Every tension, every jolt, every shiver you've felt is unforgettable. It doesn't just stay in your mind. It remains etched in your body, in your breathing, in your posture. Trauma isn't just a painful memory. It's a disruption of the nervous system where the survival response was activated but couldn't be completed, as Peter Levine, creator of the Somatic Experiencing method, explained.
Bessel van der Kolk, a leading psychiatrist in the study of trauma, stated it clearly: trauma is not stored as a narrative. It is stored as a bodily state. That is why talking about what happened can help in understanding, but it is rarely enough to resolve what the body still holds active.
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Levine, is a therapeutic model that addresses trauma through the body, not just through words. Levine observed that animals in the wild release stress activation after a threat through specific motor responses: trembling, shaking, movement. Humans, on the other hand, frequently get stuck in fight-flight or freeze responses that are never fully completed.
This approach is based on a neurobiological premise: trauma is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Healing does not require reliving the story. It requires the body to complete what was interrupted and regain its capacity for self-regulation.
Sensation tracking: the gateway
The first tool is sensation tracking. Instead of focusing on the narrative of the trauma, you learn to observe what your body is feeling now: tension in your shoulders, warmth in your chest, tingling in your hands. These sensations are the gateway to the nervous system. Following them attentively allows you to process the trapped activation without getting caught up in the story.
Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist, describes a similar mechanism: conscious attention to internal experience activates the prefrontal cortex and reduces the reactivity of the amygdala. It's not about analyzing. It's about observing.
Anchoring and internal resources
You can't free what's trapped without a secure base. That's why the second pillar is grounding: connecting with the present moment, with the feeling of stability in your feet, your breath, your contact with a solid surface. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges explains it this way: without a sense of safety in the neuroception, the nervous system doesn't integrate. It protects itself.
Identifying sensations that convey calm and stability creates an internal anchor that supports the process while the nervous system reorganizes. It's not relaxation. It's regulation.
Titration and pendulation: moving through what is trapped
Somatic work does not seek catharsis or massive release. It uses two fundamental principles. Titration introduces fragments of the traumatic experience gradually and safely, avoiding retraumatization. Pendulation alternates between states of discomfort and inner security, teaching the nervous system that it can approach activation without getting stuck in it.
Pat Ogden, founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, along with Kekuni Minton and Clare Pain, systematized this in her sensorimotor psychotherapy model: the body needs to complete motor responses that have been suspended. Gently pushing, intentional movement, deep vocalizations, or rhythmic rocking allow the pending neurobiological response to be completed. It's not catharsis. It's biological reprogramming.
Vocalization as a regulatory tool
A specific tool in Somatic Experiencing is the vocalization of the sound "Voo." This exercise uses internal abdominal vibration to stimulate the vagus nerve and calm the nervous system. It is not merely symbolic: the mechanical vibration of the diaphragm and viscera activates specific branches of the ventral vagus nerve, measurably altering vagal tone.
It's a reminder that regulation doesn't always happen through the mind. Sometimes it happens through the body's resonance.
Restore self-regulation
The goal of somatic work is not to erase traumatic memories. It is to restore the body's innate capacity for self-regulation. When the nervous system can complete what was interrupted, chronic activation subsides, hypervigilance decreases, and the ability to be present is regained.
The body already contains the information to reorganize itself. Somatic work adds nothing from the outside. It facilitates the nervous system doing what it has always known how to do when safe conditions allow.
Sources and references
Levine, PA (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books. PhD in medical psychology and biophysics, creator of the Somatic Experiencing method.
Levine, P. A. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.
Levine, P. A. (2015). Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past. North Atlantic Books.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton. PhD in somatic psychology, founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. W. W. Norton. PhD, neuroscientist, Indiana University.
Siegel, DJ (2012). The Developing Mind. The Guilford Press. MD psychiatrist, clinical professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. Viking. MD psychiatrist, professor of psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine.