Somatic Psychotherapy

Somatic therapy recognizes that the body, mind, emotions, and spirit are intricately connected and cannot be separated from one another.

Therefore, for true healing to happen, we need to attend to each of these aspects of ourselves.

Somatic means “of or relating to the body.”

In somatic therapy, we recognize the body as the container for all our experiences, including our feelings and emotions, our beliefs about ourselves and others, our value and place in the world, and all our connections. All of these are reflected through the body, and further affect our emotions, attitudes, behaviors and experiences.

Modern science is now partly able to explain why the body is key in deep healing, and it has to do with the fact that the autonomic nervous system – the part of us that regulates our unconscious processes – is innervated all throughout the body, including the face, heart, gut, and so on.

By working with the body in somatic psychotherapy we can directly affect the nervous system, help regulate it, create more ease, and new patterns of embodiment.

Moreover, working with the body gives us insight into the inner workings of our psyche. It can tell us why we do what we do, offer us new ways of being and feeling, and help create lasting change in our lives.

The important feature of somatic therapy is that we listen to your body as keenly as we listen to your words.

So… how do you listen to the body??

There are different ways to do it, but my training is in Ron Kurtz’s Hakomi Method.

Hakomi is a somatic experiential psychotherapy that uses mindful awareness to access information that the body is communicating, gaining access to the underlying core material that impacts our feelings, beliefs, and relationships.

Your gestures, postures, facial expressions, and tone of voice are among the many indicators of what’s deep in your mind and body. In session, I’ll use my full presence and pay keen attention to this subtle information. It’s a kind of attunement to your present experience that goes beyond words.

Tapping into the experience as it lives in the present moment puts us in a position to do something with it and create conditions for healing.

In our work, I will teach you how to pay close attention to the body and access deeper layers of your experience so that you can continue to do work outside of sessions. This work is sometimes called “assisted self-inquiry.”

We’ll always work at your pace, and I’ll ensure you’re comfortable with what we’re exploring. This work is intricate, and you must feel safe to be fully on board.

Embodying your experiences, feelings, needs, desires, and dreams…

From the outside, somatic psychotherapy looks similar to talk therapy. We sit in chairs across from each other or on the screen, and we use language to communicate.

What’s different is how and where we direct our attention at times. Rather than only talking about the issue at hand, we may pay attention to how the issue is living in you – how it’s now affecting you and operating in your life.

To do this, we’ll use mindful awareness, movement, postures, etc. to track its origins from the past (e.g., childhood trauma or early attachment wounds). We’ll explore how the issue began and changed over time. Experience with mindfulness is helpful but not necessary. The skill can be taught in session.

What’s most important is being open to and curious about how your emotions and psychology play out in your lived experience.

Here’s what it looks like…

Let’s say you get angry at your partner for not cleaning up after themselves… again… even though you’ve asked them many times. You know they are a little messy, but somehow, their actions trigger very strong feelings in you. Their messiness makes you feel enraged and unloved – like you and your feelings don’t matter to them.

We might explore that anger by focusing on it, getting curious about it, and getting to know it. With curiosity in a safe space, we’ll get more information about this feeling – information that’s usually not available in your everyday conscious experience.

Where do you sense this anger in your body?

How does it really feel?

Does it have shape, color, or temperature?

Does it move, or is it steady?

Is it dense, or is it spacious?

Are there images or memories associated with the feeling?

We may discover that your anger is connected to an older, deeper belief – for example, that you don’t deserve love. You may have formed that belief in your youth when your parents were going through a divorce. They were so preoccupied with their pain they didn’t notice how you were coping with the turmoil. Now, when your partner doesn’t clean up the dishes, the old pain of feeling alone activates that anger.

But after the exploration, we may find compassion for the young you who was scared and alone. And we get to offer that part of you the nourishment it missed out on.

Now, instead of feeling betrayed by your partner’s messiness, you can ask them, have a discussion, or even help them strategize on how they can be more effective with their cleaning – all from a place of inner knowing and deserving.

It’s no longer about your deserving love. It’s about their cleaning habits. When you make that shift, the messiness doesn’t sting you (or your relationship) anymore.