Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy is a holistic approach to mental health that focuses on the connection between the mind and body. It's based on the idea that our physical experiences and sensations are closely linked to our emotional and psychological well-being. This therapeutic approach aims to help individuals become more aware of their bodily sensations and use this awareness to process and release emotional or psychological issues.

Somatic Therapy is a “bottom up process.”  Bottom-up process starts with the sensation and movements in the body or how the symptoms of the main complaint appear in the body. This method of bottom-up psychotherapy uses the wisdom of the body’s movements plus sensations to bring awareness to how the negative events are being held in our bodies.  It also allows the client to take a break from the narrative and just feel their story.  Many clients who have trauma struggle with remembering details of who, what, where when or how.  Bottom-up psychotherapy releases the stress of trying to remember and validates that something happened to cause the body to hold onto emotional pain.  Bottom-up processing then assists the client with releasing the stored memory without really needing to know the story.  

What we know now about trauma is that when a person is experiencing stress or trauma their prefrontal cortex goes offline so that the body can adjust to fight, flight or freeze for survival. Somatic Therapy is a way to treat the effects of PTSD and other mental health challenges through a body-centric approach. It addresses directly where the body holds stress and tension and trauma and works to release it. It's just like Talk Therapy... except your body is talking. 

Also, once things are brought into more awareness through the body based and somatic therapies, we bring the unconscious to the conscious making it more possible for healing patterns to replace triggers.