When the body does not forget – Why somatic work sometimes helps more than talking
by Birgit Huvendieck · Sound Massage & Relaxation Braunschweig
You have talked about it. Perhaps often. With friends, with a therapist, with yourself in your head – at night, when sleep won't come. You understand where it comes from. You can explain it, place it, name it.
And yet: when the situation arises, you react exactly the same way as always. The body tightens. The heart races. The words don't come – or they come too much and too loud. As though the understanding in your head gets lost somewhere along the way.
That is not a sign of weakness. That is biology.
What the body stores – and does not forget
Our nervous system learns from experience – long before we have words for it. Even as infants we register: is the world safe? Am I held? Can I show myself?
These early experiences leave traces. Not as memories we can retrieve, but as physical patterns. A kind of baseline setting of the nervous system that determines how we respond to stress, closeness, conflict or rejection – often before we have even noticed that something is happening.
The technical term for this is implicit memory – the body's memory, which sits before any conscious recollection. It does not show itself in images or stories, but in sensations, impulses, reactions. In the lump in your throat before the argument begins. In the exhaustion that arrives even though nothing has really happened. In the tension that simply will not release – no matter how much you have already understood.
Talk alone often does not reach this memory. Because it does not live where language works.
Why insight sometimes isn't enough – and that's okay
Talk therapy is valuable. It creates understanding, context, perspective. For many people it is exactly the right thing.
But there are situations where insight alone cannot move things forward. When someone knows where a pattern comes from – and it still does not change. When the mind understands, but the body does not follow. When years of therapy have brought genuine clarity, but little has shifted in the actual reactions.
This is not a lack of willpower. It is because the nervous system speaks its own language – and that language is not words, but sensation, movement, breath, body awareness.
This is precisely where body-oriented work begins.
What is SEI – Somatic Emotional Integration?
SEI is a body- and attachment-oriented method, developed by trauma therapist and Heilpraktikerin Dami Charf. I have worked with it since 2018 – and it has become a fixed part of my practice.
SEI draws on Somatic Experiencing by Peter Levine and is considered one of the gentler forms of body-oriented trauma therapy – particularly suited for early imprints, developmental trauma and attachment injuries.
"Somatic" comes from the Greek word for body. At the centre is the question: what is happening in your body right now? Not: what do you think about it – but: what do you feel? Where? How does it change?
SEI works directly with the nervous system. Not through techniques or exercises, but through a particular quality of attention – slow, mindful, at your own pace. Dami Charf puts it this way: bodies remember, even when the mind has long since forgotten. And they can let go – when they feel safe enough.
What emerges is not an analysis. It is a new experience. An experience of safety, of being held, of space. And this experience changes something – deep inside, where words cannot reach.
What a SEI session looks like
SEI sessions take place mainly in person – at my practice at An der Paulikirche 7 in Braunschweig. For clients I have been working with for some time, online sessions are also possible.
A session lasts 60 or 90 minutes. You begin simply by arriving – in the room, in yourself. Then we follow together what presents itself. Sometimes that is a sensation in the chest. Sometimes an impulse that has been held back for a long time. Sometimes simply stillness – and that is allowed.
There are no tasks, no homework, no right or wrong reaction. SEI is not a programme. It is more of an encounter – with what is.
Who SEI is suited for
SEI is particularly helpful when:
You have the feeling of reacting in the same way again and again – even though you don't actually want to
Your body carries chronic tension for which there is no explanation
Talk therapy has brought insight, but little has changed in the patterns
You sense that behind your exhaustion, tension or relationship patterns something older lies – something one might call developmental trauma or attachment injury
You often feel functional – but not really alive
Talking simply feels wrong – too much, too effortful, somehow not quite right
SEI is trauma-sensitive – but not a trauma treatment. With acute trauma or severe mental illness, specialised support is needed first.
The body is not an enemy
What moves me about this work, again and again: the body is not an obstacle to be overcome. It is an ally – one that has stored everything you have experienced, and that is ready to let go when it feels safe enough.
Creating that safety – that is the heart of SEI. And when it arises, things sometimes happen that would not have been possible with words alone.
Would you like to know more?
My practice is at An der Paulikirche 7 in Braunschweig. SEI sessions generally take place in person – for existing clients also via Zoom.
If you sense that something in you is ready – something that can no longer be talked away: you are welcome to simply get in touch. A first conversation is without obligation – no pressure, no programme, just seeing whether it feels right.
Get in touch
Birgit Huvendieck is a certified RLT coach after Terry Real, SEI practitioner after Dami Charf, sound massage practitioner and rest therapist in Braunschweig. Since 2013 she has accompanied people and couples on the path toward more calm, vitality and fulfilling relationships – in person and online, in German and English.