What if Everybody Knew What We Know about Trauma?

by Laura Piché on January 9, 2012

Serge Prengel’s podcast interview for SEPtalk.com continues to take the pulse on how SE practitioners are applying their knowledge-base of Somatic Experiencing® in the real world. This time Serge speaks with fellow SEP colleague, Anthony “Twig” Wheeler.

In this 30-minute conversation, Serge and Twig lean into a central question of Twig’s education and outreach work: “What if everybody knew?” This inspires questions like:

• What if everybody knew that a fixated stress response (a.k.a. trauma) is the result of a disrupted neurophysiological process— a process that desires completion?
• What if people knew that our sense of well-being can be recovered, even after surviving extreme events, as long as we receive proper support and facilitation (to complete those processes that were disrupted)?
• What if everybody knew that this is not some arcane, exclusive field— that just about anyone can readily understand the most important aspects of stress and trauma?
• What if everybody knew that tuning into our innate ability, as organisms, to respond and recover from trauma can significantly enhance our health and well-being?
• What if we all knew that a change of perspective is taking place in the helping professions, one that places more emphasis on the critical role the body can play in easing distress?

While the general principles of SE® are readily accessible to anyone (and it would be a wonderful thing if more people grasped and shared them!), it occurs to me after hearing this podcast that much of the specific therapeutic details are actually quite specialized. And thus psychotherapists and bodyworkers, to name just a couple helping professions, have an important role in supporting a happier and healthier world.

Keen listeners will tune in to how both Twig and Serge spontaneously apply various SE principles within the conversation itself. They discuss non-therapeutic contexts for SE— how it can be associated in our daily lives— and I noticed that they are careful to invite enough space in the conversation for the next appropriate thing to arise. To me, this is a lovely demonstration of how SE can support our sense of well being.

It all centers around understanding the process of change each of our bodies goes through. When we examine and expand this understanding, we create space for greater ease and a natural recuperation from trauma and even day-to-day stress and fatigue. To me, that’s a pretty exciting “What if.”

Rock on Trauma Healers,

Laura

To hear the 30-minute conversation, please visit: septalk.com/2011/11/wheeler/

Anthony "Twig" Wheeler

About the conversationalists: Anthony “Twig” Wheeler, BA, SEP, AHE, is a cultural animator specializing in the restoration of a participatory relationship between humans and their nature. He has blogged for Beyond Trauma about his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Serge Prengel is an SEP in New York City. He hosts SEPtalk.com, a podcast of 30-minute conversations with different SE practitioners. Each new conversation explores how SEPs integrate SE into their practice.

Sunrise photo by paul bica

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