How Somatic Experiencing Can Unpack Trauma With Andrea Battle

September 17, 2024 by J. Flowers Health Staff

In this episode, we sit down with Andrea Battle, a J. Flowers Provider and expert in Somatic Experiencing, to explore how our bodies hold and release trauma. Andrea breaks down the science behind this powerful approach to healing, and shares real-life tips for anyone looking to reconnect with their body and ease the effects of stress. Whether you are new to the concept or looking to deepen your understanding, this episode is your guide to “shaking it off” and moving towards a more balanced and peaceful life.

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How Somatic Experiencing Can Unpack Trauma With Andrea Battle

This is our show here at J. Flowers Health Institute. I am excited to have Andrea Battle with us. I’m going to read Andrea’s bio. Before I do, welcome, Andrea. Thanks for being here.

I’m glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

When they said that you agreed to do this, I was so happy because I know how busy you are in your private practice. I know you also see a lot of J. Flowers patients, so thank you for that.

Thank you for having me.

Let me read your bio. If there’s anything I leave off, let us know. Andrea Battle is a licensed professional counselor supervisor, and a Somatic Experiencing practitioner based right here in Houston. She has over a decade of experience and specializes in helping high-achieving individuals navigate career transitions, burnout, and the effects of trauma.

Her therapeutic approach, which combines Somatic Experiencing, attachment theory, and humor is tailored to support clients in embracing their authentic selves and overcoming mental health challenges. Andrea’s career began in academia, a lot like mine did, where her work with study-abroad students inspired her to pursue counseling.

She has since held roles at The Women’s Home, which I’ve learned a little bit about, as well as at the Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD and the Crisis Intervention Response Team. In our private practice, Andrea is known for her expertise in guiding professionals through the complexities of burnout and stress and helping them move from survival mode to a more fulfilling life. That’s pretty amazing. I love that. Thank you again for being here. I’m so excited.

Thank you for having me. I’m excited too.

Somatic Experiencing

First of all, for our audience, this is such an intriguing topic. I get asked this question all the time by other professionals, patients, therapists, and what have you. People always say, “What is Somatic Experiencing? Do I fit?” Tell our audience about Somatic Experiencing in itself.

I love this question because I had the same question. What exactly is Somatic Experiencing or in short, SE? What is SE? It is a body-based therapy. It was developed over 30 years ago by Dr. Peter Levine. What happened was he was curious about how animals in the wild, not domesticated, often face life-and-death challenges but are rarely traumatized. They’re facing almost getting eaten every day but they seem to be okay. They just shake it off. How do they do that?

He started to think, “Maybe trauma is not necessarily in the event. Maybe there’s a physiological response.” With that physiological response, he said, “We have these natural survival responses of fight. Are we going to fight the bear or flee? Can we outrun the bear or fawn? Can we play possum dead?” Is that okay to say in Texas?

Absolutely.

What he posits is that trauma happens when the body is not able to complete the defense mechanism. That energy, which would be processed through the body, people might tremble or people might shake. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the polar bear when they’re doing a test. They give them the sedative and then they shake and come out of it. They go on about their business. When that is thwarted, that reserve energy is stored in the body and causes nervous system dysregulation. That causes distress. We see the physiological symptoms of trauma.

Career Path

You’re a licensed professional counselor, and then you decided to add this to your practice as your specialty. Was there any particular event in your own life? What brought you to say, “I’m going to be an SE therapist or practitioner.”

It was by accident, but it was a wonderful accident. I was doing my practicum at The Women’s Home. It’s an eighteen-month residential treatment program for women experiencing homelessness. Most of the women are in recovery. In my graduate program, it was heavily CBT. I love CBT. I orient to my rural CBT. That was the toolbox that I was coming into that environment with. I found that it was helpful, but there were some limitations and I didn’t quite know what it was.

