SOMATIC EXPERIENCING IN PALM BEACH, FL · VIRTUAL FLORIDA & CONNECTICUT
Your Body Holds the Map Back to Safety
Somatic Experiencing
When talking isn't enough, the body holds the map back to safety.
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented approach to healing trauma, chronic stress, anxiety, and nervous system dysregulation. It was developed by Dr. Peter Levine, a biophysicist and psychologist who observed that animals in the wild rarely develop lasting trauma despite facing life-threatening situations. SE works not by analyzing what happened, but by helping the body complete what survival got interrupted.
Hi! I'm Jennifer Goggin, LPC, LMHC, SEP. You can call me Jen. I hold the Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) credential, the professional designation awarded by Somatic Experiencing International after three years of specialized training in body-oriented trauma therapy. I offer SE sessions in person in Palm Beach, Florida, and virtually throughout Florida and Connecticut.
The Approach
What Is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing is built on a foundational observation: trauma is not what happened to you. It's what happened inside your body in response to what happened to you.
When you encounter a threat, your nervous system activates survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. In healthy resolution, that survival energy discharges after the threat passes. But when the response gets cut off by social pressure to hold still, by overwhelming circumstances, or by the simple absence of safety afterward, that energy becomes lodged in your nervous system. The anxiety, the hypervigilance, the emotional numbness, the chronic pain, the disconnection from your body. These are often your body's way of managing that unresolved activation.
SE works by tracking the body's sensations (called somatic experience) rather than the narrative of what happened. Through a process called titration, we approach activation in small, manageable increments, enough to initiate the discharge cycle without flooding your system. Over time, your nervous system learns that it can move through activation and return to regulation.
This is fundamentally different from cognitive therapies that require you to think your way to resolution. For many people, especially those for whom language itself feels unsafe or whose early trauma predates language, SE offers a pathway that talk therapy alone cannot.
How SE works:
Tracking bodily sensation: we learn to notice what anxiety actually feels like in your body, without reacting to it
Titration: we work with small, manageable pieces of what's difficult rather than flooding your system
Pendulation: we move between activation and settling so your nervous system learns it can come back to calm
Completing interrupted responses: we help your body finish the stress cycles that survival has frozen in place
Building resilience: we gradually expand your window of tolerance so more of life feels manageable
THE FOUR SURVIVAL RESPONSE PATTERNS
How I Work With the Body
Fight & Flight
These are the activated survival responses. You might notice an elevated heart rate, muscle tension, scanning for threat, or difficulty sitting still. In the body, fight and flight energy moves up and out. In sessions, we work with that mobilizing energy gently, tracking where it wants to move and helping it complete.
Fawning & Defenses
Fawning, the survival strategy of appeasement and self-erasure, is among the most underrecognized trauma responses. It shows up as chronic people-pleasing, difficulty knowing what you want, losing yourself in relationships, and the exhausting effort of monitoring others' emotional states. SE addresses fawning through the body: noticing what happens in the chest, the jaw, the gut when a boundary is approached. Learning that the body has its own intelligence about yes and no.
Freeze & Shutdown
Freeze is the "bracing" state: held breath, locked joints, the feeling of waiting for impact. Shutdown is the deeper dorsal collapse: the exhaustion, numbness, dissociation, and profound heaviness that can look like depression but is physiologically distinct. Healing in these states often begins with tiny movements of orientation: noticing what the eyes are drawn to, feeling the support of a chair, registering safety in the present moment.
Inner Child Work, Somatically
Some of what gets lodged in the nervous system is not a discrete traumatic event but a pattern: the repeated experience of emotional unavailability, unpredictability, or not being seen. This is often the territory of developmental trauma and inner child healing. In somatic inner child work, we don't just revisit those young parts cognitively. We bring them back into the body, into the present, into a felt sense of support that the younger self never received. This is where SE and reparenting work meet.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Who Somatic Experiencing Can Help
Many of my clients are high-functioning, growth-oriented people who look put-together on the outside. Inside, the story is different. If you've done a lot of personal work and something deeper still feels unresolved, you're ready for a different kind of therapy.
