In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

by Peter A. Levine

To resist the immediate defensive ploy of avoidance, the most potent strategy is to move toward the fear, to contact the immobility itself and to consciously explore the various sensations, textures, images and thoughts associated with any discomfort that may arise. When working with traumatic reactions, such as states of intense fear, Somatic Experiencing®* provides therapists with nine building blocks. These basic tools for “renegotiating” and transforming trauma are not linear, rigid or unidirectional. Instead, in therapy sessions, these steps are intertwined and dependent upon one another and may be accessed repeatedly and in any order. However, if this psychobiological process is to be built on firm ground, Steps 1, 2 and 3 must occur first and must follow sequentially. Thus, the therapist needs to: 1. Establish an environment of relative safety. 2. Support initial exploration and acceptance of sensation. 3. Establish “pendulation” and containment: the innate power of rhythm. 4. Use titration to create increasing stability, resilience and organization. Titration is about carefully touching into the smallest “drop” of survival-based arousal, and other difficult sensations, to prevent retraumatization. 5. Provide a corrective experience by supplanting the passive responses of collapse and helplessness with active, empowered, defensive responses.