Working with the body, in doses
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Dr Peter Levine, treats trauma as something the body is still holding rather than a story the mind needs to retell. Sessions track physical sensation and the small movements a threat response never got to finish. Reem Glasco, LPC-S, is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). Sessions are 50 minutes, self-pay, online anywhere in Texas, with Blue Cross Blue Shield accepted.
Somatic Experiencing in short
- Developed by
- Dr Peter Levine
- Premise
- An overwhelming event interrupts the body's threat response, and the unfinished response stays held in the nervous system
- Method
- Tracking sensation and completing that response slowly, in small doses
- The key idea
- Titration: trauma work broken into pieces small enough not to overwhelm
- Built for
- Shock trauma, chronic bracing, numbness and flooding
- Reem's training
- Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
- Format
- Online, anywhere in Texas
- Session
- 50 minutes, $240 self-pay; Blue Cross Blue Shield accepted
Why the body and not the story
When something overwhelming happens, the body prepares a response: fight, flee, brace, freeze. If the response cannot finish, because escape was impossible or you were too small or it simply went on too long, the preparation does not evaporate. It stays, as a chest that will not unclench, a jaw set at rest, a startle that fires at nothing.
That is why insight so often fails to move these symptoms. You can understand the origin of your bracing perfectly and still brace. Somatic Experiencing goes at the unfinished response directly.
Titration, the part that matters
The work is titrated: slow, and in doses. This is not caution for its own sake. A nervous system that gets flooded learns that attention to the body is dangerous, and then the next attempt is harder than the last. Done at a pace your system can integrate, the same work widens your window of tolerance instead of narrowing it.
It tends to fit when
- Shock trauma is in the picture: an accident, an assault, a medical event.
- You go numb, or flood, when you talk about hard things.
- Anxiety lives in your chest and stomach more than in your thoughts.
- Sleep does not restore you.
- Talking about it has stopped helping.
What a session involves
Gentle attention to what is happening physically: temperature, pressure, breath, impulses to move. The first work is establishing a felt sense of safety, because nothing useful happens without it. From there you build the ability to notice a sensation, stay with it briefly, and come back out, which is the skill the whole method rests on.
You are not asked to narrate the trauma. Many people find they say less in SE than in the therapy they have done before, and that this is a relief rather than a loss.
On the evidence
Honest version: Somatic Experiencing has randomized controlled trials supporting it for PTSD symptoms and a wider body of observational work, and it does not yet have the decades of replication behind the cognitive-behavioral therapies. It is a reasonable, researched choice, not a proven superior one, and anyone selling it as either settled science or nonsense is overstating their case.
Reem's somatic credentials
- Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
- NARM therapist, trained in BASE-P and Brainspotting
- LPC-S in Texas since 2016, license 66562
Related
NARM
Where the pattern came from and what it costs you now, working alongside the somatic pacing.
IFS-informed EMDR
Processing specific material once Somatic Experiencing has built enough capacity to approach it.
Anxiety and panic
The presentation somatic work suits most directly: a body braced with nothing happening.
A free somatic practice
Seven short steps from Reem's book, with a breathing guide and two timers. Nothing to buy, nothing to sign up for.
Questions about Somatic Experiencing
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing is a body-based trauma therapy developed by Dr Peter Levine. It treats a trauma response as something left unfinished in the nervous system rather than a problem of belief, so the work happens through physical sensation: what your body is doing, in small amounts, with regular returns to something steadier.
You are not asked to retell what happened. Sessions move in deliberately small pieces, and that pacing is the method rather than a courtesy.
What happens in a Somatic Experiencing session?
You are guided to notice what is happening in your body: sensation, breath, pressure, impulses to move. The therapist works first to establish a felt sense of safety, then helps you approach difficult material in small pieces and come back out again. You are not asked to retell the trauma.
What is titration in somatic therapy?
Breaking trauma work into pieces small enough that your system can process them without being overwhelmed or retraumatized. It is the central safeguard of the method, and it is why Somatic Experiencing usually feels slower than people expect.
Is Somatic Experiencing the same as somatic massage or bodywork?
No. Somatic Experiencing is psychotherapy and involves no touch in this practice, which works online. The word somatic means it attends to the body; it does not mean hands-on treatment.
How many Somatic Experiencing sessions will I need?
Shock trauma can shift in a handful. Chronic bracing laid down over years takes longer, because the goal is a wider window of tolerance rather than the removal of one symptom. It is reviewed together rather than fixed at the start.
Does Somatic Experiencing work over video?
Yes, and it is how this practice delivers it. The work tracks your own sensation rather than the room, so video is not the obstacle people expect. Both you and your therapist must be physically located in Texas during the session, because that is where this practice is licensed.
What is the difference between Somatic Experiencing and EMDR?
EMDR reprocesses specific memories using dual attention. Somatic Experiencing works with the state of the nervous system and does not require a target memory at all. In this practice they are used together: Somatic Experiencing builds the capacity, EMDR does the processing once there is room for it.
How can I learn more?
The frequently asked questions page collects everything that is not specific to one service: fees and insurance, how the methods differ, complex PTSD, what Texas requires of a counselor, and how to start. If the answer is not there either, a free consult is the quickest way to get one.
This practice does not provide emergency care. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Start with a conversation
Therapy consults are fifteen minutes. Supervision and EMDR consultation consults are thirty. Both are free and commit you to nothing.