What is SOMATIC EXPERIENCING in Trauma Therapy? | Kati Morton

Transcript

Hey everybody! Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Alexa Altman and we're going to talk about a type of therapy a specific trauma therapy called somatic experiencing. *intro music* Like I said, we're going to talk about somatic experiencing. This is actually, a trauma treatment that I am not that familiar with, but Alexa specializes in it and so I guess start out by letting us know little bit of about what somatic experiencing treats? - Yes, so somatic experiencing was originally developed to treat trauma and what that also includes, are people who suffer from depression that had overwhelming life events that feel kind of they go into that "low zone," and depressed panic attacks, people who are stuck in flashbacks, difficulty concentrating after an overwhelming event. So really even though the specialization is for trauma, trauma can look like a lot of different symptoms. - Yeah it can feel different to everybody and people can express or have different symptoms that are expressed depending on how their body manages it. - That's right. - Because not everyone has panic attacks - That's right. Not everybody has flashbacks. - Now those are some symptoms that people may experience and the symptoms that somatic experiencing helps us deal with. But what exactly is somatic experiencing... I don't know anything about it, so I'm excited to learn. -So, as a therapy, it was created by a man, Peter Levine, and what he did, is he studied animals in the wild and he would study how they resolve what is overwhelming energy associated with survival. So if you're being chased by a cheetah you know, a deer, what do they do after the attack? Well he watched these animals literally shake and tremble and shake some of that survival energy out. And we as humans, if we were to shake our bodies after a trauma, that might be really kind of weird, and startling. - It might feel awkward, or be embarrassing - It's embarrassing, were just trying to kind of like if we're after a car accident, kind of get this person's name down, or their drivers license. We're not really paying attention to what's happening in our body. - We have so many distractions, so we can like push through - And meaning like "oh my god that's so weird, I can't do that." So we help people really come back into that more lower brain, reptilian brain, helping them connect with that part of their nervous system that might help them resolve or heal their trauma. - And it's interesting because if you remember I did a video about body memories quite a few months ago and I stumbled across Peter Levine's theories, and how somatic experiencing came to be. And I found it really fascinating because I pictured, because I grew up in the country and I hunted a lot, with my dad growing up actually, and I would notice like if a gun went off and animals scattered, that when they would stop in like a little cove or something that felt safer they would like do a whole body shake and we've even seen, I would even compare it to like a wet dog, because they start on one end and they kind of shake it off the other. And I think that, in my mind when he described that, that's what I envisioned. Was like a shaking it off - Yeah I like what you said though, when you were hunting, how they'd go to the cove, where it was safe and kind of shake it off, is as humans, that's essentially what we need to do after an overwhelming event, or experience, is we go to a safe place and work it out, shake it off. And sometimes that could be a therapist's office but sometimes it could be in a group, or it could be with a best friend, or with an animal or something but that essentially, like, we have to let, you know let that energy move. - Yeah, because I know for the body memories from that standpoint a lot of the people, a lot of my viewers, a lot of my client will say it feels like you're stuck, and we can't get it out and we're just spinning, and so it could be really healing, even to just shake it off together. - That's right. So, as we're talking about body memories, the really interesting thing that somatic experiencing teaches us is that trauma memories are really different than regular memories, and are stored differently in our nervous system. So when we have a regular memory, it's like a nice, neat story, we call that a declarative memory. It's like a story, it has a beginning, a middle, an end, - That makes sense. We roll it in a ball. - I almost think of it, like it files neatly in a file cabinet. We can pull it out and say "My first trip to Disney Land!" - Oh, uh huh. - Right. And we know when it was, and who we were with. So a trauma memory, an overwhelming experience, here's the thing, there's this fire alarm in our brain called the amygdala, it's a really big name, the fire alarm, so when the amygdala signals it's a life-threatening or scary situation it inhibits the part of our brain that nice and neatly stores memory. So it doesn't get stored as like a nice, neat story. I think of it as like a splintering, it gets stored in fragments or pieces like " I'm a sensation a visual cue, maybe a sound" but not nice and neat. - No completion to it. Almost like we can't tell it, that's why people struggle to recall and to talk through that experience. - Exactly. That's why they'll be like, I don't know what triggered me because maybe it was a sensation but it's not linked to the story, it's just one small piece of it. So why... does that makes sense? - That totally makes sense. And it makes me think, did you watch Inside Out? - Yes. Oh my