Understanding Somatic Therapy?
When we experience stress, distress, emotional pain or trauma, our body remembers – even after our mind has forgotten. Somatic therapy is a form of psychotherapy that recognises the profound connection between our bodily sensations and our psychological wellbeing, and offers a path to healing through embodied awareness (presence).
Somatic therapy is a body-centred approach to psychotherapy that treats the whole person – mind, heart and body – as an integrated system. Unlike traditional talk therapy that focuses on thoughts and beliefs, somatic therapy also incorporates bodily sensations and the felt-sense of our emotions.
The word “somatic” comes from the Greek word “soma,” meaning “the body”, so somatic therapy accesses the innate wisdom of the body to assist with emotional and psychological healing. This therapeutic approach is grounded in the understanding that stressful, distressing and traumatic life experiences are stored not just in our mind as memories, but also in our bodies, as tension, pain and restricted breathing.
The Mind-Heart-Body Connection
Developing a deeper mind-heart-body connection is the core of somatic therapy. This integrated approach recognises that psychological material isn’t just processed cognitively – it’s held within our entire being. Our bodies carry wisdom that our conscious mind cannot readily access, even after years of talk therapy. Carl Jung famously said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” – This is the heart of somatic therapy.
Through somatic therapy, clients learn to tune into their felt-sense: the physical sensations, impulses and intuitive knowing that arise from within. This felt-sense serves as a bridge between our conscious awareness and the subconscious psychological material that influences our behaviours, relationships and emotional patterns. Thomas Hanna, the creator of somatic therapy, said: “If you can sense it and feel it, you can change it.”
Accessing Subconscious Material Through Embodied Awareness
Traditional psychotherapy works with conscious thoughts and remembered experiences. Somatic therapy goes deeper by helping clients access subconscious psychological material through embodied awareness – the practice of bringing mindful attention to bodily sensations and emotions as they arise moment to moment.
When we slow down and notice what’s actually happening within our heart and body, we often discover emotions, memories and insights that weren’t previously accessible to our conscious mind. A tightness in the chest might reveal unexpressed grief. Clenching in the jaw could point to long-held anger. Shallow breathing may indicate anxiety that’s been present for so long we’ve stopped noticing it consciously.
By developing embodied awareness, clients learn to read their body’s signals and access new information that was stored deep within. This process allows for the release and integration of experiences that may have been too overwhelming to process when they originally occurred.
How Somatic Therapy Works
During somatic therapy sessions, the therapist guides clients to notice and explore their physical sensations while discussing emotional experiences. The therapist might ask questions like “Where do you feel that in your body?” or “What sensations are you noticing right now?”
This awareness of their felt-sense helps clients to become aware of how emotions manifest somatically, and how the body responds to different thoughts, memories or feelings. Through techniques such as embodied awareness (presence), mindfulness, breathwork and grounding exercises, clients learn to release stored tension and complete stress responses that have been interrupted or suppressed for decades.
The goal isn’t to bypass emotional or cognitive processing but to include the body as an active participant in healing. By working with all three centres of consciousness – mind, heart and body – somatic therapy facilitates deeper healing and lasting transformation.
Who Can Benefit from Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy can be particularly effective for individuals dealing with trauma, anxiety, depression, chronic stress, or physical symptoms without clear medical causes. It’s also valuable for anyone seeking to develop a stronger connection with their inner experience and cultivate greater self-awareness. Because somatic therapy works with the nervous system and helps to regulate stress responses, it can support healing from experiences that feel “stuck” in the body, or that haven’t fully resolved through talk therapy alone.
Somatic therapy can help with:
- Anxiety and Panic
- Depression and Grief
- Chronic stress
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Difficulty processing emotions
How to Communicate With Your Body For Deep Healing
Your body is constantly speaking to you – through sensations, symptoms and signals – but most of us have never learned to listen. We’ve been taught to think our way through problems, to analyse and solve them with our logical minds. Yet when it comes to healing, the answers don’t live in your head – they live in your body.
Our relationship with our body is like any other relationship: it won’t speak if it doesn’t believe it will be heard, believed, or responded to. The sensations you feel are a result of your body responding to something – probably something that was programmed into you as a survival response long ago. By opening this mind-body dialogue, you’re creating the pathway to knowing and feeling exactly what that response is. Then you can begin to release it and/or heal it.
Your bodily sensations and symptoms provide the clearest map to the root of why they are here in the first place. In order to heal, we must learn to listen. In order to hear, we must remember the language of the body. And when we do, healing becomes something bigger than symptom relief – it becomes the moment we return to who we truly are.
Somatic Therapy: Your Path to Embodied Healing
If you’re curious about this gentle yet powerful therapy, consider working with a somatic therapist who understands how to work safely with emotional content and bodily sensations to support integrated healing. By honouring the wisdom of your body and developing your capacity for embodied awareness, somatic therapy offers a compassionate path toward accessing deeper layers of healing and returning to a sense of wholeness within yourself.
Our relationship with our body is like any other relationship: it won’t speak if it doesn’t believe it will be heard, believed, or responded to. The sensations you feel are a result of your body responding to something – probably something that was programmed into you as a survival response long ago. By opening this mind-body dialogue, you’re creating the pathway to knowing and feeling exactly what that response is. Then you can begin to release it and/or heal it.
Your bodily sensations and symptoms provide the clearest map to the root of why they are here in the first place. In order to heal, we must learn to listen. In order to hear, we must remember the language of the body. And when we do, healing becomes something bigger than symptom relief – it becomes the moment we return to who we truly are.
Lee Bladon is an experienced somatic therapist who helps clients to reconnect with their bodies to access deep healing and transformation. Through developing “presence” (embodied awareness) and working with the mind-heart-body connection, Lee helps individuals to release old tension patterns, process subconscious psychological material, and cultivate a more integrated sense of self. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, trauma or simply seeking greater wholeness and authenticity, Lee’s compassionate somatic approach offers an effective pathway to healing and wholeness. To learn more about somatic therapy with Lee, please click HERE.
