View source for Medicine:Somatic experiencing

{{Short description|Alternative therapy for treating trauma}}
{{Alternative medicine sidebar}}

'''Somatic Experiencing''' (SE) is a form of [[Medicine:Alternative medicine|alternative therapy]] aimed at treating trauma and stress-related disorders, such as [[Medicine:Post-traumatic stress disorder|PTSD]]. The primary goal of SE is to modify the trauma-related stress response through bottom-up processing. The client's attention is directed toward internal sensations, ([[Medicine:Interoception|interoception]], [[Biology:Proprioception|proprioception]] and kinaesthesis), rather than to cognitive or emotional experiences.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Kuhfuß, Maldei, Hetmanek, Baumann |first=Marie, Tobias, Andreas, Nicola |date=July 2021 |title=Somatic experiencing – effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: a scoping literature review |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/1804/ |journal=European Journal of Psychotraumatology |volume=2}}</ref> The method was developed by Peter A. Levine.<ref>{{cite book|last1=van der Kolk|first1=Bessel|title=The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma|date=2014|publisher=Penguin|isbn=9781101608302|page=217|language=en}}</ref>

SE sessions are normally held in person and involve clients tracking their physical experiences.<ref name="Scaer 2005">Scaer, Robert C.: ''The Trauma Spectrum. Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency''. W.W. Norton & Company, N.Y. & London, 2005</ref> Practitioners are often mental health practitioners such as social workers, [[Social:Clinical psychology|psychologists]], therapists, psychiatrists, [[Unsolved:Rolfing|rolfers]], [[Unsolved:Feldenkrais Method|Feldenkrais practitioners]], yoga therapists, educators, [[Social:Clergy|clergy]], [[Medicine:Occupational therapist|occupational therapist]]s, etc.<ref>{{cite web |title=Admission Requirements |url=https://traumahealing.org/learn-se/#apply |website=Somatic Experiencing Website}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Winblad |first1=Neil |title=Effect of Somatic Experiencing resiliency-based trauma treatment training on quality of life and psychological health as potential markers of resilience in treating professionals |journal=Frontiers in Neuroscience |date=16 February 2018 |volume=12 |issue=70 |page=4 |doi=10.3389/fnins.2018.00070 |pmid=29503607 |pmc=5820455 |url=https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7677&context=open_access_pubs |access-date=21 March 2021|doi-access=free }}</ref>

==Regulation==
Unlike some of its sister somatic modalities (biodynamic craniosacral therapy, polarity therapy, etc.), Somatic Experiencing is not listed as an exempt modality from massage practice acts in the United States,<ref>{{cite web |title=Energetic Healing Arts – Statutes – Exemptions – Requirements by State |url=https://www.onetreeguild.com/energetic-healing-arts-statutes-exemptions-requirements-state.html |website=One Tree Guild |access-date=1 March 2021}}</ref> and is not eligible to belong to The Federation of Therapeutic Massage, Bodywork and Somatic Practice Organizations, which was formed to protect the members' right to practice as an independent profession.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Federation of Therapeutic Massage, Bodywork and Somatic Practice Organizations |url=http://www.federationmbs.org/members.html |website=The Federation of Therapeutic Massage, Bodywork and Somatic Practice Organizations |access-date=23 February 2021}}</ref> Members of the Federation each have a professional regulating body with an enforceable code of ethics and standards of practice, continuing education requirements, a process of certifying and ensuring competency and a minimum of 500 hours of training. Somatic Experiencing practitioners do not meet any of these criteria unless they are already certified or licensed in another discipline. While the model has a growing evidence base as a modality "for treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" that "integrates body awareness into the psychotherapeutic process", it is important to note that not all Somatic Experiencing practitioners practice [[Medicine:Psychotherapy|psychotherapy]] and therefore have varying scopes of practice, for example, not all are qualified to work with people with mental disorders.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brom |first1=Danny |title=Somatic Experiencing for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A randomized controlled outcome study |journal=Journal of Traumatic Stress |date=2017 |volume=30 |issue=3 |pages=304–312 |doi=10.1002/jts.22189 |pmid=28585761 |pmc=5518443 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Page |first1=Cory |title=National Assessment of Scopes of Practice for the Behavioral Health Workforce: April 2017 |journal=University of Michigan Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center |date=April 2017 |url=https://behavioralhealthworkforce.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FA3_SOP_Full-Report-3.pdf |access-date=9 March 2021}}</ref> SE instructs participants that they "are responsible for operating within their professional scope of practice and for abiding by state and federal laws".<ref>{{cite web |author=Staff |title=Prospective students |url=https://traumahealing.org/prospective-students/ |website=Traumahealing.org/prospective students |access-date=10 June 2021}}</ref>

