What is Somatic Therapy?
- Elizabeth hummel
- Mar 7
- 5 min read
Somatic Therapy is the practice of balancing your felt senses with your mental landscape. Increasingly, our society has become aware that physical ailments often have a mental component. While it's not accurate to say that cancer can be solved through meditation, the daily fabric of our life rituals and habits can create a feeling of ease or dis-ease. How is that possible? Consider the example of a man in his thirties named Ian.
Ian has a promising career in sales, providing educational software to small schools, a product he believes in wholeheartedly. He is also a proud parent, sharing his life with his partner and their two children. As his responsibilities at work grow, so do his salary and commissions. Ian takes pride in supporting his family, but he feels that something is always being sacrificed—be it his partner, his children, or his exercise routine. One of Ian's strengths is his love for people and his high energy level, which is partly due to his ADHD. However, lately, Ian feels like his energy is depleted.
His doctors describe him as physically "average," and nothing seems amiss in his medical evaluations, yet something isn't right. He is restless, struggles to concentrate, and has begun missing deadlines at home and arriving late to work meetings. His therapist has suggested changing his medication, but Ian senses that this doesn't feel like a complete solution.
Ian lives many "lives," but his body remains a constant amidst them all. It absorbs and tries to regulate the energies of his day. During his meetings, Ian takes on the stress of clients and prospects who have various needs and projects. Sometimes they are energetic and positive, while at other times they are worried, and Ian can help them navigate their concerns. Occasionally, there is stress surrounding a project related to a school, completely unrelated to Ian's work, but being a people person and a people pleaser, he leans in to help wherever he can. While clients appreciate this, maintaining the façade of being "strong and confident for you" can be challenging when Ian's own life feels dysregulated. He puts on a good show, smiling and using open body language, setting his shoulders and managing his posture to invoke confidence and soothe the situation.
However, when Ian comes home, he often feels depleted. His body is tired from the effort of masking, and as the caffeine from his afternoon tea and the dopamine from his last positive meeting wear off, he shifts into a state of parasympathetic nervous system activation. In this state, he may disengage or even dissociate.
When he forces himself to become aware again—perhaps through some mindless scrolling on his phone or seeking some form of chemical relief—he is jolted back to the reality of a messy life. He has forgotten that dinner needs chicken to be successful, the children’s homework requires attention, and his partner is coming home late, hoping that the new chicken recipe Ian had raved about actually includes, well, CHICKEN.
Panic sets in. Shame sets in. Physical pain in his neck and back emerges. His sympathetic nervous system activates his fight-or-flight response, and he goes into overdrive.
Somatic therapy aims to build awareness of the interconnected relationships within the human experience. This awareness can facilitate a sense of safety, grounding, and emotional regulation for clients during challenging moments, utilizing both internal and external resources. Internal resources may include pleasant memories and body sensations, while external resources could consist of past experiences or supportive figures, such as mentors or comforting memories.
The practitioner will gently support the client’s experiences, encouraging them to recognize their body sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Some clients may find it difficult to connect their body sensations with related thoughts or emotions, and vice versa. Therefore, therapeutic work can proceed in either direction, recognizing that complete identification may not always be possible.
After the initial sessions, the therapist is encouraged to evaluate the client’s homework, check their understanding, and gather information to inform future sessions. Emphasis should be placed on breath and body awareness, guiding clients to observe their sensations and breathe into any discomfort, progressively enhancing their tolerance and engagement in therapeutic practices. The overall goal is to maintain a focus on feelings rather than cognitive processing to cultivate deeper emotional awareness and regulation.
The approach begins with a gradual progression from breath awareness to body sensation, highlighting the importance of recognizing sensations in different areas of the body. Body mapping can involve simple tasks, such as identifying where one feels sensations or where they do not. This process is accompanied by techniques that include recognizing associations with somatic sensations, movement awareness, and the integration of both self-touch and facilitated touch. In each session, the coach will help the individual ground and center themselves, allowing them to reconnect with their resources for stability. For clients facing significant challenges in self-practice, such as anxiety or injury, somatic work can be integrated with the advice or work of the rest of your care team.
Returning to Ian, his somatic sessions began by focusing on the physical effects of masking. He trusted his family and had a great relationship with his partner, so when they saw "the worst of Ian," it was because he felt safe enough to be unmasked and vulnerable with them. Over several sessions, Ian worked on understanding how his body felt at home and at work, both while masking and while not masking. Together with his somatic coach, he developed "speed bumps" to recognize when his tendency to please others was overstepping his personal boundaries. In these moments, Ian practiced grounding techniques that allowed him to walk away from situations with empathy but without taking on additional emotional burdens. This left him with more emotional energy for his family. While no mindfulness practice is perfect—that's why they call it "practice"—Ian is now better able to ground and center himself, managing his physical responses to others' anxieties and his emotional need to help. He practices independent, self-guided mindfulness techniques learned with his coach several times a week, but he also understands when he needs to "tune" his sympathetic nervous system based on how his body feels. When he feels dysregulated, he knows to seek out somatic coaching, exercise, yoga, or consult his doctor, which helps him feel more in control of his health.
What sets Cottage Industry Wellness apart is its emphasis on helping individuals ground their bodies to work through mental and physical blocks. With a trauma-informed and neurodiverse approach, clients can feel safe and supported as they navigate their personal journey towards healing and growth. Whether you're looking to improve your performance in a specific area of your life or simply seeking a more peaceful and rewarding existence, Cottage Industry Wellness is here to guide you every step of the way. By unlocking your potential through body-focused performance coaching, you can experience profound transformations in both your mental and physical well-being.
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