Somatic Experiencing, Chronic Pain & PTSD: A Plain-English Review
Chronic pain and trauma can sometimes occur alongside one another. This study looked at whether adding Somatic Experiencing (SE) to usual treatment could help people experiencing both chronic lower-back pain and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The researchers recruited 91 people from a Danish spine centre. Everyone received their usual treatment for lower-back pain, which involved supervised exercise. Around half also received between 6 and 12 sessions of Somatic Experiencing.
The researchers then looked at changes in PTSD symptoms, pain, disability, fear of movement and the tendency to catastrophise about pain, with outcomes assessed at a 12-month follow-up.
What did the study find?
People who received Somatic Experiencing alongside their usual treatment showed a greater reduction in PTSD symptoms than those receiving usual treatment alone.
Fear of movement — sometimes called kinesiophobia — also reduced in the Somatic Experiencing group.
However, an important part of the picture is that both groups improved in pain and disability. Adding Somatic Experiencing did not produce a significant additional improvement in these areas compared with the usual treatment alone.
What does this mean in practice?
The study is interesting because it explores the relationship between trauma, the nervous system and persistent physical pain.
Somatic Experiencing works with awareness of bodily sensations and responses, gradually approaching activation rather than overwhelming the person. The researchers suggested that increasing tolerance of bodily sensations and developing greater self-regulation may potentially be relevant to fear of movement.
The results suggest that, for some people experiencing both chronic pain and trauma symptoms, addressing the trauma component may be useful alongside physical rehabilitation.
A note of caution
The researchers themselves were appropriately cautious about the results.
This was a relatively small study, and although the additional Somatic Experiencing intervention was associated with improvements in PTSD symptoms, it did not produce greater improvements in pain or disability than usual treatment alone.
The authors concluded that the findings were promising, but also questioned the overall clinical importance of some of the effects. More research is needed to understand how Somatic Experiencing might contribute to treatment when chronic pain and trauma occur together.
The original research
Andersen, T. E., Lahav, Y., Ellegaard, H. & Manniche, C. (2017). A randomized controlled trial of brief Somatic Experiencing for chronic low back pain and comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 8(1), 1331108.
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