Somatic Experiencing in Berlin-Kreuzberg: Do you often feel tense, exhausted or frozen, and talking alone doesn’t seem to help? Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented trauma therapy developed by Peter Levine. We work with your body sensations in small, carefully paced steps, so your nervous system can release stored stress and become more flexible again. As a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I support you at my practice in Berlin’s Bergmannkiez.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented trauma therapy. Unlike traditional forms of talk therapy, it focuses on the autonomic nervous system (in German), which can be thrown off balance by traumatic experiences. Traumatic stress is stored in this system. It often shows up as tension, psychological difficulties (such as anxiety, withdrawal, depression, exhaustion (in German), overthinking, restlessness, bitterness or problems with impulse control), syndromes or psychosomatic symptoms. Often the cause is that we couldn’t respond adequately to what happened, because it happened too fast, we were too helpless, or we lost our sense of orientation.
As a result, the body unlearns how to regulate itself (in German). We end up in survival mode because our sense of safety has been lost. Either we’re constantly on high alert (the sympathetic nervous system can’t calm down), or we lack any drive at all (the dorsal vagus, part of the parasympathetic nervous system, takes over and pulls us toward immobility and lethargy).
SE aims to renegotiate the trauma (in German). It works mainly by sensing into the body, and sometimes with eye movements or touch. The capacity for self-regulation can be restored: between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, and between emotions, thoughts, body sensations, movement and inner images. So can a sense of safety and an awareness of your own boundaries.
Somatic Experiencing can help gently discharge trauma energy held in the body and bring the autonomic nervous system back into regulation. It is suitable for both shock trauma and developmental trauma.
After traumatic experiences or difficult phases of life, the autonomic nervous system (in German) may no longer be able to regulate itself without aids such as drugs or medication. It stays stuck in fight, flight or freeze mode.
This can lead to feeling constantly “on fire”, anxiety, numbness, tension and exhaustion. This is where Somatic Experiencing comes in: traumatic experiences and phases of life are renegotiated gently and sustainably, and the stress bound in the nervous system can be released, so that the ventral vagus (the green area in the graphic) can come back into play.
By the way: we all carry trauma. Our resilience determines how strongly it affects us in the here and now.
Shock trauma (acute traumatic experiences) can result from: accidents, falls, surgery, loss, birth and prenatal trauma, suffocation, drowning, assault, abuse, being unable to escape, poisoning, natural disasters, war, terrorism, burns, horror.
Developmental trauma (traumatic phases of life, also called attachment trauma (in German)) can result from, for example: emotional neglect, pandemics, illness, discrimination and exclusion (in German), parents who were emotionally distant, helpless or overstepping boundaries, being overwhelmed by too much responsibility, or other stressful experiences in childhood and adolescence. In this case, the method of choice is NARM
Forms of trauma in queer lives (in German)
Somatic Experiencing works more directly with the autonomic nervous system than NARM, and it also includes movement. Its two core principles are titration and pendulation, which help slow things down when working with shock trauma. The process is guided more by the therapist. With shock trauma this matters, so the autonomic nervous system isn’t overwhelmed by too much activation. For developmental trauma, many clients prefer NARM.
Which method suits you better depends on what you’re working with.
I’m a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (in German), a NARM Practitioner and a member of the German Somatic Experiencing association (Somatic Experiencing Deutschland), where I founded the Queer Working Group (AG Queer).
I completed the three-year training at the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Psychotherapeut*innen (BAPT e.V.) in Berlin with Anne Janzen (in German) and Ursula Funcke-Kaiser (in German), as well as at the Neurotracking Institute near Nuremberg with Itta Wiedenmann (in German).
I attend supervision regularly. After the core training, I completed several post-advanced trainings: on systemic trauma (Lael Keen, Efu Euphrasia Nyaki, Francine Kelley, Dea Parsanishi), Somatic Experiencing with children and adolescents (Maggie Kline’s Playshop), and trauma, development and attachment: the treatment of developmental trauma (in German) (Raja Selvam).
Alongside the aspects described above, my SE training introduced me to Carl Rogers’ unconditional positive regard as a core attitude in Somatic Experiencing, and it has become part of how I work. With me, clients can bring their topics, traumas and emotions without fearing judgment. An empathic, trusting relationship with my clients is also very important to me. About me
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