Somatic Experiencing® (SE™) is a body-based approach to healing trauma and chronic stress.  Developed by Dr Peter Levine, SE™ supports the nervous system in resolving the physiological effects of trauma by working with the body’s natural rhythms — rather than revisiting or re-telling traumatic stories.

Trauma isn’t in the event itself, but in how the nervous system responds when overwhelmed.  SE™ gently guides the body to discharge stored survival energy and restore balance.  This process can bring relief to long-standing symptoms — physical, emotional, and relational — even when talking therapies haven’t.

How SE™ Works

SE™ supports the body’s capacity to self-regulate by working at the level of sensation, movement, and instinct.  Rather than reliving traumatic memories, SE™ focuses on the felt sense — the moment-to-moment physical experience in the body — to gradually release bound survival energy and restore equilibrium.

Some key principles of SE™:

• Stabilisation before processing: SE™ first supports safety and regulation before approaching any traumatic material.

• Titration: SE™ works slowly, with small amounts of activation at a time, so that healing is integrated rather than overwhelming.

• Pendulation: Clients are guided to move between activation and resource states, helping the nervous system return to balance.

• Working from the edges: SE™ often begins away from the most intense part of the trauma, approaching it indirectly and gently.

• Trust in the body: SE™ helps clients reconnect with their internal resources, growing their capacity to feel and trust their bodily experience.

This gradual and resourced process helps renegotiate trauma without retraumatisation, allowing people to feel more present, empowered, and connected in their lives.

How SE™ Differs from Talk Therapy

SE™ is a bottom-up approach, working with the body’s physiology and survival systems, rather than beginning with thoughts or emotions.  While cognitive and emotional insights may emerge, they arise as a natural part of the somatic process rather than being the focus.

Traditional talk therapy can sometimes overwhelm the nervous system when trauma is discussed without adequate regulation.  SE™ gently supports the body to complete interrupted survival responses, helping restore the natural flow of life force — without needing to relive the past.

Who Can Benefit from Somatic Experiencing®?

Anyone seeking to reconnect with their body’s natural ability to heal and regulate can benefit from Somatic Experiencing®.  SE™ can be supportive for people of all ages who’ve experienced:

• Car accidents, falls, or sports injuries

• Medical trauma or surgery

• Physical or sexual assault, abuse, or violence

• Developmental trauma, neglect, or abandonment

• Loss, grief, or prolonged stress

• Birth trauma or early attachment disruptions

• Natural disasters or witnessing traumatic events

Even when trauma is not consciously remembered, its effects may show up in symptoms like anxiety, chronic pain, emotional reactivity, dissociation, or shutdown.  SE™ works gently to unwind these patterns, helping restore a sense of safety, connection, and vitality.

Through Somatic Experiencing®, many people rediscover their innate capacity to heal.  Over time, this work can support deeper presence, more authentic relationships, and a greater sense of aliveness in everyday life.

NeuroAffective Touch® is a somatic modality developed by Dr Aline LaPierre, that  uses touch as a vital bridge to body-mind integration. By highlighting the primary role of the body and emphasizing its equal importance to the mind, NeuroAffective Touch® (NATouch™) addresses emotional, relational, and developmental deficits that cannot be reached by verbal means alone.

A polyvagal-informed psychobiological approach, NeuroAffective Touch® integrates the key elements of somatic psychotherapy, attachment and developmental theory, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and affective and interpersonal neurobiology.

NeuroAffective Touch® engages thousands of sensory nerve receptors in the joints, muscles, connective tissue, and organs.  These sensory receptors send information directly to the brain — hence the term “neuro.”

The “affective” part refers to the strong emotional impact touch can have.  The nervous system and emotions are deeply intertwined and cannot be separated — hence the term “affective.”

How NATouch™ Works

Through the interweaving of talk and touch, NeuroAffective Touch® sessions facilitate embodied awareness — a felt sense from which new possibilities for identity and self-expression can emerge.  NATouch™ works at deep, often wordless layers of experience, supporting integration beneath memory and language, within the tissues of the body.

Why Use Therapeutic Touch?

Touch is our first language.  Long before words, we are shaped through contact — being held, mirrored, or left alone.  When early relational experiences are disrupted, the body holds those patterns in implicit memory: muscle tone, posture, physiological regulation.

NATouch™ works “bottom-up” by accessing these deep nervous system layers.  It is especially helpful for people who:

• Have experienced early trauma, neglect, or attachment wounding

• Struggle to connect emotionally despite talk therapy

• Feel stuck in their body or disconnected from feelings

• Experience symptoms that don’t shift with talking alone

What Can NATouch™ Support?

