Shock and Trauma therapy has been developed specifically to work with the complex array of symptoms that arise from unresolved traumatic experience, as might occur where there has been an actual life-threatening event in an individual’s life such as violent attack, car accident, natural disaster or war, or a perceived life threatening event such as surgery. It is also effective where an individual has developed trauma symptoms due to an on going abusive situation or a series of minor difficult events in their life. Trauma symptoms are often collectively known as P.T.S.D. However individual symptoms are vast and varied and may include depression, anxiety, flashbacks, insomnia, trembling, migraines, addiction, physical pain and general difficulty coping with life.
This work was pioneered respectively by Dr. Peter Levine and Babette Rothschild, and is also known as Somatic Experiencing and Somatic Trauma Therapy. The work is primarily verbal, but encourages the client to become aware of processes happening physically within the body. The work is very safe and gentle.
Dr. Peter Levine has discovered with 20 years of therapeutic practice that it is unnecessary to dredge up old memories and relive their emotional pain. In fact, severe emotional pain can be retraumatizing. It is possible with his approach to arouse the deep physiological resources that we each have and consciously use them to heal the trauma.
– Juliet Yelverton