Somatic psychotherapy is the umbrella term for methods of therapy that are rooted in the body where trauma, stress, and memory are housed. Somatic psychotherapies are based on the theory that the body holds emotion and experience. When hard-to-handle feelings and traumas are not processed, they can manifest as anxiety, panic, depression, chronic pain or illness, relational issues, self-esteem problems, grief, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Somatic methods aid in draining the power of these feelings through attunement with the body – its positions, gestures, energies, and sensations.

Somatic Psychotherapy Modalities

There are many somatic psychotherapeutic modalities. You may have heard of some of them such as, Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), Hakomi Method, Brainspotting, and plain old Mindfulness. Ultimately, the kind of somatic work that happens in the therapy room depends on the client and the therapist and can involve a wide variety of techniques, including breath work, visualizations, sensory awareness, posture tracking, guided imagery, gesture, and movement.

Somatic Psychotherapy Exercises

Sometimes, somatic exercises are very straight forward, such as simply sending compassionate breath toward a particular part of the body that is experiencing activation. Other times, exercises are created on the spot to aid a client’s specific needs in the moment. For example, a client who struggles with low self-esteem feels they are unable to accept compliments. They might say, “Positivity just flows right through me – in one ear and out the other.” In this case, we might mindfully “build” a space in the body to hold compliments, positive feedback, and love. Then, when they hear a compliment, they can visualize the affirmation dropping into and being held compassionately in the space they created for it in their body.

Somatic psychotherapy is a way to help people feel safe in their bodies while exploring thoughts, feelings, and memories. Painful experiences live in us on a cellular level, but we can heal by restoring the body to live with vitality, ease, and joy.

Questions about Somatic Psychotherapy

One question I often get is, “Does somatic psychotherapy include talk therapy?” The answer is YES! Although somatic practices are body-based, talking through feelings and sensations is an essential component of the therapeutic work.

Another question I get is, “Do I have to dance?” And the answer is NO, not unless you want to. Like most productive therapy, somatic work is client-centered and client-lead. Together with your therapist, you decide when and how to integrate the body into the healing process.

If you choose to work with me, you can expect:

I return to the body in the here and now as a way to ground and understand authentic self.

I utilize body scanning techniques to gain awareness of where pain or emotion is located in the body.

I track and bring awareness to repetitive gestures or postures that align with certain memories or feelings to aid in self-knowledge.

I share tools for calming, centering, and releasing emotions in productive ways.

I gently guide clients through painful experiences while noting the accompanying physical sensations and addressing them in the moment.
I emphasize the body as a base to locate natural resources, strengths, and self-empowerment.

If you have interest in somatic psychotherapy and healing your body, I would love to talk with you.

Many clients come to therapy because they experience panic. Panic, or intense anxiety, can show up in the most random places and moments. You’re sitting there, doing your thing, and then suddenly you feel dizzy, your heart races, you feel nauseous, and a sense of doom overtakes you. This is panic, and it can feel overwhelming. However, there are three steps you can take to understand, manage, and re-ground yourself if you find yourself in the throes of an episode.

Panic is a way your body deals with fear.

Before we get to the ABC’s of how to deal with panic, it’s important to understand that panic is a way your body deals with fear, and it is a natural survival mechanism. In a way, panic is your body trying to help you. You’ve probably heard of the flight, flight, freeze responses that all animals have when they are faced with something that threatens them. These innate responses say that when the animal is frightened, they should either engage aggressively, run away, or hide. Fight, flight, and freeze are tools that keep animals alive.

You can ease out of panic.

When a human animal experiences panic, it’s the same thing. Panic in a human is saying, “You’re scared, and you need to do something about it.” But why do we experience panic when we’re just sitting on the couch? Because life is complicated for human animals, and we have many kinds of micro and macro threats that we experience over a lifetime. Those threats become recorded into the body and, especially if we do not process them, they can show up unannounced to remind us that we do indeed need to deal with them. In this way, panic is a reminder that we have some fear that needs to be processed. This is why so many clients come to therapy – to deal with these unconscious fears. So, when you’re not in the therapy office processing emotions in a safe space with a caring advocate, how can you soothe yourself out of panic?

The ABC’s of panic: 3 ways to recover

A. Acknowledge.

It’s vital that when you begin to experience panic that you acknowledge what is going on and that the panic is not YOU, but a feeling you have. Acknowledging panic can look like saying to yourself, “You’re feeling panic. Panic is just your body telling you to pay attention.” You can remind yourself that panic is an energy in your body that will pass soon. Our instinct when we feel panic is to distract ourselves from the discomfort and focus on something else, but like most emotions, being with the feeling will help you move through it more productively than ignoring it. Dealing with, and acknowledging panic, is the one of the best cures for it.

B. Breathe.

Focusing on your breath really is the trick to calming panic. A simple slow inhale through the nose and a long, controlled exhale through the mouth is always a great technique. If you watch any great baseball slugger at bat, you will see them use this method to calm themselves under pressure. If you want to try something a little more structured, you can inhale for a count of three, and exhale for a count of five. Lengthening the exhale will activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls how the body relaxes.

