Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy works with what lives below the surface, in the tension, the shutdown, the racing heart, helping you heal from the inside out.
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What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy is a body-centred approach to healing that recognizes the mind and body are not separate. Emotions, stress, and trauma do not just live in our thoughts. They live in the nervous system, the muscles, the breath, and the gut. When we only work with words, we can miss what the body is still carrying.
Somatic therapy brings gentle attention to physical sensations and nervous system responses as part of the healing process, helping experiences that have become stuck in the body to finally move through and resolve.
The core idea
Trauma and chronic stress dysregulate the nervous system. Somatic therapy works directly with that dysregulation, helping the body find its way back to a felt sense of safety, rather than just understanding it intellectually.
What it looks like
Sessions are primarily conversational, with moments of slowing down to notice what is happening physically. There is no physical touch or exercise. The body is a guide, not a performance.
What Happens in a Somatic Therapy Session
Somatic sessions are gentle, collaborative, and led by your pace. Here is a sense of what the process often looks like:
Arriving & Orienting
We begin by helping your nervous system settle into the space. This might involve a brief grounding exercise, noticing your breath, or simply taking stock of how you feel right now in your body.
Following the Thread
As we talk, I may invite you to notice what is happening physically, where you feel tension, heaviness, warmth, or numbness. These sensations are information, and we follow them with curiosity rather than judgment.
Working with the Nervous System
We use gentle techniques to help your nervous system move out of freeze, fight, or flight responses. This might include breath work, movement, imagery, or simply staying present with a sensation long enough for it to shift.
Integration
We take time at the end of each session to integrate what came up. You will leave with a felt sense of what shifted, and often with simple practices to continue building body awareness between sessions.
What Somatic Therapy Helps With
Somatic therapy is particularly well suited for experiences that have not fully resolved through talk therapy alone:
Is Somatic Therapy Right for Me?
Somatic therapy can be a deeply effective complement to other approaches, or a starting point on its own. Here are some things to consider:
It may be a good fit if
- You feel like you understand your issues but still cannot shift them
- You carry stress, tension, or anxiety in your body
- You feel disconnected from or unsafe in your body
- Talk therapy has helped but something still feels stuck
- You are curious about working with the body as part of healing
Things to discuss first
- Active dissociation that may need stabilization first
- Strong preference for a purely cognitive approach
- Current crisis or very early stages of therapy
- Certain medical conditions affecting body awareness
Not sure if somatic therapy is right for you? A free consultation is a great place to start. We can talk through what you are looking for and figure out the best approach together.
Frequently Asked Questions About Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy is a body-centred approach to healing that recognizes emotions and trauma are not just stored in the mind, but in the body. Rather than working through insight and conversation alone, somatic therapy pays attention to physical sensations, movement, breath, and nervous system responses as a pathway to healing.
No. Somatic therapy does not involve exercise or physical touch. It is more about developing awareness of what is happening in your body during the session, noticing sensations, tension, breath, and posture, and working gently with those responses. Everything happens at your own pace and within your comfort zone.
Talk therapy works primarily through insight, language, and cognitive understanding. Somatic therapy includes the body as an active part of the healing process. This can be particularly helpful for people who have processed their experiences intellectually but still feel stuck, triggered, or disconnected in their body.
Yes. Trauma is often held in the body long after the mind has made sense of what happened. Somatic approaches are particularly well suited for trauma because they work directly with the nervous system, helping the body complete responses that were interrupted at the time of the experience.
Yes. Somatic therapy can be adapted effectively for virtual sessions. I offer online somatic therapy to anyone located in Ontario, and many clients find that working from their own space actually supports a greater sense of safety and groundedness.
Many people notice a shift in how they feel in their body relatively early in the process, sometimes within just a few sessions. Deeper or more longstanding patterns typically take longer to work through. We always move at a pace that feels safe and manageable for your nervous system.
Ready to Work With Your Body?
If you are curious about what somatic therapy could offer you, I would love to explore it together. Book a free 15-minute consultation and we can find the right path forward.
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