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 well being in the individual, sometimes accessing regulation in the body through cognitive approaches, sometimes for example addressing fear based or obsessive thinking through noticing and resolving dysregulation and tension held in the nervous system, breath patterns and body.
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, focusing, 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 in relationship; creating new possibilities in a client’s inner and outer world.
Somatic modalities can offer a way of digesting and releasing unresolved memories and defences 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 compassionatly with the felt experience: sense perception, emotion and cognition – to find deeper experiences of presence, inner stability, health, compassion, freedom and joy.
Our work together is structured to empower you, and I will offer practices between sessions for you to work with.
I work from the principle that everything is fundamentally an intelligent, creative and life affirming response to what might have been an incredibly painful and overwhelming situation or relational environment. Therefore together we step into a frame of working that honors and compassionately pays attention to the health and intelligence in all the ways you are navigating life, whilst bringing presence, resources and choice.
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, deepen and nourish connection and ease in your life.
Therapy in this way becomes an anchoring resource and collaborative learning experience within a life and lifestyle that grows increasingly resourcing itself.
I also work outdoors, providing walk and talk therapy 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.
If you are interested in working together, please feel free to reach out to book an initial meeting.
Contact details : 07.45.41.54.43 /eliseannmartin@gmail.com
Registered member of BACP: 00951759
SIRET: 83424073100036