What is Somatic-Based Experiencing?

It’s not all in your head.
Somatic experiencing helps to release the memories of trauma and limiting beliefs that are stored in your body.

The Basics

The word somatic comes from the Greek word “soma,” meaning the physical body or the body apart from the soul or mind. Where traditional talk therapy focuses on the mind, somatic experiencing utilizes movement and other body-focused techniques like breathwork and meditation to support emotional healing.

SOMA

Why do I need it?

Often, particularly in traumatic situations, the body and the mind get out of sync, and memories and negative emotions can get locked in the body. After a traumatic event, the nervous system can get stuck in fight or flight mode and continually release stress hormones like cortisol. Not only does this lead to a chronic, heightened state of awareness called hypervigilance, but it also increases blood pressure, blood sugar, and inflammation in the body. These physical changes can cause a weakened immune system, weight gain, heart issues, and chronic pain.

We don’t just hold our traumatic memories in our bodies; some of our most deeply held limiting beliefs are often stored out of reach of our conscious mind.

These negative emotions eventually manifest as psychological disorders, mental illness, and chronic pain like neck or back pain. The problem with this type of unresolved trauma is that these thoughts and beliefs get reactivated during stressful experiences and can cause you to feel retraumatized again and again.

Somatic experiencing helps to re-establish a healthy feedback loop between the mind and the body so you can begin to heal the unresolved trauma that is stored there.

Somatic Therapy

How does somatic experiencing work?

Because so much of our trauma gets trapped in our bodies, somatic experiencing offers powerful tools to help heal both chronic pain and complex mental health issues. The first step is learning to experience emotion as sensations in the body. Then, as you learn to identify and release tension in the body, you can better understand where you’ve stored difficult emotions and memories.

Somatic therapy uses a variety of techniques to help release negative emotions from the body. In my practice, I use some of the following:

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Body Awareness

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Grounding

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Somatic Experiencing

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Mindfulness

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Mirroring

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Resourcing

What does somatic experiencing treat?

Using grounding and mindfulness to put you in touch with your body and experiences, somatic therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of complex psychological and physical issues. For example, somatic therapy has been successfully used to treat:

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