Trauma Therapy Tip: The Felt Sense Application

Have you ever had a sense something was happening but couldn’t point to a rational explanation of how you knew what was up? Or maybe you had a reaction to someone or something based on very little information that later proved meaningful to you. Pause here and see what comes to mind before reading on!…

If you were able to identify an experience like this, then think about what it was like to have the realization. Maybe an emotion followed, but the initial reaction wasn’t an emotion, it was likely sensation-based, physical, sensory. Did your example involve a general sense of goodness or badness? Did it lead to a desire to approach or avoid some situation or person? Did your example have to do with your general welfare- something that was significant to you, maybe to your livelihood or wellbeing? 

If so, then you likely experienced the “felt sense”, a term for the “sensation-based feelings of attraction and avoidance, of “goodness” and “badness,” coined by Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing. He goes on to explain that while it’s easy to imagine a day without perceiving any of the categorical emotions, it’s not possible to imagine a day without any felt sense aspects. “When you see dew on a blade of grass in the morning light or visit a museum and delight in a beautiful painting, you’re usually not experiencing a categorical emotion.” He goes on to explain that you are experiencing a bodily feeling which embodies a relationship between an object or situation and our welfare.

I used to work as a Counselor in a carceral setting in Austin and there was a day that I walked into the day room of a unit and, although nothing out of the ordinary was apparent, I felt a crazy sense of instability in the air- like violence was about to erupt in a moment’s notice. I knew immediately it wasn’t safe to be in there and, as I turned to leave, the nurse with the pill cart joined me at the sliding doors and stated, “Can you feel it in here? Something is about to go down.” I don’t know what happened next because I didn’t stick around to find out. My felt sense and the nurse’s validation was proof enough. 

Sometimes we discount the felt sense because we were never taught about it. We may have even been encouraged to discount it though society’s emphasis on evidence and data. While there are situations where we should gather concrete evidence before acting or making a judgment, there are also situations where we would do well to consider our felt sense and what it may be indicating. It seems completely rational to me that we are taking in more energetically through our entire body than from just the five senses- taste, touch, smell, sight, sound. If you are interested in continuing to explore the felt sense, please mention it in one of our sessions.