Short answer. Three tools, three doors into the same house. EMDR reprocesses the stuck memory. Somatic Experiencing works with what the body still holds. The Safe and Sound Protocol settles the nervous system underneath both, call it step zero. They are complementary, not rivals, and SSP and Somatic Experiencing in particular are natural partners with a long track record together. I am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and SSP provider, and I refer out for EMDR. For many people, settling the nervous system with SSP and gentle body work with Somatic Experiencing is most of the way, and going back into the memories is not always needed.
- EMDR works on the memory. Somatic Experiencing works on the body. SSP works on the nervous system underneath, step zero.
- SSP and Somatic Experiencing pair especially well, and that pairing is the heart of my practice.
- SSP is passive and low-demand: you listen, and your system does the shifting.
- I provide SSP and Somatic Experiencing. For EMDR I refer to a qualified EMDR therapist.
What EMDR is
EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, was developed by Francine Shapiro. In a session, a trained EMDR therapist guides you to hold a piece of a distressing memory while your attention follows a back and forth movement, usually the eyes, sometimes taps or tones. Over a course of sessions the memory loses its grip. It stops hijacking the present as though it were still happening.
It is well evidenced and widely used, recommended for post traumatic stress by bodies like the World Health Organisation, and delivered by a qualified EMDR therapist.
It is also, by design, active and demanding. You turn toward the memory on purpose. For a steady enough nervous system that is exactly right. For one that is highly dysregulated, dissociative, or shaped by early and ongoing trauma, going straight at the memory can be more than the system can hold, which is why EMDR itself opens with a preparation phase and is often not the right first step.
What Somatic Experiencing is
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, is the body’s version of this work, and it is my own training. I am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.
Where EMDR goes to the memory, Somatic Experiencing goes to the body. Trauma, in this view, is not only a story in the mind. It is unfinished survival energy still held in the body, the fight or flight that never got to complete. SE works slowly with the felt sense, the raw sensation underneath the story, in small and tolerable doses. It lets the body finish what it could not finish then, and release what it has been holding, without dragging you back through the worst of it in detail. You do not relive it. You renegotiate it, at the pace the body can bear.
What the Safe and Sound Protocol is
The Safe and Sound Protocol, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges and delivered under license from Unyte Health, is a different kind of tool again. It is filtered music you listen to across a series of sessions. It does not touch your memories and it does not ask you to process anything. It works one level down, on the autonomic nervous system, sending it the cues of safety it uses to come out of defence.
SSP and Somatic Experiencing come from the same lineage, the study of how the body holds and lets go of threat, which is exactly why they fit together so well. SSP widens what clinicians call your window of tolerance, the band of arousal inside which you can stay present without flooding into panic or dropping into shutdown, and Somatic Experiencing does its work inside that window. Pairing the two is the heart of my practice, and there is a long track record of using them together.
Why this is not really a versus
So the honest answer is that this is rarely a real contest between rivals. The three work on different layers. EMDR works on the memory. Somatic Experiencing works on the body that holds the memory. SSP works on the nervous system underneath both. One reprocesses the story, one releases what the body is still carrying, and one settles the system that has to stay steady while either of those happens.
Why step zero comes first
EMDR itself is built in phases, and the reprocessing does not begin on day one. There is a preparation phase first, where the work is to build enough safety and steadiness that the processing to come is bearable. The same is true of body-based work. You cannot renegotiate what the body holds if the body has no felt sense of safety to return to. For someone with complex or early trauma, that steadiness is the hardest part, because the body has never known it.
This is where the Safe and Sound Protocol earns its place. It scaffolds that safety at the level of the nervous system, without asking you to actively do anything, which widens the window of tolerance so that the deeper work, through the body or through the memory, floods you less and lands more. There are many documented cases of SSP used exactly this way, to make Somatic Experiencing and EMDR possible for people who could not tolerate them before. Unyte, who license the protocol, publish Combined Delivery Guidelines for using it with EMDR. The point is not that one replaces the others. It is that step zero, the nervous system itself, usually has to be steadier before the processing can do its job.
Three doors, one order
Both are real trauma processing, and both need a nervous system steady enough to hold the work. That steadiness comes first:
You do not process your way to a calm nervous system. You settle the nervous system enough that the processing, in the body or in the memory, becomes possible.
For clinicians and referrers
If you are a therapist, a GP, or a psychiatrist, this part is for you. When a client keeps flooding, dissociates the moment you approach the memory, or cannot get through the preparation phase, the block is often the nervous system itself. Their window is too narrow to hold the work yet, and that can be steadied before you ever touch the memory.
For clinicians
Refer a client, or work alongside your EMDRI am a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and a certified SSP provider. SSP settles a client’s nervous system so your reprocessing has somewhere to land, and Somatic Experiencing reaches what talking cannot. I do not provide EMDR and will not take your client out of your care.
Refer a client or collaborateIf you are looking for help yourself
And if you are the one carrying the trauma, here is the reassuring part. The kindest place to start is not the memory at all. It is settling the system itself with SSP, and meeting the body gently with Somatic Experiencing. For a great many people that is not only the first step, it is most of the way. When the nervous system steadies and the body lets go of what it was holding, a surprising amount eases without ever going back into the story in detail.
Some people, later, do choose focused memory work like EMDR, with a qualified therapist I can point them to. But you do not have to begin there, and you may find you do not need to at all. Start gently, and let your own system show you what it still needs.
A steadier nervous system and a body that can let go are, for many people, most of the healing. That is where SSP and Somatic Experiencing begin, and where my work with you would too.
| EMDR | Somatic Experiencing | Safe and Sound Protocol | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goes to | The stuck memory | The body that holds it | The nervous system underneath |
| How it works | Reprocessing with bilateral movement | Slow work with the felt sense, releasing held survival energy | Filtered music that cues safety |
| Demand on you | Active, you turn toward the memory | Gentle, at the body’s pace | Passive, you only listen |
| You do the work by | Holding and reprocessing the memory | Tracking sensation, at the body’s pace | Listening, while your system shifts |
| Do you retell the story | Often, in pieces | No, you work through the body | No, there is nothing to tell |
| Provided here by | A qualified EMDR therapist (I refer) | Me, a certified SE practitioner | Me, a certified SSP provider |
Start with step zero
The Safe and Sound Protocol is a low-demand way to steady your nervous system, on its own or as the groundwork for deeper work through the body or the memory. A few honest questions will tell you if it fits.
See if SSP is right for you