SOMATIC THERAPY

SOMATIC THERAPY

The word somatic stems from the Greek term “soma,” which means “body.” Somatic healing resides under mind-body therapies and combines different techniques to heal from the bottom up. Because of this, somatic therapy approaches are also referred to as body-mind therapies and deal with the study of the living experience of being embodied.

For example, mind-body treatments utilize healing procedures that work with the body to access and change emotions, ideas, and behaviors. These procedures work with the body’s wisdom and capitalize on personal resources from each client.

What is
Somatic Experience Therapy?

SE is primarily built around the idea of a freeze response. The term fight-or-flight response is likely one you’re already familiar with if you’ve ever experienced fear or anxiety in reaction to a physical threat (real or perceived). Your body instinctively prepares you to confront or escape the danger when this occurs. This reactive mechanism typically causes:

  • muscles to tense up
  • heart rates to speed up
  • breathing to increase
  • glands to flood your body with excess hormones

The impact of these adjustments will help you better prepare for conflict or evasion. However, when people recognize they have little chance of fleeing or fighting off an attacker, they commonly lock up and “freeze.”

An unfortunate downside to the freezing response is that it can stay with you long after the initial threat has passed. Your body continues to withhold energy built up from the fight-or-flight response, which prevents you from fully recovering and being ready for future potential threats. In other words, your trauma symptoms result from your body constantly reliving bits and pieces of the original traumatic experience.

How does
Somatic Therapy Work?

Somatic therapy aims to help patients develop internal resources to self-regulate their emotions. In doing so, they can transition from the fight-flight-freeze response into a higher-functioning mode where they can think more rationally. Somatic treatment helps to discharge tension, rage, frustration, and other negative feelings from past traumatic events by fostering awareness of the mind-body link and utilizing specific techniques. The aim is to assist the patient in freeing themselves from what hinders them from fully engaging in their lives.

In somatic therapy, physical awareness is vital. To help the patient become more mindful, the therapist might ask them to focus on certain things: For example, if they are upset, where in their body do they feel it? Is there a tightening in the stomach? Or a dark feeling in the chest? By observing the client’s gestures and postures, therapists can usually tell what movement the client would have liked to make but couldn’t.

Centering is a fundamental somatic therapy concept in which a patient creates a peaceful base in her body. It’s done by becoming aware of one’s muscles, breath, and mood. Patients can “feel” more of what’s happening around and within them if they slow their breathing down.

Somatic therapy also encompasses bodywork, when a practitioner uses touch to work with the movement of a patient’s face or body. This may include manipulation of tissue, breathing patterns, and guided meditation.

What are the Different Types
of Somatic Therapy?

Below are some of the most common forms of somatic therapy.

Somatic experiencing

Somatic experiencing is focused on the body’s reaction to trauma. Some somatic therapists may urge you to talk about your traumatic experiences. Others may request that you describe the physical sensations you experienced throughout the event. You could be instructed to move your body in a way that sparks unpleasant sentiments. The therapist will teach you how to safely discharge the energy buildup so that the trigger can be removed gradually.

EMDR

EMDR therapy has the client revisit traumatic experiences in small doses. At the same time, they focus on something else, like hand movements or a particular sound.

Hakomi

Mindfulness-based Hakomi therapy allows clients to focus on the present moment without judgment. To begin, the therapist creates a calming environment and helps the client identify physical indicators of unconscious beliefs. The client can then access this subconscious information, and together they work to safely release it.

Sensorimotor psychotherapy

Sensorimotor psychotherapy incorporates principles from somatic therapy, attachment theory, and neuroscience with Hakomi methods. This treatment allows the client to safely relive an unpleasant memory and complete unfinished actions (such as being unable to defend oneself against an attacker) from the traumatic event to achieve closure.

Key Somatic Therapy
Concepts

Somatic therapy is a treatment that uses the body as a tool for engagement and draws from the nervous system. The main concepts of somatic psychology are as follows:

Grounding

Grounding is a body-based technique that allows people to feel sensations and experience themselves in the moment. This somatic approach involves engaging senses, feeling feet on the ground, and calming their own nervous system.

Boundary development

The capacity to tune in and focus on the present minute is what makes boundary development possible. It empowers individuals to respond to changing demands while establishing distinct boundaries. It helps one respond from a place of strength and safety.

Self-regulation

The objective of self-regulation is to build an awareness of bodily feelings and the desire to regulate (or effectively react to) emotional intensity. It emphasizes the significance of mindfully remaining in touch with one’s body during big emotions or experiences.

Movement and process

Somatic therapies focus on an individual’s ability to heal by listening and reacting to their body’s messages. Posture, gestures, and use of space all give us information about what a person is feeling or thinking. In somatic therapy, we encourage people to be aware of these things to resolve them.

