Somatic Experiencing™ was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, who received his doctorate in Medical and Biological Physics from the University of California at Berkeley. It is an approach to healing trauma that is rooted in the evolutionary heritage of the body and nervous system. SE is based on the observation that wild prey animals, though threatened routinely, are rarely traumatized. In the wild, animals have innate ways of regulating and discharging high levels of energy that result from being threatened. Humans often override these innate pathways, for many reasons: busyness (cultural conditioning), ignoring body cues, desensitization from their own physical sensations, etc. SE combines skilled empathy with attention to messages and/or pictures that come suddenly to mind, or sensations that we might otherwise ignore, or gestures that we don’t know we are making. These many messages often hold clues to the same innate responses (of fight, flight, freeze, appease, etc.) that animals draw on to protect themselves from threat. Taking the time to let these subtle messages unfold at their own speed, and to “feel into them” as they arise, often leads to surprising relief and new perspectives. The process is gentle and incremental in order to allow a person to safely experience and gradually discharge these intense survival energies.