Complex Trauma & C-PTSD
Repeated, relational, or developmental trauma that has shaped the nervous system over time, including childhood neglect, abuse, and attachment disruption.
Attachment Wounds & Fawning
Fawning, people-pleasing, and difficulty with boundaries rooted in early survival adaptations. The body learned to stay safe through appeasement.
Anxiety Disorders
Especially where anxiety is felt primarily in the body: chest tightness, shallow breathing, hypervigilance, and a nervous system that never fully rests.
Depression With Somatic Features
Flatness, heaviness, disconnection, and the shutdown quality that standard treatment may not fully address because the body is holding the pattern.
PTSD & Trauma History
Including single-incident trauma (accidents, medical procedures, natural disasters) and shock trauma that remains unresolved in the body.
Burnout & Chronic Stress
For professionals whose body has been running on stress hormones for so long that ordinary tasks feel insurmountable. The nervous system dysregulation that underlies many presentations of "stress."
SE is not a cure, and it's not for everyone. It asks for a degree of present-moment awareness and tolerance for uncertainty. Some clients benefit most from SE in combination with other approaches such as EMDR, NARM, parts work, or traditional talk therapy. My role is to work with you to understand what will serve your particular nervous system at this particular time.
THE PROCESS
What to Expect in a Session
You won't need to recount your trauma story in detail. In fact, for many clients, narrating the full story is contraindicated in early phases of treatment because it can re-activate the nervous system without providing the conditions for discharge and resolution.
Instead, we move slowly. I may ask: What do you notice in your body right now? We might track a sensation, explore a subtle impulse to move, or simply practice recognizing what safety feels like in your body.
SESSIONS OFTEN INTEGRATE
Grounding and orientation practices
Pendulation (moving between activation and relative safety)
Tracking physical sensations without interpretation
Completing interrupted survival responses through micro-movements
Resourcing: building the felt sense of internal support
This work is not passive. It requires your active participation and curiosity about your own inner experience. Many clients find that after years of therapy focused entirely on insight, SE produces changes they can feel, not just understand.
HOW IT COMPARES
SE vs. Other Trauma Therapies
SE vs. Talk Therapy / CBT
Talk therapy works through verbal processing, identifying thoughts, beliefs, and patterns. SE works through body sensation, physiological response, and movement. You don't need to construct a coherent narrative of what happened or why. For trauma that is pre-verbal, fragmented, or stored in the body rather than in memory, SE can access material that talk therapy alone cannot reach.
SE vs. EMDR
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation such as eye movements, tapping, or tones to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories. SE does not require direct memory recall. Instead, it works with present-moment body sensation and nervous system state. Both are evidence-informed trauma approaches. Some clients benefit from one, some from the other, and some therapists use elements of both.
SE vs. General "Somatic Therapy"
"Somatic therapy" is a broad umbrella. SE is a specific, structured method with its own training program, credentialing body, and clinical framework. The SEP designation (Somatic Experiencing Practitioner) indicates completion of the full three-year SE International training program. Not all therapists who describe their work as "somatic" hold this credential.
Strengths and Realistic Limitations
SE addresses trauma at the physiological level. It does not require detailed narrative recounting, and it is effective for pre-verbal, developmental, and attachment-based trauma. It is also supported by growing clinical research.
That said, SE is a slow process. It is not designed for crisis stabilization or short-term resolution. Progress can feel subtle and nonlinear. SE asks for a window of present-moment awareness that clients with active dissociation or active substance use may need to build first.
Get Started
Beginning Somatic Experiencing in Florida
I offer a free 15-minute consultation so you can share what you're looking for and see if my approach resonates. Sessions are 50 minutes, always paced to your nervous system. I also offer secure telehealth throughout Florida and Connecticut.