==Theory and methods==
===Basis===
Somatic Experiencing (also known as Somatic Therapy) is heavily predicated on psychoanalyst [[Biography:Wilhelm Reich|Wilhelm Reich]]'s theories of blocked emotion and how this emotion is held and released from the body.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Totton |first1=Nick |title=Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction |date=2003 |publisher=Open University Press |location=Philadelphia, PA |page=120}}</ref> It differs from traditional talk therapies such as CBT, which has a main focus on the mind and not the body, by prioritizing disturbing thoughts and behavior patterns and seeking to change them. Rather, Somatic Therapy treats the body as the starting point for healing. It is less about desensitizing people to uncomfortable sensations, and more about relieving tension in the body. <ref>{{Cite journal |last=Salamon |first=Maureen |date=July 2023 |title=What is somatic therapy? |url=https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-is-somatic-therapy-202307072951 |journal=Harvard Health Publishing |via=Harvard Medical School}}</ref>

Many Western somatic psychotherapy approaches are based on either Reich or Elsa Gindler. Gindler's vision preceded Reich's and greatly influenced him. Gindler's direct link to the United States was Charlotte Selver. Selver greatly influenced Peter Levine's work and the development of fine somatic tracking.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Weaver |first1=Judyth |title=The Influence of Elsa Gindler on Somatic Psychotherapy and Charlotte Selver |journal=United States Association of Body Psychotherapy |date=2005 |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=25}}</ref> Selver taught thousands of Americans her "sensory awareness" method at Esalen Institute, including Peter Levine. Somatic Experiencing, like many of its sister modalities, is beholden to both Gindler and Reich. Each method has its own twist that differentiates it in style "in a manner alike to the different sects of an overarching religion" and even becoming "cult-like" at one time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wengell |first1=Douglas |title=Educational opportunities in Integrative Medicine |date=2008 |publisher=Quigley Books, Inc. |page=129}}</ref>

===Definitions===
Payne et al. describe SE as "not a form of exposure therapy" in that it "avoids direct and intense evocation of traumatic memories, instead approaching the charged memories indirectly and very gradually".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Payne |first1=Peter |title=Somatic experiencing: using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy |journal=Frontiers in Psychology |date=February 4, 2015 |volume=6 |issue=93 |page=93 |doi=10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00093 |pmid=25699005 |pmc=4316402 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Leitch et al. describe the approach similarly as "working with small gradations of traumatic activation alternated with the use of somatic resources. Working with small increments of traumatic material is a key component of SE, as is the development of somatic resources".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leitch |first1=M. L. |last2=Vanslyke |first2=J. |last3=Allen |first3=M. |title=Somatic Experiencing Treatment with Social Service Workers Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita |journal=Social Work |date=1 January 2009 |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=9–18 |doi=10.1093/sw/54.1.9|pmid=19205253 }}</ref> In SE people "gently and incrementally reimagine and experience" and are "slowly working in graduated "doses"".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Naparstek |first1=Bellaruth |title=Invisible Heroes |date=2004 |publisher=Bantam Dell |location=New York |page=314}}</ref> Anderson et al., however, states that SE "includes techniques known from interoceptive exposure for panic attacks, by combining arousal reduction strategies with mild exposure therapy."<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/20008198.2017.1331108|pmc=5489867|title=A randomized controlled trial of brief Somatic Experiencing for chronic low back pain and comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms|year=2017|last1=Andersen|first1=Tonny Elmose|last2=Lahav|first2=Yael|last3=Ellegaard|first3=Hanne|last4=Manniche|first4=Claus|journal=European Journal of Psychotraumatology|volume=8|issue=1|pmid=28680540}}</ref>

