What Is Somatic Therapy and How Does It Work?

Somatic therapy is very similar to talk therapy. You still have space to share your story, talk about your life, and explore what is causing you distress. The difference is that I may sometimes pause the story and invite you to notice what is happening in your body.

You have your verbal story, but your nervous system may be telling another part of the story.

As we slow down, we might notice physical sensations, emotions, images, gestures, thoughts, or beliefs that arise as you talk about something. Rather than moving quickly past those experiences, we can become curious about what is happening and what might need attention.

By pausing to explore what is underneath the story, we can sometimes begin to uncouple the past from the present. An experience may have happened years ago, but your body and nervous system can still respond in ways that reflect what you experienced then.

Who Can Benefit From Somatic Therapy?

Most people can benefit from talk therapy. At the same time, most of us weren't taught how to be with our bodies and emotions in a way that helps us understand and regulate what we're experiencing.

Somatic therapy can help anyone develop greater awareness of their internal experience—learning to notice sensations, recognize emotional patterns, and develop more capacity to stay present with difficult emotions rather than becoming overwhelmed by them or disconnecting from them.

This can be particularly helpful for people experiencing chronic stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, or chronic pain, especially when they feel like they understand what's happening intellectually but continue to experience the same patterns in their body or nervous system.

From a somatic perspective, symptoms and nervous-system responses can be understood as signals that something needs attention. There may be accumulated emotional experiences, protective responses, or patterns that developed earlier in life that are still showing up in the present.

Sometimes this can look like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses. Sometimes it can feel like chronic tension, anxiety, shutdown, disconnection, or difficulty regulating emotions.

There may also be younger parts of ourselves that are still carrying experiences or unmet needs from the past. Rather than trying to push those experiences away, somatic therapy offers an opportunity to slow down, become curious about what is happening, and begin to offer those parts of ourselves the attention and support they may have needed.

What Does a Somatic Therapy Session Look Like?

A somatic therapy session may look very similar to a traditional talk therapy session. You will still have space to talk about your life, your relationships, and whatever is causing you distress. The difference is that we may sometimes slow the conversation down to notice what is happening inside you as you talk.

Early in our work together, I introduce some basic tracking skills so we can develop a shared language for noticing your internal experience. You might begin to notice physical sensations, emotions, images, gestures, thoughts, or beliefs that arise as you talk about something.

I may pause you and ask questions such as, What are you noticing right now? Where do you feel that? Does anything change as you stay with it?

If you don't notice anything in your body, that's okay too. For many people, learning to recognize and name their internal experience takes time. You may simply not have been taught how to notice how emotions show up in your body.

If there is a lot of tension or activation present as you talk about something, we might initially do something very simple—perhaps pause and notice your feet on the floor, take a moment to orient to the room, or place a hand on your chest. There are many ways to enter the process, and we work at a pace that feels manageable for you.

Some people have a difficult time identifying what they're experiencing internally. In those moments, I may ask about an image that comes to mind or offer a menu of words to help you begin putting language to your experience. Over time, you can develop a greater ability to recognize and map your own emotional and physical responses.

The goal isn't to become hyper-focused on your body or to find something wrong with every sensation. It's about developing a more nuanced awareness of your internal experience and becoming more familiar with what happens inside you when you're stressed, activated, overwhelmed, or disconnected.

Is Somatic Therapy Intense?

For some people, paying closer attention to their internal experience can initially feel unfamiliar or even scary. Working with difficult emotions and experiences can also be intense at times. That's why pacing is an important part of somatic therapy.

There are many ways to slow the process down so that you aren't asked to take on more than you can comfortably work with in a given moment. We may move toward an experience briefly and then come back to the present, shift our attention outward, notice your surroundings, or use other resourcing and grounding practices.

A significant part of the work can be helping your body learn that you can experience difficult emotions while also experiencing moments of safety in the present. External orientation and resourcing can help you develop access to those experiences of safety, so that you have more choices in how you respond when something difficult arises.

We don't have to explore everything at once. The goal isn't to overwhelm you or force difficult material to the surface. Instead, we work collaboratively and at a pace that allows you to stay connected to yourself while gradually becoming more able to be with what you're experiencing.

How Can Somatic Therapy Help?

Somatic therapy offers another way of working with experiences that may not fully shift through talking alone. By bringing gentle attention to the relationship between your thoughts, emotions, body, and nervous system, you can begin to recognize patterns that may have been difficult to understand before.

Sometimes there is a backlog of emotions, experiences, or parts of ourselves that haven't been fully tended to. Slowing down and becoming curious about what is happening can help you better understand what needs attention and begin to develop new ways of responding.

Somatic therapy isn't about ignoring your story or replacing talk therapy. Your story matters. It's about creating another way to explore what you're experiencing—one that includes both the story you can tell and what you may be experiencing internally as you tell it.

I integrate Somatic Experiencing® with Brainspotting and Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work, depending on what is most helpful for each person. If you're curious whether somatic therapy might be a good fit for you, I offer a free 15-minute consultation to talk about what you're experiencing and answer your questions.

I'm Alicia Ankenman, MA, LPC, SEP, BSP, based in Boulder, Colorado, working with clients from Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and surrounding communities.