Introduction:

When a person faces an experience that overwhelms their ability to cope actively, lacking the necessary resources to process it, and their integrative capacity becomes overwhelmed, they may perceive the stress as life-threatening, leading to feelings of despair.

If such stress persists for an extended period or is exceptionally intense, such as in cases of major shocks like shock trauma, attachment trauma, or developmental trauma, the natural self-regulatory ability of humans to recover, process the experience, and continue living calmly becomes disrupted and set out of order.

Survival instincts triggered by the shock, such as flight, avoidance, or fight reactions, may be prematurely interrupted, remaining as unprocessed or semiprocessed, activated stress states within the body-emotional-mind-soul system. This unfinished stress program can manifest as immobilization reactions, requiring significant energy to maintain.

Consequences maybe a shot down of self-control, include dissociation from the painful experience, resulting in fragmented or absent memories of the event, as well as diminished sensations in the body and emotions, leading to a significant reduction in vitality.

Examples include:

Dissociation: Unintegrated information stemming from the shock moment, such as images, thoughts, feelings, sounds, or smells, may be stored separately and disconnected from other to the event belonging sensory impressions, impairing perception of place, time, and personality. This can be draining, thus exhausting and disrupt the perception of the present.

Stress repetition loop: The accumulated, unprocessed internal activation blocks more or less the resilience capacity of the person. This is leading to a habitual state of readiness for protection and fight reactions towards the world, due to the preserved feeling of life-threatening danger coupled with the stress program of immobilization.

Encounter with situations resembling the trauma event, the stress repetition loop triggers immediate, unreflective reactions, with direct activation of the feeling of life-threatening danger blocking connection to the present and immersing individuals in past memories.

Positive friendliness in the present is no longer perceived because the mind is flooded with the old. "Old greed prevails instead of curiosity."

Overactivation and hypersensitivity or under-activation and numbing due to stress, can hinder the realization of human potential and his talent fully. People suddenly find themselves in professions where they are either underchallenged and unhappy or overwhelmed.

In such conditions, Somatic Experiencing® is used as a method to restore coping ability and increase stress tolerance. It supports the reorganization of the disorganized brain, developing a self-regulated nervous system, and associated hormonal and immune systems through co-regulation, aiming to build broad resilience capacity and process trauma effectively.