WHAT IS SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY?
Somatic therapy is a form of body-centered therapy that uses both “top down” and “bottom up” techniques to support health and wellbeing in the body mind, sometimes accessing regulation in the body through cognitive approaches (top down), sometimes for example addressing fear based or obsessive thinking through noticing and resolving dysregulation and tension held in the body (bottom up).
In addition to developing a safe relational container and working with talk therapy, somatic therapy practitioners use mind-body exercises and occasionally other physical techniques to help release trauma and dysregulation held in the nervous system, fascia and body that negatively affects a patient’s physical and emotional wellbeing as well as their way of perceiving, thinking about and interacting with themselves, others and the world.
Somatic therapies of different kinds have been practiced for centuries, and are common in indigenous and traditional cultures where they are integrated into the framework of life…ranging from tribal dancing to the customs of dance, art, community, song, festival etc in the Basque Country locally. Fundamentally, yoga and meditation can be considered somatic therapies, and both can be integrated into therapeutic work.
MAIN SOMATIC PSYCHOTHERAPY IDEAS
Somatic therapy is a large umbrella term including a diverse collection of practices, ranging from the now widely known and more mainstream processes such as Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Hakomi, EMDR and Gestalt to Somatic IFS, Breath work, focussing, dance movement therapy and more.
Whilst talk therapy remains largely in the domain of expressed verbal content, somatic practitioners notice, track and call attention to the ‘language’ of gestures, posture, breath, facial expressions, eye gaze, and movement that all speak about the clients inner reality and create openings into unconscious patterns and undigested past experiences that can be then healed; creating new possibilities in a client’s inner and outer world.
Somatic therapy can also work with exercises or experiments. For instance, if the client is struggling with a simultaneous longing for – and resistance to – intimacy; different statements, proximities and situations can be experimented with as a springboard to uncover unresolved influences. Within an inquiry with proximity for instance, the micro movements of the client can be tracked, slowed down and sensed into, creating more awareness, resolution of past influences and trauma and the facilitation of presence, choice and connection.
Somatic modalities are also an effective way of digesting and releasing unresolved trauma held in the body as they help us to safely support the body to unwind, release and reopen to a fuller life….The mind can not release or escape what the body still holds.
HOW I PRACTICE
We work with the felt experience: sense perception, emotion and cognition – to find deeper experiences of presence, inner stability, health, compassion, freedom and joy. Somatic approaches help us not only to feel more vibrantly alive but more attuned with self and others. Somatic modalities are also an effective way of digesting and releasing unresolved trauma held in the body.
Our work together is structured to empower you, and I will occasionally offer practices between sessions for you to work with.
Somatic therapy emphasizes helping patients develop resources within themselves in order to regulate themselves emotionally, cognitively and physiologically. Physical or somatic awareness is a key part of somatic therapy. I might help clients by asking them to notice certain things that then they will strat to notice automatically for themselves: If they are angry or fearful, what is it in their body that tells them they are upset? Is it a tightening in the jaw or general musculature? An empty sensation in the chest? The client will then be supported to focus on those sensations, and by observing the client’s gestures and postures, we might find out what movement the client would have liked to have made but couldn’t, give it space to sequence, help the nervous system come out of fixation and back into deeper resilience and regulation.
Somatic psychotherapy might include touch when appropriate or useful; and will make reference to clients’ postures, tone of voice, micro and larger movement, etc. If we work with touch it will always be negotiated and contracted around.
Centering is a foundational practice in somatic therapy in which a patient is supported both in and out of session to develop a calm, compassionate, engaged and resourced home base in the body. This is achieved through building SAFE awareness of one’s felt sense – through increasing stability and safety in the inner and outer world of the client and bringing attention to sensation, emotions, thoughts, postures, breath, and mood and coming home more and more to an embodied and regulated presence.
I work from the principle that everything is fundamentally an intelligent, creative and life affirming response to what might have been crazy and overwhelming situation. Therefore together we step into a frame of working that honors and pays attention to the health and intelligence and all the ways you are navigating life.
We work together to organise and support your internal and external worlds and your connection to a framework – whether that is spiritual, compassion based or other – that helps facilitate connection and ease in your life.
Therapy in this way becomes an anchoring resource and collaborative learning experience within a life that grows increasingly resourcing.
The Safe and Sound Protocol can also be added into session structures if you would like to work in this way –please click here to learn more.
I also work outdoors, providing walk and talk counselling and Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy. Many people who have had poor experiences with -or are new to – therapy prefer being outdoors, moving, and drawing on the support of the natural world. This is a highly effective way of working and clients experience great success in their therapeutic goals in this less conventional format. For more information on Equine Therapy please click here.
You can contact me by phone 07.45.41.54.43 / or email : full.bloom.therapy.biarritz@gmail.com to book an initial consultation.