Somatic Experiencing Training from Peter A. Levine

A letter from Peter A. Levine, PhD, Developer of Somatic Experiencing®

If I’ve learned anything during these decades, it’s this: your chronic pain and suffering are real.

For nearly half a century, I’ve been working to help people like you, people who have been suffering from chronic back pain, neck pain, and shoulder pain, as well as with more complex and disabling conditions such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), migraines, severe PMS, brain fog, and chronic fatigue.

I created Body as Healer: Freedom from Chronic Pain as part of my legacy work to support you in resolving the issues underlying these difficult conditions and to help you achieve lasting relief from those debilitating symptoms.

YOU WILL DISCOVER THAT BENEATH YOUR PAIN LIES AN ABUNDANCE OF MORE SUBTLE SENSATIONS, AN INNER KNOWING, THAT CAN GUIDE YOU TOWARD A SENSE OF EASE AND VITALITY.

These chronic conditions can be agonizing and debilitating. They are deeply frustrating and can also be isolating. They can keep you from living life more fully and on your terms. These symptoms are also confounding—not just for you but for your loved ones and some of your medical and other healthcare providers. But I want you to understand that as challenging as they are, these symptoms do not have to ruin your life; they do not have to be a life sentence.

Generally, modern medicine does not understand fibromyalgia and the conditions that often accompany it. Sometimes, they are called “medically unexplained symptoms” (or MUS for short). But if you have ever been told by a physician or anyone else that your chronic pain and distress are “all in your head”—well, when you are suffering, that’s just adding insult to injury, isn’t it?

Body as Healer is designed to help you “be” in your body and practice chronic pain relief at home. It consists of a series of somatic awareness exercises I’ve developed over the last 40-plus years. It has been my experience that lasting stable benefits usually require about six months of practicing these chronic pain relief at-home exercises. However, it is also true that some people will receive significant results in just a few self-care practice sessions.

But I encourage you to practice these exercises for six months as you work through this chronic pain relief program.

You can, of course, practice them anytime after that, should some of your symptoms recur or if you simply enjoy the increased vitality, clarity, and freedom they provide. Many even incorporate this work as a lifelong practice to maintain an increased capacity to manage…what comes next.

In addition to the workbook, video explorations, and experiential somatic experiencing training exercises, I will also talk about the theory behind the program in six live sessions where you can ask me your most burning questions and share your experience with the program.

My deepest desire is that this healing journey will help free you from the torment of chronic pain and unnecessary suffering. I hope you join me in this somatic experiential learning opportunity that will help bring you back to your authentic self—and finally achieve freedom and relief from chronic pain.

— Peter