The following are our own HGPS Members who are SE Therapists:
Janee Bellamy, LCSW, LMFT, LCDC
Toby Howell, LCSW
Vicki Tidwell-Parker, LCSW
Sydney Platt, LPC
Pamela Stockton, LPC
Xue Yang, LCSW
The following are some personal reflections on their own SE journeys by our members who are SE therapists:
“I first heard of Peter Levine, PhD, through his book, Waking the Tiger. Around that time, the Meadows Treatment Center arranged for Dr. Levine to come to Austin for a workshop, and I attended. One of the most hopeful and exciting things I heard that day was that trauma survivors did not have to carry forever the autonomic nervous system’s high activation in their bodies. In his lecture, Dr. Levine explained that study has shown that the bodies of wild animals automatically discharge high activation after a traumatic event. He stated that human bodies possess the same ability to “shake off” high activation energy. The problem is that the ability to do so has been interfered with by socialization. Therefore, frequently, humans do not use this ability and are then overwhelmed by the energy left in their bodies, which they feel as stress, sometimes debilitating stress. However, by learning and using various techniques, humans can regain this lost ability and heal themselves. I made a three-year commitment to take SE training in order to be able to help others release this energy. This training has been very useful in my private practice of psychotherapy.”
—Contributed by Janee Bellamy, LCSW, LMFT, LCDC
“I was looking for a way to work with dissociation and my search led to somatic psychology, which led me to Peter Levine’s work. When I read his book, Waking the Tiger, and then heard a talk where he also gave a demonstration, what struck me then and continues to amaze me now is how incredibly gentle the SE approach to trauma work is. For me, the training journey has been truly a journey in that I have no idea what to expect from my own body due to the fact that part of Somatic Experiencing is that I have to experience SE myself. Incredibly, my own nervous system has been reset to where I have peace and calm in a way I have never experienced peace and calm before and that is just with the few exercises we have done in our learning classes. Imagine what SE can do for my patients who are coming for specific issues.”
— Contributed by Xue Yang, LCSW