===Systematic desensitization===
One of the very first exposure therapies, systematic desensitization, which was developed by Joseph Wolpe in the 1940s to treat anxiety disorders and phobias, is similarly described.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dolan |first1=Anna T |title=Imagery Treatment of Phobias anxiety states and other symptom complexes |publisher=Brandon House |location=New York |page=10}}</ref>  Wolpe's systematic desensitization "consists of exposing the patient, while in a state of emotional calmness, to a small "dose" of something he fears" using imaginal methods that allow the therapist to "control precisely the beginning and ending of each presentation".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wolpe |first1=Joseph |title=Our Useless Fears |date=1981 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |location=Boston |page=50}}</ref> This graduated exposure is similar to the SE concept of "[[Medicine:Drug titration|titration]]". Wolpe also relied on relaxation responses alternating with incremental or graduated exposure to anxiety-provoking stimuli, and this practice was standard within cognitive-behavioral protocols long before Somatic Experiencing arrived on the scene as a trademarked approach in 1989.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beck |first1=Aaron |title=Anxiety Disorders and Phobias |date=1985 |publisher=Basic Books Inc |location=New York |pages=246–249}}</ref>

===Pendulation===
One element of Somatic Experiencing therapy is "pendulation",<ref name="Scaer 2005"/>{{rp|255}} a supposed natural intrinsic rhythm of the organism between contraction and expansion. The concept and its comparison to unicellular organisms can be traced to Wilhelm Reich, the father of somatic psychotherapy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reich |first1=Wilhelm |title=Character Analysis |date=1945 |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |location=New York |page=395}}</ref> Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, both psychiatrists, built upon Reich's foundational theories, developing Bioenergetics, and also compared the rhythm of this life force energy to a pendulum.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lowen |first1=Alexander |title=Depression and the body : the biological basis of faith and reality |date=1973 |publisher=Penguin |location=Baltimore |page=58}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=John |first1=Pierrakos |title=Core energetics: developing the capacity to love and heal |date=1987 |publisher=LifeRhythm Publication |location=Mendocino, CA |page=85}}</ref> The SE concept of the "healing vortex", is grounded in Ackert Ahsen's "law of bipolarity" according to Eckberg.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eckberg |first1=Maryanna |title=Victims of cruelty: somatic psychotherapy in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder |date=2000 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley, Calif. |isbn=978-1-55643-353-5 |page=55}}</ref> Levine credits his inspiration for the healing vortex to a dream and not Ahsen.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Levine |first1=Peter |title=The Stream of Life |url=https://vimeo.com/40734776 |website=Vimeo |date=20 April 2012 |access-date=5 March 2021}}</ref> This principle involves the pendulatory tendency to weave back and forth between traumatic material and healing images and parasympathetic responses.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eckberg |first1=Maryanna |title=Victims of cruelty: somatic psychotherapy in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder |date=2000 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley, Calif. |isbn=978-1556433535 |page=55}}</ref> Ahsen's "principle of bipolar configurations" asserts that "every significant eidetic state involves configuration . . . around two opposed nuclei which contend against each other. Every ISM of the negative type has a counter-ISM of the positive type."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ahsen |first1=Akhter |title=Basic Concepts in Eidetic Psychotherapy |date=1968 |publisher=Brandon House |location=New York |page=31}}</ref>