Sequencing

When tension begins to evaporate, the expression of emotion may flow throughout the body. Pressure can build in the stomach, migrate to the chest, settle into tightness in the throat, and finally be released vocally. It could also be released by tears and result in greater breathing freedom.

Titration

Titration is a way to confront past trauma by slowly and controlled exposure to painful memories. By revisiting the source of your pain in therapy, you can begin to process and work through those traumas. Your therapist will talk with you about how you’re feeling while paying attention to your physical responses, like breathing changes or tension in your hands or voice.

What to Expect
from Somatic Therapy

Somatic experiencing is a “bottom-up” approach. It’s designed to help you focus on the physical sensations associated with a traumatic event rather than the emotions or memories.

Though somatic therapy sessions can differ from one practitioner to the next, they all fundamentally incorporate mindfulness, talk therapy, and alternative forms of physical activity. The therapist will guide you in focusing on your body or reviving memories associated with traumatic experiences. As you experience these emotions or remember these events, the therapist closely observes any physical responses you have.

Treatment methods can be utilized in either individual or group sessions. Deep breathing, relaxation exercises, and meditation are all used to help with symptoms. Dance, exercise, yoga, vocal work, and other “bodywork” treatments are supplementary physical therapies that may be used with somatic therapy. During somatic therapy, feelings of despair and anguish might arise as a consequence of processing memories of events that were distressing for you.

Recognizing bodily sensations

By entering therapy, you will learn more about your autonomic nervous system and how it relates to your body’s response during a traumatic event. This can be helpful for people who feel confused about their reaction or believe they should have reacted differently. With your therapist’s help, you will become more aware of physical sensations and symptoms.

Resourcing

Resourcing is a technique used by somatic therapists to assist you in accessing your natural strength, resilience, and sense of calm. It entails recalling pleasant memories from your past when you’re distressed or confronted with anything distressing. Resourcing (similar to grounding) may help you stay calm in the moment as you feel trauma symptoms or recall events from the event.

Titration

After your therapist has helped you to feel more resourceful, they will start to help you process the trauma and related emotions. This is called titration, a gradual process that allows you to come to terms with each aspect of the event at your own pace. By slowing down the experience, it becomes much easier for you to handle what happened.

Your therapist will help guide you as you begin to process the trauma, and they’ll take note of your reaction, both emotionally and physically. This includes changes in breathing, body language, or voice tone. They’ll also ask about anything else you might feel that they can’t observe themselves. These are things like:

  • temperature sensations
  • feeling unusually weighted
  • vertigo
  • physical desensitization

Pendulation

Things like crying, trembling, or shivering, are seen as a release of the energy locked inside your body. This energy trapped in your body is called trauma energy. Your therapist might also help you process and discharge your trauma energy using breathing or relaxation techniques.

When you have peaked in the release process, your therapist will assist you in moving from this alert state to a more tranquil one by utilizing resourcing or other methods. This swing back to a quieter state may begin to feel more natural as the weeks and months go on.

Benefits of
Somatic Experience Therapy

Somatic experiencing therapy aims to help individuals heal trauma by directing their attention to their bodies. The feelings and experiences addressed are characterized as follows:

  • Interoceptive (internal awareness of the body)
  • Proprioceptive (spatial orientation of the body)
  • Kinesthetic (movements of the body).

Unlike other trauma therapies, SE does not try to directly evoke traumatic memories. With SE, we avoid speaking about or thinking of memories directly related to the trauma. SE approaches these memories using the body as a gateway, exploring them gradually and indirectly by promoting more adequate, safer, and comfortable bodily experiences. As a result, the patient is not caught in an emotional reaction.

How Can Somatic Experience Therapy
Help You?

With SE, you can access and address lingering trauma in your body. This method uses a body-first approach and can help you work through emotional symptoms like anger, guilt, or shame. The idea behind this approach is that addressing the physical experience of trauma can also help heal the emotional experience.

It can be beneficial in treating physical symptoms related to trauma, abuse, and other emotional distress, including:

  • chronic pain
  • digestive concerns
  • muscle tension and pain
  • sleep problems
  • respiratory issues

Once these physical symptoms are resolved, most people find it much easier to focus on addressing the psychological symptoms.

Somatic Therapy at
Psyclarity Health

Many people feel stuck in a rut and don’t know how to get out. They may be struggling with processing traumatic events, and they may feel anxious about finding treatment.

Therapy can be a scary word for some people, but it doesn’t have to be. Psyclarity Health offers various treatment options for addiction and mental health conditions. If you’re looking for something gentle and non-invasive. Somatic experience therapy might be the type of treatment that can help you get unstuck and back to your best self.

If you’re feeling lost and don’t know where to turn, please reach out to us. We would be more than happy to help you get started on your journey to healing.

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