What Is Somatic Psychotherapy and How Can It Help You?

When most people think of therapy, they picture talking through emotions and challenges with a professional. While talk therapy can be incredibly effective, sometimes words alone don’t reach the root of our struggles. Somatic psychotherapy, also known as body-based therapy or body-centered therapy, offers a holistic approach that integrates the mind and body for deeper, more complete and more integrated healing.

What is Somatic Psychotherapy?

The word somatic comes from the Greek soma, meaning “body.” Somatic psychotherapy is a type of therapy that recognizes the connection between the body, emotions, and mind. Instead of focusing only on thoughts and ideas, and the narrative of our life we tend to refer to in order to quickly package and process our experiences, somatic psychotherapy explores how experiences—especially trauma and stress—are stored in the nervous system and physical body, and how.

Somatic therapy could support feeling embodied, like you are living from your whole self, with access to sensations, autonomic state, posture, muscle tone, and a host of other information that offers a larger library of responses to life.

By working with body sensations and direct nervous system experience in addition to thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, somatic therapy helps people heal patterns and understand underlying motivations that may not shift through talk therapy alone.

How Does Somatic Therapy Work?

Somatic psychotherapy combines traditional talk therapy (in this category I often use systems approaches like Internal Family Systems, along with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) with body-based techniques. These may include:

1. Somatic Experiencing(R) 

2. Breathwork for relaxation and nervous system regulation

3. Mindful awareness of body sensations and movement patterns to support understanding emotional responses

4. Experiential or body-oriented practices to work with tension patterns, support grounding, and better observe how the self responds to life.

5. Guided imagery and visualization to process emotions safely and increase grounding

6. Safe touch (only when appropriate and agreed upon)

Through these methods, clients learn to notice how stress shows up physically—such as tight shoulders, shallow breathing, or clenching—and gently release stored patterns, and how that physical patterns impact the inner, psychoemotional world and behavior.

Benefits of Somatic Psychotherapy

Somatic therapy can support a wide range of mental health and emotional challenges, including:

1. Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

2. Anxiety, panic attacks, and chronic stress

3. Depression and emotional numbness

4. Relationship challenges and attachment wounds

5. Feeling “stuck” in traditional talk therapy
   
   
   

Because it addresses both the mind and body, somatic psychotherapy can help people experience relief on a deeper, more integrated and quite possibly more long-lasting level.

Why Choose Somatic Therapy?

Here are some reasons people seek out this type of therapy:

1. It treats the whole person—mind, body, and emotions.

2. It supports nervous system regulation beyond words.

3. It helps process trauma that may feel “stuck” in the body or in external behaviors.

4. It promotes greater self-awareness, resilience, and grounding.

5. It can enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy–even if you prefer talk methods.

When working with individuals or couples, I use a variety of traditional cognitive and behavioral therapies–we will likely spend a good amount of time talking and processing using these means. I consider body-centered, somatic interventions as important additive—to broaden understanding and widen the lens of understanding so that we can find the best path forward using what works best for you given your particular situation and preferences.

Is Somatic Psychotherapy Right for You?

If you’ve tried talk therapy but still feel trapped in the same emotional, behavioral cycles, or if your body often feels tense, on edge, or disconnected, somatic therapy may be a powerful next step.

By reconnecting with your body’s natural wisdom, this therapeutic approach helps provide a more rich, complete picture of how you organize to meet the challenges of the world outside your skin. In addition to the pragmatic benefits of learning to release stress and freeing up long-held trauma patterns, somatic therapy will improve your awareness and support more options for responding positively to life, building a deeper sense of balance and well-being.