The SOMA Terrain™
A Map of the nervous system, adaptive parts, and the roots of trauma
A tree illustrates what a body alone can not -- the rich terrain of systemic, organismic, often unconscious, adaptation.
Your nervous system's emotional roots are always communicating with and shaping adaptive parts. Our posture and personality carry our history. This rich terrain underlies SOMA Psychotherapy.
Neuro PartsWork™
Parts Exist in Systems
Parts are adaptive personality patterns emerge within physiological nervous system states. Sympathetic fight or flight parts activate to protect (dominate, control, grasp), Dorsal (freeze)-parasympathic parts emerge when activation is hopeless (withdraw, collapse) and Ventral (social) parasympathetic parts blossom when safety is sensed (connect, innovate, play).
Your grey and red systems consist of survival energy rooted in ones neuroception of threat, creating chronic states of defense. As the nervous system responds to perceived threat, these pathways subconsciously engage in order to compensate, and then become patterned ways of relating, protecting, and surviving. Systems become attuned to danger and parts become locked in as defense.
The Tree represents our three primary survival systems. Each system is interdependent, seeks homeostasis, is boundaried, and is sustained with feedback loops.
Systems Basics
A system is an organized, interconnected network of parts, environments, relationships, and environments that function as a holistic unit. A part can not be understood or processed in isolation.
Interdependence
A change in one part impacts the others
Homeostasis
Systems naturally seek balance and equilibrium
Boundaries
Every system has boundaries that dictate what flows in and out. Boundaries can be open (flexible), closed (rigid) or enmeshed (blurred).
Feedback Loops
Systems regulate themselves through communication loops. Negative feedback attempts to stop change and maintain the status quo, while positive feedback allows new information and can lead to a new state.
Learn more about systems in our course. Purchase here:
Your Parts are not character flaws. They are biological imperatives.
S.O.M.A. Processing—Sense, Open, Move, Awaken— guides experiential inquiry beneath words, helping us explore the whole system and support new possibilities for regulation, stabilization, connection, and change.
