Have you ever felt your upper back and neck tighten and then realize you are pretty stressed out at the moment? Have you ever felt your stomach sink and your heart start beating faster when you have awakened to remember that the bad news you received yesterday was actually true? Have you ever felt your shoulders droop and your stomach get queasy in times of sadness? If this rings true for you, and your thinking cannot change these feelings no matter how hard your mind tries, somatic modalities in therapy might be the answer for you. What is somatic therapy, you ask? It is a body centered healing approach that addresses your mind and body (as well as your spirit) as integrated. Whatever happens in one of the three, the other two are impacted.
We live in a culture that appreciates connecting to the thinking mind, but at the same time, we are not taught to connect with what our bodies are telling us. One might be in touch with feelings but have no clue how those feelings are felt in the body. The body holds onto unprocessed emotions and traumatic experiences. We need to honor the integration of our mind, body and spirit. Somatic therapy teaches us to pay attention to our body’s sensations first and understand its pointing us to physical clues about what is going on. This therapy helps us to tune into physical sensations to process and release what is stored in our body. According to Dr. Peter Levine’s pioneering “Somatic Experiencing”, it is understood that trauma can get trapped in the body, which leads to symptoms such as anxiety, chronic pain, and dissociation.
We tend to avoid the feelings in our body and instead think about our feelings in cognitive bypassing. This is a protective mechanism that causes us to numb out and dissociate from the body’s feeling clues. We need a process that helps us to gently learn to hold and feel our distress so that we can make progress in healing, being in touch with the embodiment of feelings. Our nervous systems can become dysregulated by things such as trauma and stress and can send us into our defense mechanism known as fight, flight, and freeze.
In the therapist’s office your therapist might ask you to notice where you feel pain, tension, or other feelings in your body, such as tightness in your chest or pounding of your heart. Once noticed, the therapist might next lead you through breathwork or movement to explore the sensation. Modalities often used include breathwork, movement exercises like stretching, shaking, or even walking. Shaking might seem odd upon first hearing of it. Shaking, however, is a natural stress release technique. It supports the release of physical and emotional tension. It helps with gently moving out of fight, flight, or freeze and nervous system balance. It increases our grounded presence and vitality. It discharges excess stress hormones and tells the brain the threat has passed, so the body can return to regulation.
So, as you can see, somatic therapy offers us a different means of fostering healing by melding mind, body and spirit, paying attention to what the body has to teach us. If you are in therapy, do not hesitate to ask your therapist next time how you can incorporate somatic therapy into your treatment.
Written by Michelle (Shelly) White – MS, LIMHP
Spence Counseling Center provides Christ-centered counseling services that integrate Biblical truth with professional therapeutic practices. With a team of experienced counselors, we help individuals, couples, and families find healing, hope, and growth through faith-based guidance. Our mission is to walk alongside clients as they align their hearts and minds with God’s Word, fostering lasting emotional, spiritual, and relational health. Wherever you may be in life’s journey, we are committed to helping you find strength, knowledge, and the skills to break the patterns that damage relationships and cause emotional pain. We help hurting people find genuine healing.