SomatoEmotional Release®

From many strands of mind and body work, drawing on both conventional science and traditional wisdom, Dr John Upledger developed SomatoEmotional Release® (SER). It is a framework and toolkit for facilitating personal growth — away from illness and lack of potential and towards health and fulfilment.

Many of us are underliving our potential because of the retained effects of early life trauma — mental, emotional or physical. This shows itself most obviously as chronic physical illness, but more insidiously as sub-clinical patterns such as poor immunity, low energy, lack of confidence, anxiety and fearfulness.

Retained emotions and the primitive brain

The basis of SER is that people sometimes retain an emotional experience physically, leading to loss of flexibility in an organ or local connective tissue with resultant impairment of function. Working hands-on — sometimes assisted by dialogue, sometimes not — it is often possible to facilitate the release of the affected tissue concurrently with resolution of the associated emotional issue.

Our bodies have a remarkable facility, inherited from our more primitive forebears, which enables us to hold at a deep neurological level reactively programmed records of certain events. Every time we have an experience that connects with that earlier memory, our original reaction is triggered — however inappropriate that reaction may be to current circumstances.

How easily does SER occur?

The ease with which people can get in touch with emotional issues varies. Some unconscious mechanism often allows us to start into our process of SER when we are at the right time of our lives to make a change. CranioSacral Therapy is very effective in preparing the ground — gently helping issues come nearer the surface and preparing the body to play its part in the work.