A colleague of mine said, “I’m doing this studying of the Somatic Experiencing. You should read this book, Waking the Tiger, and see what you think.” I’m like, “I get it.” When people are traumatized and they’re activated, and they’re not able to self-regulate, they’re not able to access those cognitive strategies that we teach people. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an argument. When you’ve been in an argument and it’s a heated argument, you leave the room and then you say, “I should have said this.” When we are in our survival energies, our prefrontal cortex is not working. We’re not using our thinking brain. We’re using our surviving brain. It’s that fight, flight, or freeze in some instances. She introduced it to me. When I first saw it, I saw it was a three-year commitment. I was not prepared. I was already in graduate school at the time.

When people are traumatized, they cannot self-regulate and access cognitive strategies.

It’s like getting another Master’s degree.

It turned out that in 2016, the first generation was offered here in Houston as an in-person training. That’s how I started. It complements everything I do. I look at SE as a lens.

Trauma

What is Andrea Battle’s definition or thought of what trauma is?

I like the idea of thinking of it as not the event. For example, you could be bit by a dog, not that I’m wishing that on you, or I can be bit by a dog, but how we respond are two different things. Part of that, according to SE, what resources were available to us? What defense responses were we able to complete that allowed us to process that trauma and discharge it through the body?

For example, in your case, you were bitten by a dog. You had a resource of people loving you and supporting you. They were like, “Bad dog,” or something like that and you’re able to move on. Someone else could have said, “What happened to you? Why did you get bit by that dog? It’s your fault,” and not having an opportunity to defend themselves. My experience then is different. It’s not in the event. It’s in the body. If I give the body an opportunity to do what it always wanted to do that it didn’t get to do back then, then I can resolve my trauma.

As you were saying that and talking about what your idea of trauma is, I was visualizing something else that I see in real life happen. I hope I’m not throwing you a curve ball here. I was thinking, a lot of times, we see young children with trauma from an event. I know it’s not the event, but I’m going to use a school shooting. There’s a school shooting and a child has trauma.

You then have a parent. The parent is traumatized probably a lot because their child is traumatized. What I’ve seen in real life sometimes is that children are also extremely resilient. The children are moving along, but the parent is reacting to the event and has trauma. I don’t want to use this word babying, coddling, or what have you, but the parent’s reaction to the child sometimes can tend to extend the trauma instead of helping the trauma. Have you ever seen that phenomenon?

I can’t say but I have some ideas. I’m catching the curve ball. One of the differences between parents and kiddos is time, age, and cumulative stress. I know SE is known for treating big traumas. People think about wars, sexual assault, or displacement, but there is something to cumulative traumatic stress. It’s not to say that a school shooting is a small thing by any means of imagination, but that parent is also responsible for a lot of different things. That’s one more thing on top that could be stirring up some unresolved trauma in the past that hasn’t been dealt with. It can awaken so to speak.

Role Of The Body Role Of The Body

Talk about what role the body plays in the healing process of trauma according to SE principles.

The body is the main star. Since they’re saying that the trauma is stored in the body, we believe that the body gives us hints of where it’s stored. Where are the tension patterns? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a client where that person looks like they’re walking like they’re bracing for impact.

All the time.

They’re like, “When is the other shoe going to drop?” We go to the body, ask the client to be curious about the body, and say, “Do you notice where you’re tense? Do you notice where you’re loose? Do you know where you’re expanding? Do you notice where you’re constricted?” The idea is by being curious about the body and asking those questions, then we give the body the opportunity to talk back.

Sometimes people might notice reconnecting with their body, movements that have been thwarted in the threat response cycle before that weren’t completed that caused trauma in the beginning start to take place. These are involuntary movements. Some people see trembling. Some people see shaking. We go with that so that the body can complete the defense response.

Following up with that question, do you believe that for humans, adults, children, or whomever, trauma can have such an impact on our body and our body can have an impact on the trauma? Do you believe we can create illness within our bodies?

Syndromes. Yes.

Talk about it. I believe the same way. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on that.