===SIBAM (Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect and Meaning)===
Peter Levine indicates that during the 1970's he "developed a model" called SIBAM,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Maggie |title=Healing the Divided Self |date=1995 |publisher=WW Norton & Company, Inc |location=New York |page=158 |edition=1st}}</ref> which broke down experience into five channels of Sensation, Image, Behavior, Affect and Meaning (or Cognition). SIBAM is considered both a model of experience and a model of dissociation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rothschild |first1=Babette |title=The Body Remembers |date=2000 |publisher=WW Norton and Company |location=New York |pages=67–69}}</ref> Multimodal Therapy, developed by Arnold Lazarus in the 1970's, is similar to the SIBAM model in that it broke down experience into Behavior, Affect, Sensation, Image, and Cognition (or Meaning).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lazarus |first1=Arnold |title=Multimodal Behavior Therapy: Treating the BASIC ID |journal=The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease |date=June 1973 |volume=156 |issue=6 |pages=404–411|doi=10.1097/00005053-197306000-00005 |pmid=4711618 |s2cid=39342413 }}</ref> Somatic Experiencing integrates the tracking of Eugene Gendlin's "felt sense" into the model.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wheatley-Crosby |first1=Jane |title=Healing Traumatic Reebactments |journal=United States Association of Body Psychotherapy |date=2006 |volume=5 |issue=2 |page=13}}</ref> Peter Levine has made good use of Gendlin’s focusing approach in Somatic Experiencing. "Dr. Levine emphasizes that the felt sense is the medium through which we understand all sensation, and that it reflects our total experience at a given moment."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=Maggie |title=Reversing chronic pain : a 10-point all-natural plan for lasting relief |date=2007 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley, Calif. |isbn=9781556436765 |page=57}}</ref>

Lazarus also incorporated Eugene Gendlin's Focusing method into his model as a technique to circumvent cognitive blocks. Incorporation of this "bottom up" "felt sense" method is shared by both SE and Multimodal Therapy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lazarus |first1=Arnold |title=The practice of multimodal therapy: systematic, comprehensive, and effective psychotherapy |date=1981 |publisher=Mcgraw-Hill |location=New York |page=233}}</ref> Lazarus, like Levine, was heavily influenced by Akhter Ahsen's "ISM unity" or "eidetic" concept.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sheikh |first1=Anees |title=Imagination and healing |date=1984 |publisher=Baywood Pub. Co. |location=Farmingdale, NY |page=239}}</ref> In 1968, Ahsen explains the ISM this way:
''"It is a tri-dimensional unity. . . . With this image is attached a characteristic body feeling peculiar to the image, which we call the somatic pattern. With this somatic pattern is attached a third state composed of a constellation of vague and clear meanings, which we call the meaning."''<ref name="Brandon House">{{cite book |last1=Ahsen |first1=Akhter |title=Basic Concepts in Eidetic Psychotherapy |date=1968 |publisher=Brandon House |location=New York |page=30}}</ref> It is important to note that sensation, for Ahsen, included affective and physiological states.

Ahsen went on to apply his ISM concept to traumatic experiences, which is strikingly similar to Peter Levine's later developed model.''.<ref name="Brandon House"/> In the SIBAM model, like in the ISM model, the separate dimensions of experience in trauma can be "dissociated from one another".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rothschild |first1=Babette |title=nThe Body Remembers |date=2000 |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |page=68}}</ref>

===Coupling dynamics===
In the Somatic Experiencing method there is the concept of "coupling dynamics" in which the "under-coupled" state, where the traumatic experience exists, not as a unity, but as dissociated elements of the SIBAM. In SE "the arousal in one element can trigger the arousal in other elements (overcoupling) or it can restrict arousal in other elements (undercoupling)." An SE therapist "often has to work to uncouple responses (if responses are overcoupled) or to find ways to couple them (if the responses are undercoupled) in order for therapy to progress and to help the individual to restore balance in his or her emotional life."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Doctor |first1=Ronald M. |title=The encyclopedia of trauma and traumatic stress disorders |date=2010 |publisher=Facts on File |location=New York, NY |isbn=9780816067640 |page=105}}</ref> Ashen's description clearly matches this concept. Additionally, treatment of "post-traumatic stress through imagery", like SE, "emphasizes exploitation of the somatic aspect over the visual component of Ashen's ISM model because of the strong emotional and physiological components that present themselves frontally in these cases."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dolan |first1=Anna T |title=Imagery Treatment of Phobiats anxiety states and other symptom complexes |date=1997 |publisher=Brandon House, Inc |location=New York |page=227}}</ref>

