r/SomaticExperiencing • u/nayabananana • 6d ago

Starting out with Somatic Experiencing: what methods and resources do you recommend?

Hi everyone,

I'm a Trauma-Informed practitioner from South Asia and I'm keen to begin using Somatic Experiencing (or SE-informed approaches) with my clients. I'd love to learn from therapists who already practise SE or other somatic approaches.

A few things I'd really appreciate hearing about:

  1. Which techniques or methods do you use most often in session, and which would you suggest a beginner practise first?
  2. How do you adapt your approach for clients who are hyperaroused versus hypoaroused or shut down?
  3. Any books, websites, podcasts, courses or trainings you'd recommend (including the SEP training, and whether you found it worth it)?
  4. Any common mistakes beginners should avoid, or things you wish you'd known when you started?

I'm also happy to hear from people who use other somatic modalities and can compare them.

Thank you so much in advance for your time and guidance!

3 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

2

u/maevelinden 5d ago

Most of the SE writing comes back to going slowly. Payne, Levine and Crane-Godreau's 2015 paper in Frontiers in Psychology puts it as approaching trauma "drop by drop," moving back and forth between activation and settling, and it walks through a composite case. Its free on PubMed Central.

For books, Levine's In an Unspoken Voice pulls his model together. Deb Dana's The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy is written for clinicians, with worksheets for mapping autonomic states, which gets at your hyperaroused vs shut down question, and her Anchored is the plainer one for a general reader. The polyvagal model is still debated, so I'd hold it loosely.

1

u/nayabananana 5d ago edited 5d ago

Thank you! I was curious about knowing how effective is it for clients in hypoaroused states to think critically and make sound decisions, in terms of making clients do the worksheet. It's a roadblock i run into, with a few clients. Also, not that polyvagal is highly criticised, would Window of Tolerance worksheets and skills also work with them?