C. Center.

Centering is a way to re-orient yourself back to the here and now. A great way to center is to look around and notice three things in the environment around you. When your eyes fall on, let’s say, a bookshelf, really look at it. Notice the spines of the books, the colors of covers, the sheen of the wooden shelf. Then, let your eyes wander to another thing in your field of vision. Focus on it, see the details, textures, as if you’re looking at it for the first time. This will help bring you to the safety of the moment. It will help you see that you are not under attack.

As much as panic can feel engulfing, it is not entirely out of your control. Understand that panic is your body’s way of letting you know you have feelings of fear that need to be addressed. Acknowledge that panic is an energy force moving through you. Breath to anchor yourself and calm the panicky energy. Center yourself by gently engaging with the environment around you. These ABC’s are steps you can take to befriend panic as a signal to slow down, check in with yourself, and be in the process of healing.

Have you ever been driving somewhere, and a memory from the past suddenly overwhelms you and you forget where you are going? Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and began to worry about all the things you need to do, until the thoughts take over and you cannot fall back to sleep? Or have you ever had a perfectly normal day, when all of a sudden, a negative thought creeps into your head and snowballs into a sadness that you can’t shake off? This is rumination, persistent negative thoughts that hijack our minds, interfering with normal activity.

Many clients turn to therapy because they cannot get out of their heads or worry too much. Rumination is common, normal, and most of the time, temporary. In some severe cases, it can become continuous and negatively impact daily functions. More common temporary rumination is the mind’s way of letting us know we are anxious, and we can do something to help soothe ourselves out of this state.

Do thoughts have you, or do you have thoughts?

The way I like to describe rumination is that it feels like thoughts have you, rather than you having thoughts. It’s as though your thoughts are dragging you away from your centered self. Thoughts are in control, not you. Here are a few techniques that can get you back to feeling that you are in control of where you mind goes.

1. Move your body to reduce worry.

A great way to unlock ourselves from rumination is to move our awareness into our body. If you find yourself ruminating in bed while trying to fall asleep, hug your knees tightly to your chest and then alternate that position with a long, big, full-bodied stretch. You will find that you naturally inhale deeply on the stretch and exhale slowly when you crunch you knees to your chest. Do this a few times. You might even want to exhale with aahhh, shhhhhh, or hhmmm sound, which stimulates the vagus nerve system, helping to promote inner balance and relaxation.

If you’re driving, shoulder rolls can help bring your focus to your body and you can keep both hands on the wheel! Try inhaling as you roll the shoulder forward and up, and exhaling as you roll them back and down. Try to trace the widest circle your shoulders can make. Again, you can add a sound on the exhale – and the best thing about doing this when you’re driving alone is that no one can hear you. So, make the sounds as loud and weird as you want. A sense of playfulness can also help ease our way out of obsessive thinking.

2. Touch your body to reduce worry.

If you find yourself ruminating, you can give yourself a gentle face massage, or lightly tap the tips of your fingers on your face, head, neck, chest, and shoulders. This body stimulation will aid in notifying your brain that you are safe and not in harms way. It will signal to your brain that it’s OK to relax. You can also alternating tapping your right and then left thigh, which activates your right and left brain, aiding in re-orienting and unhooking from repetitive thinking.

3. Focus on your breath to reduce worry.

A tried-and-true method that has helped many of my clients fall back to sleep or bring them swiftly out of a rumination episode is a ten-count visualization. This works best with eyes closed or soft inward focus, so do not do this on the road! Tune into your natural breathing rhythm. When you’re ready, visualize the number one in your mind’s eye as you exhale. Conjure the number so that you see it in front of you, almost like the number appears in your mind floating. Do this for each number all the way to ten, and then begin again with number one. This is the key – always return to one after you reach ten. Some nights, it might take three rounds before you fall sleep and others, ten or twenty. Keep at it! If you find your mind returning to intrusive thoughts let them glide by and return to your ten count visualization.

If you can’t close your eyes, but you need a breathing technique to re-center yourself after you have moved or touched your body out of rumination, a simple box breathe can help. Visualize your inhale moving up the left side of a square, extend or hold the inhale as you visualize tracing the top line of the square, exhale as you visualize tracing down the right line of the square, and extend or hold the exhale as you visualize tracing the bottom line, completing the square.

Freedom to just be.

Repetitive thoughts do not have to drag us away from ourselves. They are signals that we need some reassurance, re-calibrating, and re-centering. Activating the body is a powerful way to exit the hamster wheel of obsessive thinking and anchor ourselves in the life force of breath, and just be.

“Almost all therapeutic work is grief work,” I remember one of my psychology professors saying. This stood out to me as ringing true. We feel grief in many dimensions of our life, in loss, of course, but also in change, even in renewal. We can feel grief when we enter a new phase of our lives, longing for times when things seemed simpler or easier. We can also grieve for a past self and wish to feel like them again. You may have not allowed yourself to fully grieve the complex parts of yourself. Sometimes we want to simply “get over” our grief. Ultimately you will find that processing your grief is possible in therapy.