god I love that movie. - And like all of the little memories that roll in there. And then I picture, like, I don't know, one being like broken up and it's thrown about - Thrown about. And then you could picture joy and all the rest trying to like get them all together. - Yeah, right? Like put them in a little bag and like, bring them back up. - So actually, in a way, that's what somatic experiencing is. I never thought about it that way. Essentially, we're trying to get all those pieces and bring them together so you get a nice cohesive, coherent narrative, or story that is successful trauma therapy. But I think the really important piece that somatic experiencing adds to it is, unless that amygd-alarm, amygdala fire alarm isn't going off, you need a quiet that alarm to begin putting this story together. Well if the alarm is still on, then essentially our brain can't create the, what was it called? -Coherent narrative - Yes. Coherent narrative, so full story, narrative. It's all coming together. - It can't. -Yeah -It can't -Because it won't allow it. - Exactly. - How interesting. - And so, when you think about a trauma memory just the words aren't going to get out fragmentation. - Yeah. - You really need to go to all the different pieces, - Yeah, and pick it back up - And pick it back up, exactly. - Interesting - So the other thing that's somatic experiencing teaches us, is, that part that is responsible for us meeting the challenges of an overwhelming life event are those instinctive, defensive responses: fight, flight, freeze. - Okay. - Is a lower brain, it's not our thinking, talking part of our brain which is, - It's our responsive part, the bottom part. Because, like, your amygdala and all the things we're talking about if you could cut our brain in half and look at it, the amygdala sits like, over here. It's like in the lower portion of our brain. And that's where all of our, like, acting out comes from. - Yes. - I remember we used to call the amygdala the reactive teenager. - Yeah! - Because it's like "Bah! I don't like it! Stop it! Shut it down!" and it, - It's involuntary. - Yes. - Right, and these are involuntary. - It causes us to lash out, essentially, - Yes. - Or go into protective. Freeze. -Right! Or fight, flight, right? So if we think about it, that's not our left language part of our brain, right? This is a lower part that cannot be talked at. Right? You can't talk at that teenager. - No. -Or my tantruming toddler. I can't talk to my tantruming toddler. Amygdala's like "Wah-wah wah-wah" that's not happening, so, in a trauma therapy, we're really trying to like, calm that system down so we can start to build what is a really nice, neat story. - Gotcha. So in order to, so that's the whole goal, right? In a nut shell, that's what somatic experiencing is. And so, is that why all of the grounding techniques can help or building the resiliences also so that we shut that amygdala down. - Yes. - Okay, so all the other videos, if you haven't watched our others together we kind of talked about tools and tips and tricks and ways you can do that for yourself and that could be anything. Just to give you a few that I know helps some of my clients, breathing techniques that we talked about. I have a video I'll put in the description where I do 4 by 4 breathing then there's also like putty, because if you freeze, then like, keeping some motion can be really helpful - Yeah. - And then even connecting with other people, I know we talked a lot about in the other video. Alexa talked about how important social connectivity is in trauma therapy. That's so interesting. - And I think the things that I really appreciated about this particular model of treatment is that it's so universal that, basically, that this is our nervous system responding in the way that we were wired, and that there isn't anything really wrong with those responses, that they're universal all human beings have this defensive system to protect ourselves and I think that that was really big for me that working with people and helping people understand that their nervous system is doing what it was wired to do. - Yeah. Even the way that we talked about animals themselves, running from a scary situation but then the thing that we're going to have to teach ourselves that we haven't learned is that self regulation. And shaking it off. and finding something that works for you. - And a safe place to shake it. - Yeah. Exactly. Well thank you so much! I hope you found this helpful. I know that somatic experiencing is a very different type of therapy, and a lot of you asked about it, and I knew that Alexa did it and I didn't know anything about it. And that's why it's important to find out the type of therapy your therapist does. And what we're trained in because everyone has different niches, and different specialties and I think it's good for you all to be informed to get the treatment that you need. - And if you want to find more information about specifically somatic experiencing: TraumaHealing.com they have practitioners all over the world, and trainings all over the world for therapists that want to be trained. - And that's really cool. And I'll put the links in the description. As always, click here to and turn on your notifications because Alexa and I have done a ton of videos together. And I think they're all wonderful and amazing, and I hope that you do too, and let us know in the comments: Have you tried somatic experiencing? Is it something that you think would be helpful? What has your experience been in general? We'd love to hear it. And we will see you next time! Bye!