Somatic Experiencing
Healing Begins in the Body
Living with chronic pain can feel exhausting, physically, mentally, and emotionally. When pain lingers for months or years, it often goes beyond the body. Your nervous system can become stuck in a state of tension or protection, making it harder for your body to relax, heal, and feel safe.
At Innova, we treat chronic pain with a trauma-informed approach. Using Somatic Experiencing, a gentle and body-focused method, our therapists will help you release stored tension and restore balance in your body, promoting a true sense of safety and relief.
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle, body-centered therapy developed by Dr. Peter Levine to help release the effects of stress and trauma stored in the body. When past overwhelm triggers the nervous system to react with fight, flight, or freeze responses, the body can become stuck in a cycle of tension and vigilance, leading to years of chronic pain and fatigue.
SE helps break this cycle by safely guiding you to tune into your body’s sensations, gradually releasing stored tension and completing stress responses that were never fully resolved. Unlike talk therapy, SE focuses on awareness of what’s happening in your body right now instead of retelling the story. SE works to restore harmony and balance to your nervous system, reducing pain so you can feel more relaxed and at ease.
Gentle Practices, Lasting Relief
Somatic Experiencing employs targeted techniques to retrain the nervous system, focusing on awareness, safety, and resilience in the mind-body connection.
Mindful Body Awareness
This technique helps you notice subtle body sensations, like tension or discomfort, showing how chronic pain evolves. By paying attention, you can respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively, making the nervous system calmer and less reactive. Over time, this awareness can reduce pain and prevent flare-ups.
Gentle Movement
Targeted, slow, mindful movements help release tight muscles, improve posture, and restore movement range. Carefully guided, they allow safe exploration of sore or restricted areas. The goal is to help the nervous system see movement as safe, often reducing chronic pain and boosting confidence.
Pendulation and Titration
Pendulation involves shifting between comfortable and uncomfortable sensations in small steps. Titration breaks down overwhelming feelings into manageable parts. Both techniques retrain the nervous system to tolerate and release stored discomfort, helping break the cycle of chronic tension and pain.
Integration of Positive Sensations
This technique encourages you to notice pleasant sensations like warmth, relaxation, or ease of movement, and deliberately focusing on them. Consistently integrating these positive experiences helps the nervous system learn new patterns, replacing threat responses with signals of safety. Over time, it retrains the brain and body to respond differently to pain, promoting lasting relief.
How Somatic Experiencing Works
Animals in the wild naturally release stress after a threat through shaking or moving. Humans have the same ability but often suppress it, causing the body to stay in a prolonged state of tension, which can lead to physical and emotional strain that worsens over time.
Through Somatic Experiencing, you’ll learn to recognize and monitor sensations in your body without judgment. You’ll practice moving through uncomfortable feelings at a pace that feels safe, helping build tolerance for emotions and sensations you may have avoided for years. Over time, the body begins to release stored survival energy, reducing tension and restoring a sense of stability.
Breaking the Pain–Stress Cycle
Chronic pain often lingers because the nervous system interprets safe signals as threats. Somatic Experiencing helps you identify these patterns and gently work through them. While every person’s journey is different, SE clients have reported experiencing:
- Reduced tension
- Fewer pain flare-ups
- Improved mobility and flexibility
- Better sleep
- Greater emotional resilience
By addressing both the physical sensations and the nervous system patterns beneath them, SE gently leverages your body’s natural ability to heal and restore balance.
Innova Peace: Chronic Pain PHP
At Innova, we understand that chronic pain is rarely just physical. It often involves stress, fear, and emotional struggles that perpetuate the cycle. That’s why we created Innova Peace, a specialized Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) focused on chronic pain. This distinctive program utilizes a structured approach that treats the mind, body, and spirit through an intensive combination of traditional therapies and holistic practices.
You’ll learn tools to manage and work through the emotional and psychological burdens that often accompany years of pain. Innova Peace offers a safe environment led by expert therapists, where your pain is taken seriously, your story is honored, and your recovery is supported every step of the way.
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Start Your Somatic Healing Journey Today
You don’t have to live in constant tension or pain. Healing is possible, and it starts by listening to your body’s wisdom. Whether you’re coping with trauma, chronic pain, or just looking for more emotional balance, Somatic Experiencing at Innova can help.