Sixteen years have passed since I first heard about Somatic Experiencing during a workshop held by Diane Poole Heller in Stockholm, Sweden. The training had a profound influence on me and led me to seek further knowledge by participating in the first SE™ training in Norway. Since completing the Somatic Experiencing® training in 2012, I’ve integrated SE into my Psychotherapy practice and have been active in the SE™ community: I’ve assisted at numerous SE™ trainings across Europe as well as in India and South Africa; co-founded the Swedish SE-Association in 2013; and for several years I served as the Chair of the Board of the European Association for Somatic Experiencing (EASE). This year, I was approved to teach the Beginner level of the SE™ training.
Living in Europe, I have had the opportunity to work with SE™ students living in active war zones. Many times I have wondered, “Who am I to work with people who are having these challenges? How can I possibly support people in these situations?” Although I've heard about my father’s experiences of being a young child during World War II in Norway, I have never had similar experiences myself. After acknowledging these thoughts and agreeing to be part of this work nonetheless, I've started to understand that it's not about me doing something special. It’s teamwork. It’s a connection. It’s about using the SE™ tools that we share across the boundaries of life experiences. It's about each assistant and trainer bringing their presence, competence, and individual background to the work we do. The structure of “teaching teams” – assistants and faculty working as a cohesive unit – is one of the keys to success, in my opinion. Our backgrounds are varied -I’ve been on teams with sexologists, historians, psychotherapists, psychologists, medical doctors, peace experts, journalists, osteopaths, teachers, body workers – you name it! – but we are all trained in SE™, and we each have a story of how SE™ has changed our personal and professional lives. Together, we can create conditions for students to learn and for healing to occur. Such richness with all this diversity!
In EASE, we have worked for many years to support the development of national-level assistant teams. There are now more national teams in Europe, making it cheaper and easier for organizers to offer training. I am proud of this accomplishment and its contribution to supporting deep roots for SE™ in each country where training is held. That said, I am also reflecting on how much I have valued being part of international teaching teams. Though we come from all over the world, we have studied the same manual, completed the same 3 years of training, and completed our required sessions and supervision. Anywhere I go to assist or teach, I’ve found that I speak the same “language” as my colleagues and can rely on simple, efficient SE™ maps to guide our conversations: “stream of life”, “threat response cycle”, “pendulation”, “titration”, “SIBAM”, “coupling dynamics”, and more.
When we get to know each other through working together in the teaching teams, when we manage to stay “in tune”, to share our experiences of being citizens in different parts of the world, to resolve the challenges that inevitably emerge during training weeks, to stay together as a team and avoid getting stuck in activation, something happens to each one of us. And this spreads to the students.
The competence each SEP brings to the training is amazing. However, the deeper insights we share by just being humans together in the settings provided by our Somatic Experiencing trainings go beyond that. Working together in these international teaching teams, I have found that we’re not only supporting students in learning Somatic Experiencing tools; we’re actually doing peace work. We are building a global community of healers and peacebuilders.
Becoming a global healing community has had its challenges. This is natural. There has been and continues to be a need for individuation, diversity, and mutual respect. At the same time, as citizens from different parts of the world, we should not get stuck in defensive posturing. We are all part of a bigger whole. To support vitality within this bigger whole, we need to meet, listen, share, keep our differences when needed, and reach consensus when possible. Thanks to the tools we've received from Somatic Experiencing, we’re in a unique position to do this and to influence the world around us as we do.
I feel honoured to have the opportunity to teach SE™. I am proud of what we achieve together in our teaching teams. And I feel blessed to be part of this community with colleagues and friends from all over the world!
Warmly,
Kari Slinning, SEP, MSc
SEI Global Faculty