Limited In-person: Palm Beach, Florida
Telehealth: Throughout Florida and Connecticut
Credentials: LPC, LMHC, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
FAQS
Frequently Asked Questions About Somatic Experiencing in Florida
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Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented trauma therapy that works by tracking and releasing stored physiological stress responses, rather than analyzing the content of traumatic memories. Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, SE is based on the observation that animals in the wild rarely develop lasting trauma despite life-threatening experiences because they naturally discharge survival energy through the body. SE sessions help clients do the same, completing interrupted survival responses at a pace the nervous system can tolerate.
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In a session, you and your therapist work with body sensations, breath, and movement rather than detailed verbal retelling of past events. Your therapist guides you to notice physical sensations as they shift (tightness, warmth, trembling, relief) and gradually helps your nervous system move from activation toward regulation. Sessions are typically 50 to 60 minutes, conducted seated (in-person or via video), and do not require you to revisit traumatic events in narrative detail.
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Talk therapy primarily works through verbal processing, identifying thoughts, beliefs, and patterns, while Somatic Experiencing works through body sensation, physiological response, and movement. SE does not require you to construct a coherent narrative of what happened or why. For trauma that is pre-verbal, fragmented, or stored in the body rather than in memory, SE can access material that talk therapy alone cannot reach.
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EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) uses bilateral stimulation such as eye movements, tapping, or tones to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories. Somatic Experiencing does not require direct memory recall and instead works with present-moment body sensation and nervous system state. Both are evidence-informed trauma approaches. Some clients benefit from one, some from the other, and some therapists use elements of both.
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Somatic Experiencing is supported by a growing body of clinical research and is recognized by many trauma-informed care frameworks as an evidence-informed approach. Studies have shown SE to be effective for PTSD symptom reduction, with outcomes documented in peer-reviewed journals. It is not yet classified as an evidence-based treatment by all regulatory bodies, but it meets the clinical standard used by trauma specialists who distinguish between "evidence-based" (randomized controlled trials) and "evidence-informed" (clinical outcome data and theoretical grounding in neuroscience).
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SE is used with single-incident trauma (accidents, medical procedures, natural disasters), complex and developmental trauma (childhood neglect, abuse, attachment disruption), anxiety, chronic stress, grief, and somatic symptoms with no clear medical cause. It is also used with fawning responses, people-pleasing patterns rooted in early survival adaptations, and inner child work, areas where the body holds relational and emotional imprints that predate language.
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The length of treatment depends on the individual, the nature of what is being addressed, and how the nervous system responds. Some clients notice meaningful shifts in 8 to 12 sessions. Others working with complex developmental trauma benefit from longer-term work over one to two years. Your therapist will give you a clearer sense of pacing after an initial consultation, but SE is not typically a brief-intervention model.
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SEP stands for Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, the credential awarded by Somatic Experiencing International (the organization founded by Dr. Peter Levine) upon completion of a three-year training program. The SEP designation indicates that a therapist has completed the full SE training curriculum and has been certified as qualified to practice SE with clients. Not all therapists who describe their work as "somatic" hold the SEP credential.
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Yes. Virtual SE sessions are available to clients located anywhere in Florida or Connecticut via secure video platform. In-person sessions are available in Palm Beach, Florida. Virtual SE is effective, and many of my clients prefer the flexibility and privacy of working from home. The body-based work does not require physical co-presence.
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SE sessions billed under a licensed therapist's credentials (LPC, LMHC, LCSW) may be eligible for reimbursement through out-of-network benefits, depending on your insurance plan. Coverage varies widely. Contact your insurance provider to ask about out-of-network mental health benefits and reimbursement rates before your first session. Your therapist can provide a superbill (an itemized receipt formatted for insurance submission) upon request.
Healing is more than understanding why you feel the way you do. Jennifer Goggin is a licensed therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner who helps adults in Palm Beach, Florida, and virtually throughout Florida and Connecticut, release the stress and trauma patterns held in the body. Specializing in anxiety, depression, PTSD, and recovery support, she creates a safe, collaborative space where lasting change can finally take root.