Anybody who wishes to regain a sense of empowerment by learning about and experiencing their body’s natural ability to calm itself after strong feelings or activation caused by a situation they perceive as being stressful or threatening can benefit from SE.
SE can be helpful for many individuals, both adults and children, who have experienced either overwhelming traumatic life events or periods of continual stress. A traumatic event is an experience that causes physical, emotional or psychological distress, or harm. It is an event that is perceived and experienced as a threat to one’s safety or to the stability of one’s world.
- Physical trauma as in car accidents, whiplash, sporting accidents, high impact falls
- Surgeries, medical interventions, prolonged illnesses, high fever, poisoning
- Inescapable attack, mugging, threat of violence, abuse of any kind, rape, incest
- Drowning, suffocation or choking experiences
- Unrelenting stress, work, bereavement, divorce, loss of a loved one or a pet
- Emotional and domestic abuse, bullying
- Development trauma such as childhood neglect, abandonment or betrayal
- Birth trauma, pre and peri-natal experiences
- War or conflict, torture, terrorism
- Natural disasters, fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis,
- Horror, being a witness to any of the above
If the threat, traumatic experience, or the duration of the event or circumstances is too great, or we have little or no support, our nervous system becomes overwhelmed and cannot return to its healthy place of resilience and equilibrium. We may stay either in a state of high arousal, reacting adversely to the slightest sound or movement and being hyperactive, or we may move into a state of shutdown and depression.
The consequences of these experiences can have deep psychological and physical effects on the body causing a variety of symptoms.
Ale Duarte, SEP Working with Earthquake Victims In Japan