In terms of the body, our bodies can only do so much. This is where we get into the nervous system. If you want me to nerd it out, I could talk about sympathetic, parasympathetic, and all that. What happens is when the body is meant to have natural ebbs and flows or ups and downs within a window of tolerance, we have so much bandwidth, so to speak.

With that bandwidth, if we keep stressing the body out, the body is going to respond. It’s like, “That didn’t get your attention to slow down. You thought that you could only sleep four hours a day for a week and be fine. That’s not going to happen.” SE is used a lot with chronic pain, a lot of syndromes, and autoimmune diseases because it’s a complex physiological combination there dealing with trauma.

Assessing Clients

I have lived that in my practice for 30 years in working with chronic pain patients. Going through that process is so amazing. I’m glad to hear you concur with my thoughts on that. How do you assess a client’s readiness for Somatic Experiencing?

It’s interesting because, at the beginning of the conversation, we were talking about how people are like, “What is SE?” I do a little bit of psycho-ed. I use the example of, “Have you ever had an argument and you forgot what you said?” that I used earlier before. I’m like, “When we get into our survival energy, our fight, flight, or freeze, have you ever frozen before?”

People can follow that, but one of the things is can they experience safety and be okay with it? Can they report on or notice when they’re calm or not? That’s one. Another one is that I tell people all the time coming out of the womb, “What do you notice in your body today?” That’s an annoying question. I do not ask that a million times. There are other ways to ask that question. Is there any language for sensation? Can they notice what’s not there? Maybe they say, “Normally, my shoulders are tight but they’re not feeling as tight today.” Can they at least do that or say, “I feel numb.” I’ll take numb.

Some ability to talk about sensation. The other thing is having a window of tolerance for sensation. I’m not talking about necessarily a negative sensation or something that feels icky or weird, but even some positive sensations. If they have that, they don’t have to be experts in it. In my office, when I’m working with clients, I have all sorts of handouts and different things that people can reference. They build the language of the felt sense.

Misconceptions

Do you think there are some misconceptions about what SE is?

It’s not based on any sort of science. The other part of it is that being connected with the body is one misconception, and we have talked about that already. It’s that it’s only for big T traumas. These are major events. There’s everyday stress. Stress kills. It accumulates over time, builds, and starts coming out. That’s when people are usually coming to see me in the office. It’s like, “I never thought I’d be here. I was the one that always figured it out. I was the one that always thought it through but it’s not working.” I say, “There’s a reason why it’s not working. You’re in survival mode. Those cognitive strategies aren’t available to you right now. Let’s work on your self-regulation.” It always uses touch work.

Stress kills and accumulates over time.

That’s a big one.

I don’t use touch. I encourage people to do self-touch or self-regulation. It may be their hand over their heart, hand on their stomach, hand on their forehead, or hand behind their neck. It may be putting their hands resting on their thighs. In some cases, I have done supportive touch with the permission of the client to put my hand on their back or be in closer proximity to them, but it does not have to involve touch work for it to be effective.

Mindfulness

I heard all my Master’s degree professors saying, “Do not touch,” and we do SE work. I keep visualizing these things while you’re telling me these stories. I love it. We need to do more of this. Do you ever integrate mindfulness with SE? Is there a connection between mindfulness and SE work?

Absolutely because we’ve got to bring it into the here and now. That’s the difference with SE. We do not have to go back then. The idea is that the trauma is trapped in the body. Those same sensations that the person felt then are here and now. We bring people into the here and now. That’s one.

Trauma is trapped in the body. Those same sensations you felt then are still here now.

That’s mindfulness.

Another one is being non-judgmental about how the body responds. When we get into the nervous system and what the nervous system does and it gets relaxed, people are burping, gurgling, and making all sorts of sounds. It might have happened in your yoga class. I don’t know. For example, people might be concerned. They say, “I should have thought or stood up to that person at that moment.” It’s like, “You did what your body thought was the right thing at the right time to keep you the safest.”

