Somatic therapy is a body-centered approach to psychotherapy that integrates awareness of bodily sensations, posture, movement, and nervous system responses into the healing process. It is grounded in the understanding that trauma, stress, and emotional experiences are not only psychological but also stored and expressed in the body.

Somatic therapy helps individuals access and process unresolved experiences by tuning into physical sensations and using techniques such as breathwork, grounding, movement, and touch (when appropriate and consensual) to release tension and restore a sense of safety and regulation.

Unlike traditional talk therapy, which focuses primarily on cognitive and verbal processing, somatic therapy acknowledges the body as a central site of experience and healing. It draws from various traditions and modalities, including Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and elements of body-based practices like yoga, dance, and mindfulness. This approach is particularly effective for treating trauma, PTSD, dissociation, anxiety, and conditions involving dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system.

Somatic therapy can be especially empowering for individuals who have felt disconnected from their bodies due to trauma, chronic illness, eating disorders, or societal oppression. It supports the reclamation of bodily autonomy, presence, and resilience through compassionate attunement to the body's wisdom.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a trauma-resolution therapy developed by Dr. Peter Levine that focuses on restoring regulation to the nervous system by helping individuals process and release the physiological effects of trauma stored in the body. Rather than requiring clients to retell or relive traumatic events in detail, SE works by gently guiding them to tune into interoceptive (internal bodily) sensations, such as tension, warmth, or constriction, and allowing these sensations to shift and resolve over time.

The core premise of Somatic Experiencing is that trauma is not just in the event itself, but in the body's incomplete response to it. When the natural fight, flight, or freeze responses are thwarted, whether due to overwhelm, immobilization, or social constraints, this survival energy can become stuck in the nervous system, leading to symptoms such as hypervigilance, anxiety, dissociation, chronic pain, or emotional dysregulation. SE helps clients complete these unfinished defensive responses in a safe, titrated way, allowing the nervous system to return to a state of balance.

SE practitioners use techniques like pendulation (moving gently between regulation and dysregulation), resourcing (supporting internal and external sources of safety), and tracking sensations to facilitate this process. It is widely used to treat PTSD, complex trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, and somatic symptoms, and is often integrated into other modalities, including expressive arts therapy, EMDR, and bodywork.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body-centered, trauma-informed therapeutic approach developed by Pat Ogden that integrates principles from somatic therapy, neuroscience, attachment theory, and cognitive-emotional processing to treat trauma and developmental wounds. It emphasizes the role of the body as a primary site where traumatic experiences are stored and expressed through posture, movement, tension patterns, and autonomic nervous system responses, often outside of conscious awareness.

Unlike traditional talk therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy focuses on bottom-up processing, helping clients observe and explore body sensations, impulses, and movements as a gateway to emotional healing.

It encourages mindful awareness of present-moment bodily experience (called somatic mindfulness) to uncover habitual survival strategies and incomplete defensive responses (e.g., fight, flight, freeze, or collapse). These patterns are then gently explored and renegotiated, allowing the client to restore regulation, agency, and coherence in both body and mind.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is particularly effective for complex trauma, developmental trauma, and dissociation. It works in stages: stabilizing and resourcing, processing trauma memory (often with minimal narrative), and integrating new somatic and relational patterns. It is also sensitive to attachment dynamics, emphasizing the therapeutic relationship as a secure base for healing.

Because it addresses both implicit (nonverbal, body-based) and explicit (conscious, narrative) levels of experience, it is considered a powerful modality for clients whose trauma is stored beneath language or who struggle with dysregulation.