Somatic Therapy

Sometimes understanding why isn't enough.

You may understand your patterns. You may know where they came from. You may have spent years talking about your experiences and gained meaningful insight—and still notice that something in your body hasn't quite caught up.

You still tense when there is no danger.
Shut down when things become overwhelming.
Feel anxious even when you know you're okay.
Find yourself repeating patterns you thought you had already worked through.

This is where somatic therapy can offer something different.

Your nervous system has spent your entire life learning how to protect you.

Some of the ways you've learned to survive may now show up as anxiety, disconnection, people-pleasing, shutting down, difficulty setting boundaries, chronic tension, or feeling like you're always bracing for something to happen.

Somatic therapy doesn't approach these responses as something wrong with you.

Instead, we become curious about them.

What has your body learned? What has it been protecting? And what might it need now?

When we slow down enough to listen, the body can often show us things that words alone cannot.

The Body has Wisdom

What is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic therapy is a body-centered approach to psychotherapy that recognizes that our experiences don't live only in our thoughts—they are experienced and held throughout the whole body.

Traditional talk therapy often begins with the story: What happened? What are you thinking? What does it mean?

Somatic therapy includes those things, but also becomes curious about what is happening right now.

What happens in your chest as you talk about that?

Do you notice yourself holding your breath?

What happens inside when you imagine saying no?

Is there an impulse to move toward something—or away from it?

Rather than only talking about your experience, we slow down enough to notice how that experience is showing up within you.

What does a session look like?

Somatic therapy is still therapy. We talk, explore what's happening in your life, process emotions, build insight, and develop new ways of relating to yourself and others.

The difference is that we don't leave your body out of the conversation.

At different moments, I may invite you to notice a sensation, movement, breath, emotion, image, posture, or impulse. We might slow something down rather than immediately moving past it. We may explore what happens inside when you imagine responding differently to a situation.

Sometimes the work is quiet and subtle. Sometimes it brings emotion. Sometimes we spend most of the session talking.

There is no right way to do somatic therapy, and you don't need to already feel connected to your body.

We begin wherever you are.