Somatic Psychotherapy

Somatic therapy is a holistically oriented therapy which integrates physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. It accomplishes this by helping us to become aware of our bodies and the sensations we experience through them.

In somatic psychotherapy, body awareness is combined with dialogue in order to reveal the connections between life experiences and bodily experiences. This provides an opportunity to heal the whole person.

In somatic psychotherapy we learn that the body is a deep resource and our most accessible teacher. To travel deep into the body is to discover truth. The body is a source of information and a vehicle for transformation and it is through the body that we communicate with the unconscious. The path to our authentic selves is through the body, not through denial of the body.

The principles of somatic psychotherapy are nonviolence, curiosity, nonjudgment, compassion, mindfulness, experimentation, looking for the good, integration of parts, self-leadership, innate wisdom, and spirituality.

It is difficult to describe a typical somatic therapy session as they vary so greatly and experimentation is heavily drawn upon. Sometimes the client is seated for the whole session and sometimes clients move. When it is warranted, touch may also be used with the client's consent. Work is often done in an office or studio, though work can be done in other settings as well. In sessions, we use experiments to slow things down in order to track experiences. Then we'll hang out with your experience longer so that you may begin to notice how you organize your experiences around core beliefs.

Core beliefs are deeply rooted, often unconscious beliefs which either limit or expand our experiences. Examples of core beliefs are: “the world is an unsafe place to be”, “I’m not enough”, and “Life is always going to be a struggle”. We may also pay attention to different parts of you that haven't had full voice.

Core beliefs and their associated coping strategies result from life experiences. These strategies, or ways of operating in the world, though useful, may also hinder you from reaching your fullness - so we will honor them while at the same time exploring other possible ways of being.

You will be provided opportunities to experiment in a safe and controlled way. We will experiment with voice, movement or touch and observe your experiences and reactions with mindfulness, that is, with a sense of curiosity, compassion, gentleness and nonjudgment.

Mindfulness allows your inner wisdom to create change through awareness rather than effort. We will work with the interaction of belief and experience, image and emotions. Sometimes we will work by focusing attention on bodily experience and ask for meaning or belief, sometimes we focus attention on belief or meaning and study the experiences evoked.

Different branches of somatic therapy include: Hakomi, Somatoemotional Release, Zapchen Somatics, Rubenfeld Synergy Method, Internal Family Systems, Yoga Therapy, Dance Therapy and Somatic Experiencing. For more information please feel free to call me and check out the web sites noted on the links page.