What is somatic therapy?
There’s a lot of misinformation out there on social media, so I would love to help you understand what somatic therapy is, and what it isn’t.
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“Somatic” comes from the Greek word “Soma”
The word ‘somatic’ comes from the Greek word “Soma” which means ‘relating to the body or affecting the body’.
In the simplest terms, somatic therapy (or somatic psychotherapy) combines talking about your stuff with an equal awareness of what is going on in your body. This might mean becoming aware of bodily sensations, posture, movements, gestures, and even eye gaze.
We are trying to increase the connection between your body and your mind.
Often, we cut off from everything below our neck – we ignore, we push through (and then fall in a heap). So in a ‘mindful’ way we are aiming to increase that connection. Listening to your body.
What is somatic psychotherapy good for?
Like everyday counselling or talk therapy, Somatic therapy is good for people who want some form of support as they experience issues that affect their emotional or mental health. It might be:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Stress
- Relationship issues
- Overwhelm about job or parenting
- Grief
- Trauma (PTSD and complex trauma)
- Chronic pain or autoimmune diseases
Somatic psychotherapy and trauma
Somatic therapy is often mentioned on social media in relation to processing trauma, whether that is a single event trauma e.g. PTSD; or what we call Complex Trauma where someone has endured trauma over a long period, (for example a person who was on the receiving end of childhood neglect or abuse).
The reason somatic therapy is helpful in processing trauma, is because it focuses on your nervous system state, and when we have experienced trauma we often get stuck in one of those states (flight/fight/freeze/collapse/fawn). The trauma becomes ‘stuck’ in the body.
You might have heard of a very famous book by Bessel van der Kolk called “The body keeps the score” (Amazon) – he’s talking about the somatic memory of the body and trauma getting frozen in the body.
What we want to do is help the body and mind safely and gently process and release the trauma – when it feels ready to.
Somatic therapy might look like:
A typical somatic therapy session: talking, moving, breathing and feeling
Like any therapy session we’re going to talk because we’re human and that’s how we communicate verbally, but in somatic therapy we’re also going to look at the other 80% – the non-verbal communication: bodily sensations, posture, movements, gestures, and eye gaze.
Often, we do movements, gestures or breathing techniques to help down-regulate your nervous system i.e. calm you down so that you are back in what we call the “Window of Tolerance”.
You may have heard of the Vagus Nerve (it’s all over social media at the moment) and it’s one of the principle cranial nerves involved in reporting back to the brain “Am I safe or am I not safe?” We are working with that nerve response to your external environment and your internal environment (internal sensations, thoughts and emotions).
Sometimes we follow the impulses of your body to move (e.g. to get away to safety, to push something away, to do a massive yawn, to curl up on the couch and hug a giant cushion)
Other times we consciously bring awareness to breath or deepen it. And when that happens often memories, images, emotions and thoughts will bubble up from your unconscious. Then we talk about that and try and see if you can make meaning from it.
Awareness of your nervous system state and gaining some flexibility in that system
We work on nervous system regulation in your session so that you can get in a heightened state when you really need to and then calm down again when it is safe and appropriate to rest. Being stuck in a heightened state feels really uncomfortable (feeling agitated or ‘on’, heat rising in your body, adrenaline pumping through your veins, pressure in your chest, nausea, shallow and rapid breathing, to name just a few symptoms).
You might talk about something that heightens you and then we do regulation techniques to calm and down-regulate you again. So you get to know that you can go up and then down again. You have more flexibility in your nervous system reaction.
Resourcing you
Helping you feel more resilient by becoming aware of the strengths you already have and also those techniques above that you now have in your tool belt to help out when sh*t goes down.
Pendulation
We might ‘touch the edge’ of a traumatic memory and then swing away again to safety. Think of an old Grandfather clock with the big pendulum – it swings one way and then the other.
It’s like we have an escape route and we can take a tiny peek at the trauma and then swing away to safety.
Titration
Nothing to do with school chemistry sets, this is about recalling the trauma and processing small, manageable bits at a time. Just like a chemist gradually adds small drops of a product to a solution to see the effect – we’re look at the small drops.
We don’t want you to blurt out an entire traumatic memory and then feel completely discombobulated for a week. We want you to be able to metabolize small bits of the trauma, at a pace that is set by you.
Here’s an example: Say you had a car accident. We don’t necessarily talk about the big event. We might go in ‘sideways’ and talk about what it’s like for you to look at cars, touch car door handles, be a passenger in a car.
What’s really important to know is that we go at YOUR pace, as judged by your nervous system reaction.
What somatic therapy isn’t
Somatic therapy isn’t woo woo
Sometimes new clients will say things like “I just wanted to try something a little out there” and I kinda giggle internally because you can’t get any LESS woo than working with your physical body – your muscles, your respiratory system and your nervous system.
There is nothing more grounded than working with both your mind and body.
Somatic therapy is not a magic wand
It can be really tempting to read something on social media and be like “OMG This is the thing that will finally heal me”. And I get it. You’re suffering and you want an end to the pain. And I want to help you.
YES, the somatic therapy techniques will help you down-regulate your nervous system. These are all great tools and techniques.
But what I want to make very clear is that it is the relationship with your therapist that matters MORE.
We are wounded in relationship, and we heal through relationship. Techniques are great but relationship matters more.
Most people are chronically unseen, unheard and misunderstood. Therapy is about rectifying that and giving you also a sense of belonging.
We do not exist in isolation. It is our relationship with others that determines the quality of our lives and in fact our long-term health.
So yes, somatic therapy using the body is fabulous, but it is not the panacea that perhaps people on social media are alluding to. The therapeutic relationship is what heals.
Other social media rubbish that is untrue
“Somatic” is currently a buzz word, and it has been overused and often misused, especially on the socials. Here are some I’ve noticed:
Somatic yoga techniques
This one makes me giggle because Yoga is already somatic. Somatic just means of the body. Yoga is literally the most body-mind movement you could do.
Yoga is wonderful for (most) people, and properly trauma-informed yoga is great for people who have experienced trauma and want to resource themselves and feel better in their body.
Somatic exercises for weight loss
Purlease…Technically yes, chronic stress causes us to retain weight, particularly around our middle. So yes, becoming less stressed may help you lose weight. But I suspect this is a gratuitous use of a buzzword to gain followers.
Toning the vagus nerve
HUGE eye roll. Muscle can be toned. Nerves can be ‘flossed’ but they can’t be toned. This statement is technically horse sh*t. What I suspect that they mean is that they want to help you gain more flexibility in your nervous system response. So that you can become heightened when it’s appropriate to do so, and then calmer again when the danger is over or removed.
How to find a good somatic therapist
There’s a lot of rubbish on socials. Please make sure that your therapist is properly qualified (at least a degree) – don’t put your mental health in the hands of unqualified people.
A good way to see if someone is properly qualified is to see if they are registered with either PACFA or ACA – the 2 main counselling and psychotherapy associations in Australia.
I hope this helped you understand what somatic therapy is and isn’t, and how it might help you in your life.
Here’s another 10 reasons to try Somatic Psychotherapy
Don’t just take my word for it, here are some other articles on somatic therapy that you might find interesting:
