Somatic therapy
What is somatic therapy?
Somatic therapy - from the Greek word “soma,” meaning “body” - is a type of therapy that focuses on the role of the body and biological processes in our emotions and thoughts, and vice versa. Throughout our life, our body learns to respond to things in our environment based on our experiences. Six times every second, our nervous system scans the environment for cues of safety or danger. Before we are able to form thoughts about a given situation, our nervous system responds instantaneously. This may happen when we feel uneasy without knowing why, or when we get “triggered” - suddenly flooded by intense sensations and feelings. In somatic therapy, we’ll work with these sensations and bodily responses through understanding why the body is responding in this way, and teaching the body new ways to respond. In general, somatic therapy prioritizes “bottom-up” processing, which means understanding things through feeling and experiencing them.
What does it mean to practice somatic therapy, especially in online counseling?
You may be thinking: “But how will we focus on the body when we are looking at each other through a screen?”. And this is an excellent question! Part of somatic therapy is learning about the different ways that your nervous systems responds to conditions of safety and threat. We’ll do this together through education about how the nervous system works, experiential activities where we practice moving through nervous system states, and exploring the things you’re bringing to therapy through what you are experiencing in your body right now. And all of this can be done easily through online counseling. If this sounds completely unfamiliar to you, don’t worry! We’ll go at whatever pace is best for you, and we will always focus on what you think is most important.