Somatic Therapy

Somatic Experiencing is a body-oriented therapeutic model used to resolve trauma symptoms and relieve chronic stress from a nervous system lens. When our bodies perceive that we are in danger, they do whatever they can to try and help us get to safety, and this often looks like fight, flight, and freeze responses. When these responses get interrupted or aren’t able to protect us, they get “stuck” in our nervous systems. From the body’s perspective, we remain in danger, even when the threat has passed and we objectively know we are safe. This stuckness can look like a lot of things, including:

  • Carrying a lot of tension and pain in our bodies

  • Hypervigilance and strong startle responses

  • Chronic anxiety, panic, and fear

  • Intrusive thoughts, images, memories, and dreams

  • Struggles with rest, relaxation, sleep, and nightmares

  • Problems with digestion

  • Feeling disconnected from ourselves, our bodies, other people, and our environments

  • Patterns of anger, irritability, defensiveness, “running for the hills”, and shutting down that we don’t feel fit the situations in front of us

  • Feeling out of control of our emotions

  • Finding it hard to set and maintain boundaries

Through Somatic Experiencing, we get curious about the sensations and behaviour patterns in the body and use this information to figure out what the nervous system needs to get unstuck.   This often looks like developing more tolerance to be with uncomfortable and scary bodily sensations, completing self-protective and defensive motor responses, and releasing stress energy that’s built up in the body.

Somatic Experiencing positions the individual as the best expert of their own body, and encourages a collaborative rather than hierarchical therapeutic relationship, which is essential for those who have experienced trauma. In this model, the person is also understood as already in possession of the innate tools to heal themselves, and my role as the therapist is to help identify and harness the power of these tools.

With people’s consent, I incorporate somatic work into most therapy sessions. I have found that when working with trauma and stress, therapy that does not incorporate the body and nervous system is insufficient: the thinking, rational parts of our brain may know that we are safe and the danger is in the past, but our bodies do not until they experience the completion of self-protection and the safety that follows. 

I have also found that working with trauma and stress are slow, long-term processes in therapy. If we go too quickly, the body doesn’t have a chance to integrate the new information and experiences it’s having, the nervous system’s danger signals are activated, and additional harm may occur. I work collaboratively with people to listen to their bodies in ways that have often been denied in other contexts, and we then adjust the pace and ways in which we are working to make sure we are continuously building safety.