What is somatic therapy

What is Somatic Psychotherapy? - The foundation of somatic therapy is the study of the body - mind interface. “Soma” referring to the ability to sense ones self through sensations. In somatic therapy you take time to understand the differences between emotions and feels. It is hard at times to understand that there is a difference, and the difference is that emotions are a biochemical change of the brain, while feelings begin in the neo-cortical regions of the brain. Emotions are primal, and physical and feels are how the brain interprets the emotions. Wild Right?

Somatic therapy is intended to treat the whole body. In this process the whole person is looked at feelings, sensations, attitudes and beliefs.

Like most Psychotherapy, Somatic therapy will be adjusted to each individuals plan of care. Trauma, stress, anxiety, and even depression can present in so many different ways in our body. We can experience insomnia, irritability, panic attacks, fatigue, stomach aches, disassociation and that is because our body is under attack by our mind.

There are many things as people that we desire to feel, such as, to feel alive in our bodies. We all have breathing, dynamic bodies that at times we become disconnected from. There are things that we can incorporate to help with somatic awareness, things like our breathing patterns, eye movements, posture, skin changes, and subtle movements that are all displaying and expressing our inner feelings and mood.

Mindfulness is a big part of our somatic awareness. How we “feel” on the inside. Be often we lack the follow up on how to manage and understand the feelings and how somatic awareness truly takes us on a journey to self discovery.

We currently live in a culture of disembodiment. We spend time disengaging and disconnecting from our self awareness and more time entertaining our discomfort of boredom and short attention spans with social media and other sources of distracting entertainment. Many people do not have a daily practice of coming back to our bodies to become aware of self.

Somatic therapy can help clients truly feeling connected to self and to understand and how to release the different trauma and stress that our body holds that we not always aware of.