Another part of it is that we encourage people to practice mindfulness in between sessions. We’re like, “As you leave this office, what are you feeling in your body? As you get in your car, as you’re playing with your puppy, or as you’re with your kids, what are you experiencing?” We’re constantly checking in with self in the here and now to be reflective of a client-observer role of what their bodily experience is.

Mind-Body Connection

What challenges do you see clients facing when they’re learning about SE?

The mind-body connection is the biggest understanding. It’s not that there is a mind-body connection. People accept that. No one has asked me what I felt in my body before, so I don’t know how to answer that question. The great thing is we have cheat sheets so people can develop language for the felt sense. Another challenge is that people are sometimes a little embarrassed about how their bodies respond, especially when they’re discharging trauma and they’re seeing some involuntary movements. They’re seeing some shaking or some trembling. It can be a little off-putting at first.

It makes them nervous probably.

They’re like, “What’s going on?” I hear the words, “I’m not doing this,” and I’m saying, “I know. Let your body do it because this is what your body wants to do then. It’s getting to do it now because it’s in a safe place. This is a discharge. This is a good thing.”

What’s a typical treatment episode? Is it twelve weeks? Is it 3 weeks, 3 months, or 1 year or is it completely individualized?

It’s individualized because every nervous system is different.

Some may respond sooner and then some people may need that extra time.

When we are talking about the misconceptions of SE, it is that it’s too slow. People say that a lot. You guys spend all this time resourcing and making sure they have internal resources and external resources. We do that to create a sense of safety so that people can titrate in small increments the trauma. Whereas someone can blurt it all out, it could be a very cathartic experience, but I call it a vulnerability hangover. You’ve created this vacuum. With that, when we’re able to create islands of safety so to speak, where people have that touchstone and they can tap into the trauma, come back, and they’re expanding in their capacity, they start to see that right away.

When we create islands of safety, people can tap into trauma and expand their capacity to see it right away.

CBT And Other Modalities

It’s like an immediate feedback loop. I know you are a CBT therapist. I’m a CBT therapist. In what ways do you see it complementing CBT or other modalities?

For example, with CBT, getting back to my experience at The Women’s Home, we’re doing these strategies and they get it at the moment. Why does that go out the window when they’re faced with a stressor? Part of using SE is helping people self-regulate, help their internal and external resources, access them, know when they’re in their window of tolerance, and know when they’re approaching outside of their window of tolerance so that they can calm themselves again so that they can still have access to the thinking brain.

For EMDR, for example, in the treatment, history, and planning stages of the eight stages, knowing what the person’s resources are can help with self-regulation. In psychodynamics, some experiences are pre-verbal. SE can work with implicit memories and things that happened before the person had language to express what’s going on.

SE Session

What is a typical session like in SE?

I’ll tell you the bookends, and then I’ll tell you what happens in the middle, and the order of which, no one knows because every nervous system is different. One of the things is that I often invite people to come and orient to their environment. I want them to see that there are no bears in the office. They’ll sit down, and when they’re ready to go, it’s like, “Are you here? Are you in the chair or are you hovering above the chair?” They’re like, “I’m hovering.” I’m like, “Is there any way where your eyes naturally want to go?”

It’s helping people in the beginning. Usually, they’re not used to that. They’re usually used to start talking right away. Maybe I help support them by doing some grounding through their five senses or something visually appealing. I like to have a lot of different objects in my office that people can visually orient to. I ask them to list things down. I’m like, “What do you taste in your mouth?” They’re like, “There is a Whataburger on the way over here,” or whatever it might be.

The other bookend is in closing the session, we want to end in resource. We begin with orientation grounding and then grounding. In between, there are a multitude of things that can be happening. One can be resourcing. People might not know what their resources are, so we’re building their resources. It’s like, “Can you tell me a time when you felt calm and connected? Can you tell me a time when you felt most at peace?” I’m like, “Tell me. What do you notice in your body as you’re saying that? What are your thoughts? What are your feelings? What are your emotions?” It’s having an embodied sense of that experience.

