What Somatic Therapy Actually Does

What Somatic Therapy Actually Does

Most people have a pretty good idea of what therapy is like; it’s essentially sitting across from someone getting your woes out, maybe crying here and there, and hopefully leaving the session with a bit more clarity. That stereotype isn’t wrong, per se, but it’s not the whole story; there’s an entire branch of mental healthcare that’s far more unconventional, starting not from the brain but from the body. That’s where somatic therapy comes in, and for many, it’s the missing link that makes it all make sense. Here is What Somatic Therapy Actually Does–

How The Body Holds Onto Things

Here’s an interesting note to consider: the body doesn’t forget. Well, it may in time, but long after something stressful occurs, the response is felt in the body, and often, the sensations linger without a memory attached. Think of getting really upset about something and it causing a tight chest or hiccupping breaths, those responses remain after a stressor occurs, even when the stressor is long gone. The nervous system gets so used to staying heightened that it eventually becomes a new baseline.

That’s why many who experience something awful can talk about it in therapy for week after week, month after month, and still feel like nothing changes. The words are there, the insight is there, but something else hasn’t shifted. Somatic therapy does involve something else, which lives in the body and not necessarily in thought or memory.

Professionals who practice somatic therapy denver tend to describe it as allowing clients to finish what the nervous system started. Often, upon release of what’s been pent up, it actually feels physical. This might be an unexpected deep breath, the release of clenched jaws or shoulders, the sense of peace that settles without comprehension.

What A Session Really Looks Like

People assume that somatic sessions are all about movement or physicality, but that’s not the case 99% of the time. Instead, a typical session looks like talk therapy, a room with two people talking. The difference? It’s where the attention lies.

A somatic therapist will often have someone pay attention to what’s going on in their body while they’re relaying a narrative about what made them stress out. Where do they feel tension? Is there heaviness? Is their breath juxtaposing their sentiments? They’re not just asking these questions to question someone; rather, they’re inquiring to see if the client notices the information naturally coming up from the body.

From there, a therapist might guide them through slow movement, breathwork and grounding techniques to help calm the nervous system instead of forcing someone to relive something horrible. It’s almost the opposite intention, to gain enough safety and awareness to allow the body to process what it’s been holding onto for too long.

It’s easier for some to experience work instead of just thinking about it, since sometimes it’s hard to put words into trauma. Where trauma can’t be spoken into reality, it can be felt and expressed as such; therefore, somatic approaches are a helpful alternative.

Who This Kind Of Work Is Good For

Somatic therapy has a solid reputation for trauma and PTSD, but that’s not where it stops. Anxiety, stress in general, burnout, grief and even longstanding disassociation from emotion can benefit from body-based work.

The problem? Many people hold tension for too long that it just becomes background noise, the tight neck they’ve always had, the restlessness that never went away, and that’s all it is, and doesn’t mean anything beyond that. Somatic therapy helps people reconnect with what’s going on and how it’s talking so they can finally listen.

It’s not about becoming hypervigilant about sensations, which creates anxiety; rather, it’s about recoupling with the body as a valid source of information instead of something bad or something to endure.

Why It Works Alongside Other Approaches

What makes somatic work so useful is that it doesn’t have to replace whatever else someone is doing; it works alongside cognitive-based approaches and medication when necessary, as well as complementary support systems. In fact, more comprehensive solutions become available through talk therapy and body-based work, seeing as mind and body should not be separate entities, despite mental health solutions making them so sometimes for convenience’s sake.

The more addressed, the better one will feel versus one or the other.

What To Take Away From This

Somatic therapy isn’t some fringe ideology, but rather researched, grounded interventions based upon how well the nervous system functions, like how trauma gets stored in the body. For those who’ve felt stuck, who’ve done the cognitive work and still feel out of sorts, it’s a true alternative path forward.

The body’s been paying attention all along; somatic therapy is, in many ways, finally listening to it.