If you've ever understood exactly why you feel anxious and still felt anxious, you've met the limits of insight alone. Somatic therapy starts where talk therapy sometimes stalls: in the body.
What somatic therapy means
"Somatic" simply means "of the body." Somatic therapy pays attention to sensation, breath, posture, and impulse alongside thoughts and story. The premise is that anxiety and trauma live in the nervous system, not only in memory, so the nervous system needs to be part of the healing.
What a session can look like
- Noticing. Where does the tightness sit? Chest, throat, stomach, jaw?
- Tracking. We follow the sensation as it shifts instead of trying to force it away.
- Titration. We work in small doses so your system stays present rather than flooded.
- Resourcing. We build access to steadiness, breath, grounding, orienting to the room, so you can return there at any point.
What it helps with
Body-based work tends to help when anxiety shows up physically, when you go numb or shut down under stress, when panic arrives before a thought does, or when trauma memories feel too activating to talk through directly.
How it fits with EMDR and parts work
In my practice, somatic awareness runs underneath everything. It's how we know when EMDR reprocessing is going well or going too fast, and it's often how a protective part first makes itself known. The body gives us honest, real-time feedback about pacing.
Getting started
You don't need to be "good at" body awareness. Most people start out disconnected from it, that's often the point. Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation and we can talk about whether this approach fits what you're carrying.