Somatics is an approach to understanding ourselves through the lived experience of the body. The word soma comes from the Greek word for “living body”—the body as we experience it from within, rather than simply as something we observe from the outside. Somatics recognizes that our thoughts, emotions, sensations, movement, nervous system, and relationships are deeply interconnected.

Our bodies are continually responding to our experiences and environments. Over time, we develop patterns for protecting ourselves, connecting with others, responding to stress, and moving through the world. Somatic awareness invites us to slow down and become curious about these patterns. Listening to sensation, emotion, movement, breath, impulses, and other subtle forms of embodied information.

The field of somatics has a rich and diverse history, with roots extending far beyond modern therapy. Across ancient, Indigenous, shamanic, contemplative, and traditional healing practices, people have long understood the body as a source of wisdom, connection, and knowledge. By using movement, breath, ritual, ceremony, touch, relationship with nature, and altered states of consciousness as pathways for healing and transformation. These traditions are diverse and culturally specific, and are not interchangeable with contemporary somatic psychotherapy; rather, they form part of a much longer human history of embodied ways of knowing.

Modern somatic practices were further shaped by pioneers who explored the relationship between body, movement, consciousness, and healing.  Elsa Gindler, Prentis Hemphill, Gerda Alexander, Marion Rosen, Emilie Conrad and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, alongside practitioners such as Wilhelm Reich, Resmaa Menakem, Moshe Feldenkrais, Don Hanlon Johnson, Peter Levine ( and so many more) each contributed to the evolving field of embodiment and body-oriented psychotherapy.

Today, somatic work continues to evolve through dialogue between these contemporary therapeutic traditions and the broader human understanding that the body is not separate from our emotional, relational, psychological, and spiritual lives. Somatic practices encompass a range of traditions, including Feldenkrais Method, Alexander Technique, Hanna Somatics, Body-Mind Centering®, Sensory Awareness, Continuum, Rosen Method, and Somatic Experiencing®, among others. While these approaches differ in their methods and origins, they share an interest in cultivating greater awareness of the body and its relationship to our inner and outer worlds.

At its heart, somatics invites us to experience the body not simply as something we inhabit, but as a source of information, connection, and knowing. It offers an opportunity to come into deeper relationship with ourselves with greater awareness, curiosity, compassion, and choice.

Somatic psychotherapy brings awareness of the body into the therapeutic process. Rather than focusing only on thoughts, stories, and behaviors, we also pay attention to what is happening within you as you experience them. A shift in breath, a sensation in your chest, a feeling of contraction or expansion, an impulse to move, or a sense of settling can all offer meaningful information about your experience. Together, we may explore how your experiences, relationships, stress, and life transitions have shaped the ways you respond, protect yourself, connect, and move through the world. By slowing down and becoming curious about these patterns in the present moment, there can be space for something new to emerge.

My approach draws from a range of somatic and body-oriented traditions, woven together with EMDR, parts work, mindfulness, breathwork, movement, guided imagery, and other integrative approaches. These modalities are not applied as a formula. Instead, they provide different pathways for meeting your unique experience and supporting the kind of healing that feels meaningful to you. Ultimately, somatic psychotherapy is an invitation to bring your whole self into the therapeutic process—mind, body, emotion, history, and lived experience. Through this deeper awareness, we can cultivate greater self-trust, connection, agency, and freedom in how you relate to yourself and the world around you.

 By opening communication between our conscious and unconscious selves, between our mind and body-mind, we begin to make connections that were previously unknown us. Somatic psychotherapy may be supportive if you are experiencing:

• Chronic pain or persistent physical tension

• Anxiety, overwhelm

• Feeling disconnected, numb, or detached from your body

• Digestive or other stress-related physical symptoms

• Headaches or tension-related discomfort

• Difficulty identifying or expressing emotions

• Hypervigilance, shutdown, or feeling “stuck”

• Trauma or experiences that feel difficult to process through words alone

• Challenges with boundaries, trust, or feeling safe in relationships

• Disconnection from your body, sexuality, pleasure, or sense of self

• Feeling disconnected from your intuition or internal sense of knowing

• Life transitions that have left you feeling ungrounded or unlike yourself

  
  Somatic techniques I use in somatic psychotherapy include:

• Breathwork

• Brainspotting 

• EMDR 

• sensation awareness & tracking

• building emotional relationship with the physical body

• physical movement

• resourcing

• ​titration- the ability to oscillate attention between feeling distressing sensation or memory and feeling resourced & calm.

• grounding exercises

• guided meditation & mindfulness

• boundary work

• Self-regulation/ Vagus Nerve Support

• Energy work & awareness