They’re like, “I feel good.” I’m then like, “Now, think of something mildly annoying like you left your Starbucks at the Starbucks. You drove off.” They’re like, “I’m frustrated. I’m angry.” I’m like, “Let’s go back to when you were feeling better and when you were feeling grounded.” That would be an actual pendulation. We’re working with the distressing. We’re starting with this place of safety, comfort, and connection, working with the distressing material, and then going back to safety and connection. We’re also working with trauma in small pieces because we don’t want to overwhelm the nervous system.

Work with trauma in small pieces to not overwhelm the nervous system.

Advice For Aspiring Practitioners

One more time, tell us and the audience. For our non-professionals and also our professionals, in other words, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, or whoever is tuning in to us, who’s appropriate for SE? Who’s appropriate for a referral to you?

Everyone.

Who doesn’t have it? That’s right. A lot of mental health professionals know a little bit about SE. A lot of people were probably like you were in the very beginning before your training and then you learned a little about it and were like, “I’m interested.” Would you recommend they read the book you read for a mental health professional to get SE into their practice?

There are so many ways of intersection. You can start by reading the book, Waking the Tiger. It talks about how Dr. Levine came into SE, his very first client, and how he started to build the theory. It has practical applications in there as well, so you can do SE with yourself and have your own Somatic Experience.

The other is the Somatic Experiencing International. It’s an international organization. That’s the governing body that takes care of all of the training for becoming a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, which is a three-year program. Even though there’s the three-year program, there are tons of seminars and Q&A times where people can say, “I want to know a little bit more about it.” I even think there’s a tab on the website that says SE 101. There are videos on there.

On YouTube, there are videos about SE. Also, on TraumaHealing .org, which is the Somatic Experiencing International website, they have a list of practitioners in the area. I would encourage people to get a session, especially a professional wanting to see what it’s like. Even part of becoming a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, you learn the work from the inside out. It does require a number of personal sessions with someone who’s approved to provide those sessions, which I am.

Another thing is to practice some good self-care. Check in with yourself about your own bandwidth. As SE practitioners and all helping professionals, we are helping people co-regulate. Ask ourselves, “Are we regulated? Am I in my chair? Am I in my seat? Am I calm? Am I resourced? Do I have the bandwidth?” You look at the schedule for the day. Are you prepared?

It’s like, “Can I do this?”

You can also do a consultation.

Episode Wrap-up

How does one reach Andrea Battle, whether they’re a lay person needing help or whether they’re a therapist who wants to visit you?

You could go to my website at LiveMoreCounseling.com. I’m also on Psychology Today as Andrea Battle and LinkedIn.

I appreciate you taking a lot of time out of your day to come here and do this with me. Thank you.

You’re busier than I am, so I appreciate you inviting me here.

I can’t wait to see this episode and tune in to it again. Thank you for being here. You can reach us at 713-783- 6655 or JFlowersHealth.com. I hope everybody has a great day. Andrea, have a wonderful day. Thank you for seeing all of our patients.

You’re welcome.

Have a good day, everybody.

Important Links

About Andrea Battle

Andrea Battle, LPC-S, SEP, is a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner based in Houston, Texas. With over a decade of experience, Andrea specializes in helping high-achieving individuals navigate career transitions, burnout, and the effects of trauma. Her therapeutic approach, which combines somatic experiencing, attachment theory, and humor, is tailored to support clients in embracing their authentic selves and overcoming mental health challenges.

Andrea’s career began in academia, where her work with study abroad students inspired her to pursue counseling. She has since held roles at The Women’s Home, The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD, and the Crisis Intervention Response Team. In her private practice, Andrea is known for her expertise in guiding professionals through the complexities of burnout and stress, helping them move from survival mode to a more fulfilling life.