My Somatic Approach

When trauma lands in the body, healing is most effective when it starts there first.

Unlike traditional “talk therapy” that engages a client in conversation as a guide to their mind, a somatic approach to psychotherapy holds that words are not necessarily adequate (or available) when it comes to releasing long-held patterns from traumas, large and small.

Somatic therapists are trained in supporting clients to gently attune to the “data” stored in their body as predominant indicators of past trauma and unprocessed wounds which don’t require the client to find the “right words”. For this reason, somatic psychotherapy is described as a “bottom up” approach to healing where the body is used as a springboard to better understand, and respond to, core needs of safety, ease, worth and authentic connection (with self and others).

A targeted blend of somatic modalities

Following the full diversity of humans and human experiences, there is no “one size fits all” model of somatic psychotherapy (thank goodness!) so depending on the client and their needs, I weave together aspects of each of the modalities in which I have trained:

• Somatic Internal Family Systems (IFS): Dr. Richard C. Schwartz created IFS as a psychotherapy rooted in the clear understanding that we can have a multiplicity of views, known as “parts” and that regardless of how a part might manifest, it inherently has positive intent and contributes wisdom to the person’s whole system. Somatic IFS (Susan McConnell) expands on the classic model involving the interplay between both psychological and the bodily parts that is particularly effective on the treatment of depression, trauma, anxiety, eating disorders, chronic illness, and attachment disorders.

• Somatic Experiencing (SE): SE is a body-oriented therapeutic model for healing the symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in our bodies. SE is based on the multidisciplinary work of Dr. Peter A. Levine which merges practices from physiology, psychology, biology, and neuroscience, among others.

• Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: A trauma-sensitive approach to mindfulness (grounded in the work of Dr. David Treleaven) involves the understanding of trauma and mindfulness practices with adaptive techniques to better meet the needs of those experiencing posttraumatic stress symptoms, thereby reducing further harm and dysregulation.

• Somatic Attachment Therapy: Somatic Attachment Therapy weaves an understanding of nervous system regulation with the somatic manifestation of bodily defenses (racing heart, numbness, fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses, etc.) that respond to attachment insecurity. As with other somatic practices, the client is the guide in Somatic Attachment Therapy, setting the pace each step of the way for their own healing journey.

• Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): MBSR, the seminal work of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, is an evidence-based program teaching mindfulness (“paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally”) to assist with clients experiencing physical bodily pain, stress, anxiety, depression and the intersection of all four.

Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk writes that “Trauma comes back as a (physical) reaction, not a memory” and for many clients, those traumas, large and small, manifest in the body as one or more of the following:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Isolation and loneliness

• Feeling “Not good enough” (persistent negative thoughts about one’s ability to be successful or deserving of love)

• Compassion fatigue and burnout

• Chronic pain and illness

• Difficulty maintaining family connections, friendships, or romantic relationships

• Feeling detached from oneself and the world

• Grief

• Eating disorders

• Parenting challenges

Summary

My approach borrows from the various somatic psychotherapeutic modalities above to support clients in resetting their nervous system’s responses to traumas, large and small, and gently guide them toward their own inner resources as they navigate beyond overstimulation and shutdown to land in that sweet spot of balance, ease, and joy.