding rest. Or it might show up as habitually feeling numb or flat in response to certain situations. 

None of these have to be permanent ways of meeting the world.

They are signs of undischarged, incomplete defense responses. The body is doing a great job at surviving—it just doesn’t realize it doesn’t need to anymore.

The Gift of Somatic Experiencing to the Trauma Healing Community. 

One of the biggest shifts that Peter Levine made  was to accept that the symptoms  we associate with Post Traumatic Stress – are expected responses.. of course we will experience insomnia, increased heart rate, uncontrollable shaking, visual playbacks.. If our body system still believes it is in danger… 

Seeing beyond the Symptoms – getting to the root of the imbalance

Peter Levine, helped to spear-headed a movement that no longer sought to pathologise or fix these symptoms but  instead developed an approach that held respect and curiosity of  the body’s inherent intelligence, at its heart. 

 In Somatic Experiencing we inquire: what does the body need in order to be able to heal itself?  We ask the body, what do you need in order to feel safe again? We develop our skill of neuroception.

Once the autonomic nervous system is no longer preoccupied in protecting itself against perceived danger, it can return to its rightful functioning, which is maintaining homeostasis and harmony, throughout the entire bodymind system. Thus liberating energy for living rather than surviving.