When someone comes to see me after an accident, an assault or a fall, they often arrive with a simple question: "Why can't I get over it?"
The answer is physiological: after a shock, the nervous system can remain stuck in alert mode, unable to return to its resting balance. But another question often arises too: "How do my past experiences influence the way I remain marked by this shock?" This is precisely where the combination of Somatic Experiencing and NARM makes complete sense — because we have only one nervous system, and everything we have ever experienced is inscribed in it, layered, intertwined.
An accident never happens in a virgin nervous system
Imagine two people involved in the same car accident. One recovers within a few weeks. The other develops symptoms for months — hypervigilance, unexplained pain, a sense of no longer being quite themselves.
Why this difference?
The ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences), conducted between 1995 and 1997 with more than 17,000 participants, demonstrated a direct link between difficult experiences in childhood and physical and mental health problems in adult life. In other words: what we experienced as children conditions the way our body and nervous system respond to the shocks of adult life.
Separate research in neuroscience has also shown that prolonged exposure to stress hormones — particularly cortisol — can lead to structural and functional changes in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus, a key area for stress management and memory. These changes can persist into adulthood, leaving the nervous system more vulnerable to subsequent trauma.
This is not weakness. It is biology.
SE: working from the body
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, starts from a fundamental observation: shock trauma is an incomplete physiological response. During a shock, the nervous system mobilises considerable energy to survive — to flee, to fight, or to freeze. If this energy cannot fully discharge, it remains trapped in the body.
SE works with physical sensations — tensions, tremors, heat, constriction — to allow the nervous system to complete this interrupted movement, gently and at your pace. But contrary to a common misconception, SE is not limited to the body: Levine himself developed the SIBAM model (Sensation, Image, Behaviour, Affect, Meaning), which integrates the dimension of meaning into the therapeutic process. SE allows for constant back-and-forth between bodily sensation and the meaning we give to our experience — without ever requiring a detailed account of the event.
NARM: going further in identifying and releasing beliefs
NARM, developed by Dr. Laurence Heller — himself trained in SE — builds on the foundations of Somatic Experiencing while deepening them further. Rather than differentiating these two approaches as strictly "bottom-up" and "top-down" — a distinction that oversimplifies a more nuanced reality — it is more accurate to say that NARM goes further in identifying and releasing identity-level beliefs and survival strategies.
Through the sessions, older patterns often surface. A deep sense of not being safe. A difficulty trusting. Beliefs such as "I must not feel anger" or "my needs don't matter" — which were once useful survival strategies, but now block the complete resolution of the trauma.
These are not necessarily beliefs born from the shock itself — they may long predate it. But they can stand in the way of healing, like a door that resists without knowing why. NARM allows them to be identified and gradually released, within the context of the therapeutic relationship, going further into this specific work on identity
Why both together?
Because we are not made of watertight compartments. SE and NARM share the same roots — the founders of NARM were all SE trainers first — and articulate naturally with each other. SE anchors the work in the body, in constant dialogue with meaning, and regulates the nervous system. NARM goes further in exploring the beliefs and identity patterns that are interwoven with what the body still carries.
Together, they allow for complete resolution — not just the disappearance of symptoms, but a true return to oneself, to one's resources, to the capacity to be fully present in one's life
This is the combination I offer in my consultations in Brussels, in person at Be-Here and online.
Do you recognise yourself in what you have just read? Book a first consultation.
Sources
- Felitti, V.J. & Anda, R.F. (1998). ACE Study — Adverse Childhood Experiences. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention & Kaiser Permanente. Learn more
- Lim, L. et al. (2023). Hypothalamus volume mediates the association between adverse childhood experience and PTSD development after adulthood trauma. PubMed Central. Read the study
- Teicher, M.H. & Samson, J.A. (2018). Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Consequences on Neurobiological, Psychosocial, and Somatic Conditions Across the Lifespan. PubMed Central. Read the study
- Prolonged stress exposure and hippocampal structural changes — National Institutes of Health, PubMed Central. Read the study
- Levine, P.A. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books, 1997.
- Heller, L. & LaPierre, A. Healing Developmental Trauma. North Atlantic Books, 2012.
- ICD-11 — International Classification of Diseases, WHO. Complex PTSD (6B41). Consult