Why I Integrate Somatic Experiencing™ and Focusing into My Practice as a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator

While I regularly teach fellow SEPs and other therapists about integrating Clinical Somatic Education (CSE) into their practice, I don’t often write about why I love this work – or why, as a Certified Clinical Somatic Educator, I pretty much always integrate SE and Focusing into my client sessions (just as I integrate CSE into SE sessions).

Here’s why this integration is essential to my practice (and why it might well be to yours, too!):

The Neuromuscular–Nervous System Connection

Clinical Somatic Education works very specifically with stress patterns literally stuck in the neuromuscular system. Dealing as it does with the responses of individual humans to stress and trauma, then, Clinical Somatics is already, simultaneously (and unavoidably) nervous system work.

The distorted patterns in the neuromuscular system that CSE addresses are patterns that both inform and are informed by nervous system dysregulation. When we work with neuromuscular stuckness –showing up as discomfort, stiffness, or pain – we’re always already working with the nervous system.

Given this reality, I believe it’s absolutely essential to have not just an understanding of the nervous system, but a therapeutic approach to it to inform and enhance Clinical Somatics.

Why SE© and Focusing?

I wanted to train in nervous-system-focused approaches to chronic pain, stuck stress, and stored trauma that resonated with Clinical Somatics, its bases in both neuroscience and somatic philosophy.

Focusing and Somatic Experiencing™ are perfectly suited to this because they both work with the fundamental concept of the ‘felt sense’ as identified by Eugene Gendlin and developed in SE© by Peter Levine. The Polyvagal Theory, as developed by Stephen Porges, also helps make practical sense of integrating these approaches.

Integration in Practice

Practically speaking, combining sensing and movement work that helps people release from stuck stress-response patterns (CSE) with an understanding of the nervous system experiences that caused those patterns (SE, Focusing, PVT) is essential for helping people break free from chronic pain – whether that ongoing experience of dysregulation manifests primarily as physical discomfort, or as emotional pain from trauma and high levels of stress.

Why Integration Matters

If I address only physical ‘symptoms’ of stuck stress without attending to the nervous system experiences of stress, anxiety, or trauma that shape them, my clients are less likely to achieve and maintain release from their problems.

Similarly, if I address only the nervous system experiences of stress, anxiety, or trauma without using specific neuromuscular work to address how these are stuck in the body on a constant loop, my clients are far less likely to achieve and maintain relief from their emotional and physical pain.

The Fundamental Why

This is the heart of what I do:

I integrate SE and Focusing into my Clinical Somatics work to help clients achieve full-soma release from their ‘symptoms’ – guiding them to sense (not simply ‘learn’, but actually experience) that feeling more at ease in their body is an important part of maintaining relief from physical symptoms, and that sensing their body is essential for enabling and maintaining that release.

I integrate CSE movements and awareness into my SE work – and teach fellow SEPs and other therapists to do the same – to help clients achieve full-soma relief from their ‘symptoms’. This guides them to understand that sensing alone isn’t enough to achieve and maintain relief from emotional and physical pain, even though it’s a crucial piece of healing. Moving their body in gentle but specific, stress-response-informed ways is equally essential for achieving and maintaining that relief.

I can address some of the specifics in future posts – and that’s much of what I teach and invite clients to explore in my trainings. But I have outlined here the fundamental ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ I both practice and teach.

Got questions? Let me know!