Lisa Gillispie, LPCC Columbus Mind-Body Counseling

WHAT IS SOMATIC EXPERIENCING®?

Somatic Experiencing® is a body-based approach designed to help resolve symptoms related to stress or trauma.
Trauma refers to an event, or events, that overwhelm the nervous system’s capacity to process or move through. 

Trauma is a highly activated incomplete biological response to threat, frozen in time. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word - they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.

Peter A. Levine, PhD founder of Somatic Experiencing®

Symptoms related to chronic stress or trauma may result from things like car accidents, birth, surgery, and other medical events, physical assault, sexual assault, accidents/injuries/falls, abuse, and more.

When our nervous system gets overloaded as a result of overwhelming experiences, it can get stuck in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. This limits its ability to respond well to everyday life and may result in physical symptoms such as:

• chronic muscle tension

• headaches, pelvic, jaw, back, or other chronic pain

• irritable bowel syndrome

• disrupted sleep

• difficulty relaxing

• hyper-vigilance

• anxiety

• depression

When the nervous system gets "unstuck" and is able to move out of a state of fight, flight, or freeze, people often experience a decrease or resolution of the physical symptoms that brought them to seek help.

Fight, flight and freeze are valuable survival strategies when necessary and they're designed to be time-limited. In other words, we perceive a threat, we respond to the threat using fight, flight, and/or freeze strategies and then we return to a state of relaxed readiness and move on with our life.

When fight, flight or freeze become long-term coping strategies, when we get stuck there and can't return to a state of relaxed readiness, our body pays the price and symptoms show up.

Somatic Experiencing® uses a variety of techniques to help someone complete self-protective responses, move out of fight, flight and/or freeze and return to a state of relaxed readiness.

Along the way, clients may:

• get relief from various physical symptoms

• feel a greater sense of ease and safety

• develop resources to support better nervous system regulation

• build a capacity to tolerate stress with less overwhelm

• experience a greater sense of overall well-being in day-to-day life

SE™ differs from counseling because the focus is on tracking the autonomic nervous system response by noticing body sensations rather than on processing past experiences through talking. While the story may sometimes be important and helpful to provide context for the body experience, our focus is on how the body is responding. The goal is to help you be present in your life in a more embodied way with greater coherence and regulation of the nervous system.

What to expect

Sessions take place seated, standing or lying on a massage table depending on what would be most helpful for you. I also offer sessions on-line using the user-friendly conferencing platform Zoom.

During a session, I may invite you to:

• notice body sensations

• pay attention to your surroundings

• use self-touch to support nervous system regulation

• explore different movements

With my support, you'll help your nervous system complete defense responses and shift out of fight, flight, or freeze. We're working towards helping you develop a set of skills designed to support your body and nervous system in returning to a state of relaxed readiness and in the process help you get relief from symptoms related to autonomic nervous system dysregulation.

Along the way, you'll develop a set of skills to support the regulation of your nervous system. You'll leave each session with different strategies and exercises you can practice at home to support the work we do together.

The work is collaborative in nature. Creating a safe and supportive environment for you is one of my main goals.

Lisa is a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner in Columbus, Ohio. She has completed the 216-hour Somatic Experiencing® Professional training and additional supervision and personal session requirements. Her areas of specialty include car accidents, falls, concussions, pelvic issues, as well as birth trauma.

What We've Achieved