​What is somatic therapy?

Somatic therapy is a holistic, body-based approach that recognises that deep healing doesn’t happen in the mind alone - it unfolds through the body.

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Somatic means “of the body”, or more precisely, the felt experience of being alive. Somatic psychotherapy brings together traditional talk therapy and body awareness so that the body’s story, emotions, sensations and gestures can be included alongside the mind’s narrative.

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So often, what the body remembers doesn’t match what the mind has told itself. By gently listening to both, we begin to bridge understanding with embodiment, whcih means allowing healing to be not just known, but felt.

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Traditional therapy helps us make sense of our experiences; somatic therapy helps us complete them.

When overwhelming experiences can’t be processed at the time, the body holds them as unfinished survival responses of bracing, numbing, over-alertness or collapse. These patterns once protected us, but when they remain active, they keep us locked in the past. Somatic therapy helps the body finish what it couldn’t finish then, bringing those responses into present-time safety.

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While traditional talk therapy focuses primarily on the mind, deep healing must also be felt in the body. If we only analyse our experiences cognitively, we risk staying stuck in loops of overthinking without actually releasing the stored emotional and physiological imprints (samskāras) that shape our behaviours.

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Many of these patterns are held in the unconscious mind - beneath our everyday awareness. The body often expresses what the mind has learned to suppress. Through symptoms, tension and chronic activation, the nervous system points us toward what’s unresolved or unspoken. Somatic therapy creates a safe, embodied space to gently meet these unconscious patterns - so they can be brought into awareness, felt and integrated.

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Just as our bodies need to process food for nourishment, our nervous system needs to digest emotions, stress responses and past experiences. Somatic therapy supports this natural process, helping you move through what was once overwhelming, frozen or hidden.

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In the sessions, we blend.....

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Compassionate mindful inquiry

gently tuning into body sensations and emotional signals

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Nervous system regulation

learning to shift from stress into safety

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Psychoeducation

understanding how your nervous system, attachment patterns and emotional history shape your present

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Mind-body practices

including breathwork, grounding, movement and energy work to restore balance and presence

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Relational attunement

the safety of being met and supported in the moment, so that change unfolds within connection
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Somatic psychotherapy

integrating body awareness and dialogue, so healing is not only understood but felt and embodied

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The goal is not just to understand your patterns, but to repattern them.

Somatic therapy helps you embody new ways of being, so you feel more grounded, more regulated

and more free to live a life you don’t need to escape from

 

Relaxation is the gateway to healing

 

Somatic work begins by noticing how your body and breath hold tension, the body’s natural protection against overwhelm. Together, we gently unwind these patterns at a pace that honours your system, allowing the nervous system to rediscover safety.

When we slow down enough to tune in, the body reveals profound wisdom. As Bessel van der Kolk reminds us, the body keeps the score but it also holds the keys to our healing. When the body feels supported, its innate capacity to self-heal naturally awakens.

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Holding space for your healing 

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Healing can’t be forced. It happens when safety replaces pressure. My role is to attune to what’s present, sensations, emotions, impulses, imagery and meet them with steadiness and compassion. This creates a space where body and mind can begin to communicate again, and change unfolds through connection and trust.

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At times, we may weave in gentle cognitive approaches such as CBT, always through a trauma-informed lens. Patterns like anxiety, shutdown or overworking aren’t flaws, they are intelligent adaptations your body learned to survive.

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So much of what we experience day to day, the thoughts that repeat, the tension we carry, the ways we react are echoes of the past, survival responses that once kept us safe. Somatic therapy doesn’t try to erase these parts, but to give them the safety they never had, so they can finally complete. A freeze can thaw, a fight impulse can soften, grief can move.

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As the body learns to trust life again, anxiety quietens, emotions flow, and the mind becomes clearer. Healing is not something we chase, it’s what naturally unfolds when wholeness is restored, one breath at a time.