When we feel sad, we can numb ourselves or turn away from the uncomfortable feelings to cope with the internal pain. We grew up with messages like, “Nobody likes a sad sack.” or, “Don’t be a party pooper.” or, “Put on some lipstick and you’ll feel better.” We are taught that “wallowing in pain” is what weak people do. The irony is that, in fact, wallowing in pain is what strong people do.

Getting over Grief vs Moving Through Grief

Dr. Gabor Mate said, “All of western medicine is built on getting rid of pain, which is not the same thing as healing. Healing is actually the capacity to hold pain.” We spend so much energy keeping “bad” feelings away that we unintentionally equate any emotional discomfort as not being “good.” When dealing with grief, the opposite is true. We need to pour the energy we use keeping pain at bay into surrendering to it in order to move through it.

Processing Grief

So, how do we feel grief without completely succumbing to it? Firstly, we do not focus on “getting better,” or “returning to normal.” As hard as it may be, we take each step of the process as it comes, trying to hold the despairing feelings with compassion while maintaining a core sense of self as you focus on healing. And how do we do that? We reach out, to friends, family, and perhaps most importantly, to a therapist.

Healing the Grieving Hole in Your Heart

An important thing to remember about grief, is that it is not a permanent condition. Grief can visit us throughout our lives, but it does not have to move in and stay forever. The key to dealing with grief visitations is feeling them. Sometimes, when you experience deep grief, it can seem like there’s a hole in your heart. Rather than crawl into that hole and feel the grief, you can fill the hole with guilt. This is another way we avoid the discomfort of processing grief; we defend against it by blaming ourselves. That’s how hard truly dealing with grief is – we would rather feel shame than grief! The truth is, we need to learn how to be in close relationship with grief.

You Don’t Have to be Alone with Your Grief

Another truth about grief is that we cannot go through it alone. Processing grief is not the time to isolate, but rather the time to thoughtfully engage with those that you can trust, be vulnerable with, and be honest about the pain you are experiencing. Maintaining key relationships with caring people is vital to productive processing. Therapy is the best place to safely navigate deep pain with an experienced clinician holding the full range of your feelings with empathy and unconditional positive regard.

If you want to process your grief in therapy, please reach out. I help people integrate grief and experience greater hope.

You are considering group therapy and you want to understand how it works. Discover the many benefits of group therapy and how it will help you find yourself.

Group Therapy is where people come together to trust, grow, and become more aware of themselves and develop healthy relationships and communication. It is highly engaging, informative, and helpful for instilling hope and a sense of belonging. But the real magic of Group is Group itself – the people, the authenticity, and the safe container that the therapist provides.

What do I do in Group Therapy?

Connect: The number one feedback clinicians receive from participants in Group Therapy is that they feel less alone. Group members learn that they all have similar experiences and can offer personal wisdom and important questions that help process difficult emotions. We are all humans on this journey of life. Group Therapy helps us remember this and builds bridges, so we feel less isolated and more connected to others.

Communicate: Participants of Group often talk about how it helped them “find their voice.” It’s place you figure out how to speak in a way that gets you what you need and want. Group members hold each other accountable for kindness, respect, and honesty. The therapist naturally brings the group back to intentions, goals, and using what happens in the room as a laboratory for life.

Contribute: What you put into Group, you get out of Group. There’s no homework, there’s no preparation needed. You just show up as yourself, speak from the heart, listen from the soul, and learn from the experiences you have in the moment. When you come as you are, you benefit from great personal insight and discover yourself in a new way.

How can Group Therapy help me?

Community: In Group, challenges are tackled collectively and in doing so, you build your sense of compassion for yourself and others. You also learn productive ways to listen and speak. This aids in developing a deeper understanding of how you relate to yourself and others while building an important support network.

Coping Skills: In Group, a safe place is created together where each member honestly examines their thoughts and behaviors. With guidance from the therapist, specific techniques are introduced so members learn to feel strong and centered. This new awareness is then brought into daily life, alleviating the mystery of conflicts we experience with loved ones, friends, and colleagues.

Cost Effectiveness: Group therapy is often much less expensive than individual therapy. For this reason, it is also a wonderful way to introduce yourself to therapy, if you have never done it before. If budget is an excuse you’ve been using to not go to therapy, Group is for you!

Types of Group Therapy

Skills Development – teaching and improving coping skills, psycho-education, strengthening resources toward healthy choices.

Cognitive Behavioral Groups – re-configuring harmful thoughts or beliefs that lead to negative behavior.

Support Groups (grief or illness) – help with difficult life transitions, loss, or bereavement, acceptance of change and reflection on personal values.

Process Groups –understanding how family of origin and unconscious material affects choices and reactions, focusing on interpersonal dynamics.

Affinity Groups - mothers, people in recovery, women, men, creatives & artists, veterans, teens.

Modality Groups - somatic, writing, movement, trauma, pre/postpartum, healing, mindfulness.

I highly recommend Group Therapy on its own or as an addition to individual therapy. I have seen amazing transformations in this setting! If you are looking to discover how Group Therapy can help you, please contact me.