What is Dissociation?
Dissociation is not an illness — it is a protective response. When the nervous system is overwhelmed by an experience, it separates body, thoughts and feelings from one another. This allows a person to keep functioning or to survive in an unbearable situation.
In this sense, dissociation is a sign of strength, not weakness. The problem arises when this response persists after the actual event and interferes with daily life.
How Does Dissociation Manifest?
Dissociative states take many forms. Some are very subtle, others clearly perceptible:
- Depersonalisation: The feeling of standing beside oneself or observing oneself from outside
- Derealisation: The surroundings feel unreal, as if behind glass or in a film
- Emotional numbness: Feelings are dampened or not felt at all
- Memory gaps: Certain periods or events are missing from memory
- Autopilot: Functioning outwardly while not truly present inwardly
- Body sense: Parts of the body feel strange or are barely noticed
Many people with complex PTSD, PTSD or attachment trauma are familiar with dissociative states without naming them as such.
Why Does Dissociation Arise?
The nervous system has three fundamental responses to threat: fight, flight — and when neither is possible — freeze. Dissociation belongs to the freeze response. The body withdraws inwardly, reduces the perception of pain, and protects consciousness from the unbearable.
This response is biologically sensible. But when it becomes chronic, a person lives permanently in a state designed for acute danger — and that costs an enormous amount of energy.
Somatic Experiencing and Dissociation
Somatic Experiencing® works particularly gently with dissociative states. The method does not go directly into traumatic content, but works with what the body is showing right now. Safety and grounding come first.
Through slow pendulation between areas that feel safe and areas of distress, the nervous system gradually learns to remain present. Dissociation is not fought against but understood — and over time it becomes less necessary.
Many people report that in the course of SE therapy they:
- develop more body awareness
- become clearer and more present in daily life
- can better perceive and make sense of emotional states
- develop the feeling of truly belonging to themselves
If you have questions or recognise yourself in these descriptions, you are warmly invited to get in touch.