NATouch® may support healing from:

• Early relational trauma and neglect

• Developmental deficits and unmet needs

• PTSD and complex trauma

• Anxiety, shutdown, and hypervigilance

• Chronic stress and depression

• Dissociation and disconnection from the body

• Chronic pain and tension

• Attachment difficulties and emotional regulation

• Addiction, grief, and loss

• Reconnecting with impulse and inner movement

• Formation of new neural pathways

By supporting nervous system regulation and integration, NATouch™ helps restore safety, trust, and the capacity for authentic connection.

Epigenetics is the study of how our experiences can shape the way our genes express themselves — without changing the DNA itself. It shows us that while we may inherit a genetic blueprint, the environment we live in (including stress, nourishment, relationships, and safety) can influence how that blueprint is read and carried out in the body. In other words, our genes aren’t fixed instructions — they’re responsive and dynamic.

From a somatic lens, this means the nervous system doesn’t just reflect our story. It also carries echoes of what came before us. The imprint of intergenerational stress, trauma, or resilience can travel through families — not only through behaviour and caregiving patterns, but biologically. Epigenetics helps us understand how ancestral wounding might live in our tissues… and how healing, safety, and connection can turn those signals down or even transform them.

Structural Constellations

A somatic process for mapping the inner field.  Using representatives or images in the mind’s eye, we explore how internal parts are shaped by family, culture, and experience. Through embodied awareness, new ways of being can open up

Family & Systemic Constellations

Working with the wider systems we belong to—family, ancestry, community. This process reveals often hidden dynamics and patterns passed down across generations, offering resolution through embodied presence, witnessing, and reconnection to the greater whole.

Dissociation is a protective response in the autonomic nervous system that helps manage overwhelming stress or threat. When the system assesses that active fight-or-flight is not possible or safe, it may shift into a freeze or shut-down state, disconnecting from sensation, emotion, or present-moment awareness. This can manifest as numbness, derealisation, depersonalisation, or a sense of watching life from the outside.

From a somatic perspective, dissociation is not simply a psychological issue, it is a physiological state, often accompanied by changes in heart rate, muscle tone, and interoceptive awareness. It is a way the body organises itself around survival. Working with dissociation requires a slow, titrated approach that honours the body’s pacing, supports tracking, and rebuilds capacity for presence without reactivating overwhelm.

The Seven R’s of Relational Integrity

A somatic-ethical compass for living in right relation—with self, others, and the wider field.

1. Respect The root of all ethical contact. Honouring difference, dignity, and sovereignty—in self and in others.

2. Rights What must be protected and upheld. Bodily autonomy, voice, boundaries, and justice—individually and collectively.

3. Responsibility The ability to respond with presence. Choosing care over reaction. Being accountable without collapsing or blaming.

4. Relatedness We are made through relationship. Connection to land, lineage, body, community, and the more-than-human world.

5. Resonance The felt sense of what is true. Attunement to inner knowing, subtle feedback, and the larger energetic field.

6. Resilience Life’s capacity to reorganise under pressure. Adaptive strength rooted in the body, community, and the regenerative field.

7. Reciprocity Giving and receiving in sacred balance. Living in cycles of exchange, gratitude, and mutual nourishment.

Neglect is not what happened—it’s what didn’t. It’s the absence of essential relational experiences like touch, attunement, and emotional mirroring. In early development, when caregivers don’t consistently respond to a child’s needs or signals, the system doesn’t just register danger, it begins to adapt around the absence of recognition. Without a regulating other, the child’s nervous system is left to organise itself in isolation. This kind of early aloneness can register not just as threat, but as a more existential experience - one of annihilation or non-being.

In this vacuum, children may learn to feel invisible or unnecessary. To survive, they might disconnect from their needs, mute their emotions, or orient around being low-impact. Over time, this can shape an adult nervous system that feels flat, overly self-reliant, chronically tense, or numb. Many describe feeling cut off from their inner world, unsure of what they need or whether their needs matter, and struggle to receive care even when it’s available.

Neglect leaves no explicit memory, but its imprint is deep. Because it often begins before language or narrative memory, those affected may not understand why they feel the way they do. Still, the body remembers. SE® and NeuroAffective Touch™ help us recognise how these early relational wounds shape our autonomic responses and implicit body maps. Shame, self-blame, and a mistrust of closeness often emerge in this early void. Even safe, present-day intimacy can feel overwhelming or unsafe.

Where trauma is often about too much—too fast, too soon—neglect is about not enough. However, it is still a form of trauma . Over time, that lack can come to shape a core belief that the world is barren, unresponsive, or unable to nourish. Healing begins by slowly introducing new patterns of co-regulation, warm presence, and felt safety. In somatic work, this may include attuned touch, tracking internal signals, and making space for the tiniest moments of connection. With care and time, what was once unreachable can begin to come back into contact.