===Stress===
According to SE, post-traumatic stress symptoms originate from an "overreaction of the innate stress system due to the overwhelming character of the traumatic event. In the traumatic situation, people are unable to complete the initiated psychological and physiological defensive reaction."<ref name="Somatic experiencing – effectivenes">{{cite journal |last1=Kuhfuß |first1=Marie |last2=Maldei |first2=Tobias |last3=Hetmanek |first3=Andreas |last4=Baumann |first4=Nicola |title=Somatic experiencing – effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: a scoping literature review |journal=European Journal of Psychotraumatology |date=1 January 2021 |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=1929023 |doi=10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023|pmid=34290845 |pmc=8276649 }}</ref>
Standard cognitive behavioral understanding of PTSD and anxiety disorders was grounded in an understanding of fight, flight freeze mechanisms in addition to conscious and unconscious, preprogramed, automatic primal defensive action systems.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Beck |first1=Aaron |title=Anxiety Disorders and Phobias |date=1985 |publisher=Basic Books Inc |location=New York |pages=37–53}}</ref> SE is theorised to work through the "generation of new corrective interoceptive experiences" or the therapeutic ‘renegotiating’ of the traumatic response. Somatic Experiencing claims it is unique in this manner and therefore may be more effective than cognitive behavioral models due to this focus.<ref name="Somatic experiencing – effectivenes"/> The coupling dynamics model/SIBAM model in SE, however, is reminiscent to the pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction models underlying exposure based extinction paradigms of cognitive behavior therapy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rainnie |first1=Donald G. |last2=Ressler |first2=Kerry J. |title=Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder |chapter=Physiology of the Amygdala: Implications for PTSD |date=2009 |pages=39–78 |doi=10.1007/978-1-60327-329-9_3|isbn=978-1-60327-328-2 }}</ref> Additionally, graduated exposure therapy and other fear extinction methods are similarly theorized to work due to the power of corrective experiences enhanced by "active coping" methods.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dbiec |first1=Jacek |last2=LeDoux |first2=Joseph |title=Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder |chapter=The Amygdala and the Neural Pathways of Fear |date=2009 |pages=23–38 |doi=10.1007/978-1-60327-329-9_2|isbn=978-1-60327-328-2 |s2cid=141136606 }}</ref>

===Discharge===
In Somatic Experiencing therapy, "discharge" is facilitated in response to arousal to enable the client's body to return to a controlled condition. Discharge may be in the form of tears, a warm sensation, unconscious movement, the ability to breathe easily again, or other responses that demonstrate the autonomic nervous system returning to its baseline.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schroeder |first1=Vincent |title=Buddha's Mom |date=2017 |isbn=978-0692582572 |page=238 |publisher=Darwin House Press |url=https://archive.org/details/buddhasmom/NOVEMBER%202018%20STANDARD/mode/2up?q=levine |access-date=27 March 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Totten |first1=Nick |title=Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction |date=2003 |publisher=Open University Press |location=Philadelphia, PA |page=73}}</ref> The intention of this process is to reinforce the client's inherent capacity to self-regulate. The charge/discharge concept in Somatic Experiencing has its origins in Reichian therapy and Bioenergetics.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lowen |first1=Alexander |title=Bioenergetic Psychotherapy |date=1975 |publisher=Coward, McCann & Geoghegan |location=New York |pages=49–54}}</ref> Levine's predecessors in the somatic psychotherapy field clearly understood the dynamics of shock trauma and the failure of mobilization of fight or flight impulses in creating symptoms of anxiety neuroses and to maintain a chronic "state of emergency". They also understood that healing involved the completion of this "charge" associated with the truncated fight or flight impulses.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lowen |first1=Alexander |title=Depression and the Body |date=1972 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=Harmondsworth, Eng |page=66}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Boadella |first1=David |title=Wilhelm Reich: The evolution of his work |date=1973 |publisher=Vision Press |page=107}}</ref>

