Trauma-informed support & Somatic Experiencing®
For overwhelming experiences that still live in the body, recent or long past, a single event or years of them. We work at a pace your system can actually digest.
Trauma as an unfinished response
Trauma is not the event. It is what stays in the body when a survival response could not complete, the fight that was impossible, the escape that was not available, the cry for help that went unanswered.
That incomplete response does not disappear. It keeps waiting, which is why the present can suddenly feel like the past: a tone of voice, a smell, a certain kind of silence. Somatic Experiencing® gives those responses a chance to finish, slowly and safely, so your system can update its sense of what time it is.
What people often notice
- Reactions that feel far bigger than the situation
- Going blank, foggy or far away when things get intense
- Startling easily, or scanning rooms without meaning to
- Difficulty trusting closeness, or losing yourself inside it
- Chronic tension, pain or numbness with no medical cause
- Knowing something happened but feeling nothing about it
Not only the obvious events
Trauma isn't always the result of one overwhelming experience. It can also leave a lasting mark through quieter, painful experiences, when a child repeatedly experiences their needs as unseen or unsupported. In the absence of enough consistent co-regulation, the developing nervous system may not get the support it needs to learn how to move through stress and find its way back to safety and connection.
How the work unfolds
We build resources first. Before touching anything difficult, we spend time finding what steadies you, in your body, your surroundings, your relationships. This is not preamble; it is the container that makes the rest possible.
We work in titration. Small amounts, then pause. Small amounts, then pause. This is how the nervous system integrates rather than floods and it is the main reason somatic work can reach material that talking through it head-on cannot.
We pendulate between difficulty and ease. Instead of staying in the hard place, we move deliberately in and out of it. Over time that movement itself becomes a skill you carry outside the session.
We honour protection before we ask for change. Dissociation, numbing and vigilance all kept you functioning. We do not remove them; we make them less necessary.
What I bring to this work
Somatic Experiencing®
A body-based approach to resolving traumatic stress, developed by Peter Levine, focused on completing survival responses.
Body psychotherapy & IFS
Training in body psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems and Inner Relationship Focusing, so protective parts are met rather than overridden.
Sensorimotor influences
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy informs how we track posture, movement and gesture as carriers of memory.
Questions people ask me
Do I have to describe what happened?
No. Somatic Experiencing® works with what is happening in your body now, not with a full account of the past. Some people want to speak about events; others never do and the work is still effective.
What if I get overwhelmed in a session?
Preventing that is part of the method. We work in small doses, moving between activation and settling rather than staying in difficult material. If something becomes too much, we slow down or stop, you set the pace, always.
Does trauma always come from a single big event?
No. Ongoing situations, chronic stress, neglect, an unpredictable home, medical procedures, migration, can leave the same imprint on the nervous system as a single incident. You do not need a dramatic story to qualify for this work.
Is this therapy or counselling?
I offer psychological counselling grounded in body psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing®. I am not a licensed psychologist in Sweden and I do not diagnose. If you need psychiatric care or a diagnosis, I will say so and help you think about where to go.