Somato-Emotional Release: Therapy to Recover From Childhood Trauma

Clients suffering from childhood trauma often go through a therapy that allows them to experience

somato-emotional release. That kind of therapy connects the processes in the body like twitching and

bracing with emotions like pain, anger, rage and grief. The therapy allows the processing of negative

emotions and their release through the body.

Let us take you through what happens in a session focused on somato-emotional release.

Head-hold variations in somato-emotional release

The therapist put her hands on the client’s temple bones and under her ears, where a great deal of tension is held. A light hold there can lead to a release and increase the feelings of safety.

Working with resistance to feeling emotion

The client showed signs of bracing patterns trying to stop her body from feeling. The therapist felt that it was more of a somatic than a mental brace and encouraged the client to verbalise the reason for the brace. The client said that if she let go of the brace, her anger would come up and remind her of her difficult situation. The therapist asked her to bring her attention and breath to that irritation and the client agreed, which allowed them to move deeper into the session.

Titrated emotional release with touch and pendulation with resourcing

The client consented to connect to anger held in her gut. The therapist put her hands underneath the client’s body and on the client’s stomach while verbally encouraging tremors and loud or growling exhales. The client was welcome to connect to her breath, awareness and attention to support gentle titrated somato-emotional release. To safely bring the client out of the experience, the therapist asked her to orient to the room and the voice and to open her eyes if she wanted. Then the therapist put her hands under the client’s sacrum and neck. Thus pendulation was achieved – going into activation and coming back to an experience of safety and co-regulation.

Exploring emotional resistance

The client was afraid that anger would lead to the deepest part of the spectrum of that emotion – rage, which she couldn’t deal with as a child. The client verbalised that it would be peaceful to let go of the brace and the therapist repeated her words to achieve the re-parenting mirroring. The therapist also used positive indirect suggestions to expand relaxation and forgiveness.

Facing the resistance with increased resource

The therapist held her hands under the client’s sacrum and on her sternum. The client’s body started to respond and twitch. The therapist verbally invited the client to connect her somatic and mental experience, which would lead to somato-emotional release. Permission is a very important aspect in dealing with childhood trauma because it remedies an old experience of not being asked permission in childhood.

Building a map back to the resource

When asked why she resisted access to her rage, the client responded that she was afraid of losing the peaceful experience she’d been having. The client explained that the most peaceful part of her body was her chest, where the therapist’s hand was, and where her “little self” lived – an inner child worried about feeling the rage and not allowed to express it. By anchoring the client’s hand to the chest area and later removing her own hand, the therapist helped the client build a map back to peace. The therapist supported and anchored the client to the present, which stops the clients from going back into a regressed state and re-traumatisation.

With safety comes deep release

The therapist held her hand above the gut and the client’s body twitched, meaning it was ready to process. The therapist’s additional verbal invitation resulted in the client’s verbal expression: “Why me?”

Facilitating the multi-faceted experience of release

The therapist placed her hand on the client’s stomach and directed her to feel her rage, which resulted in somato-emotional release accompanied by tears and verbal expressions. The emotional experience was a mixture of grief and shame and it shifted from her gut to her chest, creating a space in the body. At the end of the session, the therapist and the client agree that the client was able to experience and process her rage and to feel safe again afterwards.

Conclusion

Childhood trauma causes a blockage in experiencing emotional connection, expression and resolution. Bringing awareness to these processes in therapy builds the clients’ trust in their own experience and in more detailed processing in further therapy. The session ended with a conversation. The client went through self-inquiry prompted by the therapist in order to make sense of the therapeutic experience. The client verbalised that she felt pain, anger, blame, rage and grief because she was a subject to childhood trauma. She also said she was afraid of going through emotional processing if the emotions were caused by a “real” trigger, e.g. a fight, because then she would enter her so-called crazy state. Processing her emotions through somato-emotional release without real triggers during therapy brought her a sense of relief and safety.