===Polyvagal theory===
Somatic Experiencing is also predicated on the Polyvagal Theory of human emotion developed by Stephen Porges. Many of the tenets of the Polyvagal theory incorporated in the Somatic Experiencing training are controversial and unproven. The SE therapy concepts such as "dorsal vagal shutdown" with bradycardia that are used to describe "freeze" and collapse states of trauma patients is controversial since it appears the ventral vagal branch, not the dorsal vagal branch, mediates this lowered heart rate and blood pressure state. Neurophysiological studies have shown that the dorsal motor nucleus has little to do with traumatic or psychologically related heart rate responses.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grossman |first1=Paul |title=Toward understanding respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Relations to cardiac vagal tone, evolution and biobehavioral functions |journal=Biological Psychology |date=2007-01-02 |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=263–285|doi=10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.11.014 |pmid=17081672 |s2cid=16818862 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Grossinger |first1=Richard |title=Planet medicine |date=2000 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |location=Berkeley, Calif. |isbn=1556433913 |page=250 |edition=Rev., 7th}}</ref>

===Link to shamanism===
Levine's model, influenced by his work with shamans of "several cultures", makes wider connections "to myth and shamanism" and is "connected to these traditions".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bambury |first1=Adam |title=The infinite subtleties OF SENSATION: A look at Peter Levine's two key works On Trauma. |journal=International Body Psychotherapy Journal |date=2020 |volume=29 |issue=1 |page=126}}</ref> Levine "uses a story from shamanistic medicine to describe the work of body-centred trauma counselling. In shamanism, it is believed that when a person is overwhelmed by tragedy his soul will leave his body, a belief which is concordant with our present understanding of dissociation."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spiiers |first1=Thom |title=Trauma : a practitioner's guide to counselling |date=2001 |publisher=Brunner-Routledge |location=New York |isbn=0415186943 |page=56}}</ref> Levine even notes that while developing his "theoretical biophysics doctoral dissertation on accumulated stress, as well as on my body-mind approach to resolving stress and healing trauma" he had a mystical experience where he engaged in a year-long socratic dialogue with an apparition of Albert Einstein.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=LaPierre |first1=ALINE |title=A Shamans Scuentific Journey |journal=International Journal of Body Psychotherapy |date=2020 |volume=19 |issue=1 |page=19}}</ref> After reportedly having a "profound" dream Peter Levine believed he had been "assigned" the task "to protect this ancient knowledge from the Celtic Stone Age temples, and the Tibetan tradition, and to bring it to the scientific Western way of looking at things....".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=LaPierre |first1=Aline |title=A Shaman's Scientific Journey Conversation with Peter Levine |journal=International Body Psychotherapy Journal |date=Spring 2020 |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=15–22 |url=https://www.ibpj.org/issues/IBPJ-Volume-19-Number-1-2020.pdf |access-date=23 February 2021}}</ref>

==Evidence==
A 2019 systemic literature review noted that a stronger investment in clinical trials was needed to determine the efficacy of Somatic Experiencing.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Almeida |first1=Ana Kelly |last2=Macêdo |first2=Sayonara Christiane Gomes de Melo |last3=Sousa |first3=Maria Bernardete Cordeiro de |title=A systematic review of somatic intervention treatments in PTSD: Does Somatic Experiencing® (SE®) have the potential to be a suitable choice? |journal=Estudos de Psicologia (Natal) |date=September 2019 |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=237–246 |doi=10.22491/1678-4669.20190025 |doi-access=free }}</ref> A 2021 literature review noted that "SE attracts growing interest in clinical application despite the lack of empirical research. Yet, the current evidence base is weak and does not (yet) fully accomplish the high standards for clinical effectiveness research."<ref name=":0" />

==See also==
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* {{Annotated link |Body psychotherapy}}
* {{Annotated link |Embodied cognition}}
* {{Annotated link |Psychosomatic medicine}}
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== Further reading ==

* Peter A. Levine, Trauma and Memory: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory Paperback – Illustrated, North Atlantic Books, October 27, 2015
* Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: explains how trauma effects the brain-body: Paperback - North Atlantic Books, July 7, 1997

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Alternative medicine}}

[[Category:Mind–body interventions]]
[[Category:Post-traumatic stress disorder]]
[[Category:Somatics]]
[[Category:Therapy]]

{{Sourceattribution|Somatic experiencing}}