Somatic Experiencing — Felt-Sense Completion Map
Somatic Experiencing — Felt-Sense Completion Map is a Modern Western Somatic Psychology — Somatic Experiencing body system as transmitted through the lineage Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing (SE) frames traumatic activation as incomplete defensive responses that can be approached through present-moment interoception, titration, and gradual autonomic completion. Waking the Tiger (1997) and In an Unspoken Voice (2010) are the primary texts for this clinical phenomenology; van der Kolk's Body Keeps the Score (2014) provides modern scholarly corroboration for persistent bodily effects of trauma. This diagram is a clinical phenomenology mapping, not a traditional esoteric anatomy or a claim that fixed trauma centers exist in these tissues.. This page lists every point in the system with sourced placements and links to cross-tradition correspondences curated for The Body Spiritual.
Open in interactive explorerPrimary sources
- Peter A. Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (North Atlantic Books, 1997) — Foundational Somatic Experiencing account of defensive activation, freeze, pendulation, titration, and completion of thwarted responses.
- Peter A. Levine, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness (North Atlantic Books, 2010) — Expanded phenomenological account of felt sense, autonomic activation, orienting, and the gradual discharge of defensive responses.
- Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Viking, 2014) — Modern clinical and neuroscientific corroboration for trauma's persistent effects on bodily sensation, arousal, movement, and dissociation.
Known lineage variants
- SE's felt-sense 'leading edge' means the next perceptible change in sensation, impulse, image, or meaning; it is a temporal-attentional convention, not a fixed anatomical point. The map therefore treats the leading edge as a tracking rule across the displayed sites rather than adding a fictitious channel.
- The diaphragm/solar-plexus and neck/throat sites are editorial visual anchors for commonly reported hyperactivation phenomenology. Levine's texts do not provide this corpus's normalized 0..1 coordinates, so the coordinates and radii are intentionally broad projections rather than textually attested point locations.
- Psoas/iliacus and adrenal/kidney labels are clinical-anatomical placeholders for deep freeze, bracing, and threat-related sensation; they should not be read as a claim that SE assigns an esoteric storage organ or a universal bilateral lesion. Anatomical-right is rendered at x < 0.5 in the front view.
- Face and limb-periphery zones represent dissociative numbness or reduced interoceptive access as reported phenomenology, while hand and leg zones represent tracking of orienting, reaching, pushing, grounding, and other completion impulses. These are clinical phenomenology mappings, not traditional esoteric anatomy.
Cross-tradition overlaps
- Throat hyperactivation ↔ Throat (distance 0.010)
Related systems
No other systems share this tradition label.
Points
- Solar plexus hyperactivation — Epigastric surge, constriction, or heat
- Diaphragm activation — Breath-hold and respiratory bracing
- Throat hyperactivation — Constriction, gagging, or blocked vocal impulse
- Neck guarding — Cervical orienting and startle bracing
- Right psoas–iliacus freeze bracing — Deep hip flexor holding, anatomical right
- Left psoas–iliacus freeze bracing — Deep hip flexor holding, anatomical left
- Right adrenal–kidney threat region — Deep flank startle and threat sensation
- Left adrenal–kidney threat region — Deep flank startle and threat sensation
Frequently asked
What is Solar plexus hyperactivation?
The epigastric or solar-plexus region is used here as a front-view anchor for felt reports of autonomic surge, tightening, heat, or a strong inward pull during hyperactivation. In SE practice, attention stays with a tolerable slice of this sensation rather than treating the location as a fixed trauma organ.
What is Diaphragm activation?
This point marks the breathing diaphragm and lower-rib area as a phenomenological site for bracing, breath interruption, or sudden respiratory release. The map links it to regulation through careful contact with breath, while leaving the projection broad because SE does not prescribe a normalized anatomical coordinate.
What is Throat hyperactivation?
The throat is a useful clinical anchor for constriction, swallowing difficulty, blocked sound, or an impulse to vocalise that becomes noticeable during activation. It is mapped as a midline felt-sense site, not as an esoteric throat centre or a universal physiological mechanism.
What is Neck guarding?
The lower neck represents the felt boundary between orienting, startle, and protective bracing in the head and trunk. A practitioner may track small changes in tone, temperature, movement, or impulse here without assuming that every neck symptom has a trauma cause.
What is Right psoas–iliacus freeze bracing?
This deep right hip point is an editorial projection for freeze-related holding, immobility, or a defensive impulse felt around the psoas–iliacus region. The psoas and iliacus are not presented as a canonical SE storage map; the wide radius records that this is a clinical interpretation of body sensation rather than a textually fixed locus.
What is Left psoas–iliacus freeze bracing?
This deep left hip point mirrors the right-side freeze-bracing projection for a bilateral felt sense of gripping, heaviness, or inhibited movement. Bilateral symmetry is a diagrammatic convenience for comparison and does not assert that the two sides carry identical experience in every client.
What is Right adrenal–kidney threat region?
The right posterior-flank projection stands for deep threat, dread, or startle sensations that a person may localise near the kidney and adrenal region. It is a clinical placeholder for felt experience and autonomic language, not a diagnosis of adrenal or renal dysfunction and not a traditional organ correspondence.
What is Left adrenal–kidney threat region?
The left posterior-flank projection mirrors the right as a place to notice deep threat, dread, or startle sensations near the kidney and adrenal region. As with the opposite side, the point is an intentionally broad phenomenological mapping and must not be read as a universal trauma-storage organ or medical finding.