What is Somatic Psychotherapy, and why on earth would I want it?
When people ask me what kind of psychotherapy I do, my mind goes back to my flight out of New York to begin my graduate school program in somatic psychotherapy. My excitement combined with my plane-neighbor’s chattiness meant that our casual conversation quickly turned to why I was flying to San Francisco. I said I was studying psychology, and my neighbor asked me what kind. “Somatic psychology,” I replied with a smile. He paused. I could practically see the gears turning in his head. “Semantic psychology? You mean, how we use words?” “No, somatic…” I stumbled over my words. “Somatic means body… psychology that incorporates the body as well as the mind.” Back then I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. After all, I was just on my way to explore the depths of this field.
I’ve spent the years since then trying to figure out just how to explain what I do or why it was so important to me to practice this kind of therapy that I moved across the country to be able to study it. When I lived in New York, I received an undergraduate degree in psychology, and began teaching yoga soon after graduation. I was amazed to find that as my students held poses, emotions often flowed forth. Sadness, joy, or anger might sweep across their faces with no clear cause in the present moment. After class, they’d tell me they moved through feelings or memories they never got to in years of traditional therapy, and the key seemed to be paying gentle attention to a physical experience in the moment- very different from talking about things in the past!
We are not who we are because of only our minds, but an integration of our minds and bodies. In fact, the evidence is piling up that if we could exist as talking heads in jars, we might not have access to our emotions, personality, or intuition- we essentially wouldn’t be ourselves at all. How you walk, how you breathe, the way you fidget when you’re nervous or melt into a lover’s arms when you feel close to them- these things are as much a part of you as your opinions on who should become president or your vast knowledge of 80’s synth pop.
As a somatic psychotherapist, I feel that any course of therapy that does not address some part of your embodied, neck-down existence is missing a crucial part of your experience. This also means that the therapy that ignores the body is missing an important part of the concern that brought you into therapy, and an important part of how you could feel better, grow, and thrive. We know that depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship problems are afflictions that exist both in the body and the mind- so the cure must involve both as well.
In session, I incorporate that lesson I learned in my yoga classes- attention to the present moment, in a safe space and with gentle guidance, allows one to revisit “stuck” experiences and release built-up tension. Instead of yoga poses, we use conversation and experiences to create the form, but we still work to notice bodily reactions and allow, rather than resist, the sensations that come up. By allowing sensations to arise in this environment, clients find that their experiences and thoughts are transformed.
I strongly encourage you to find a therapist who will welcome your experience on all levels- body, mind, and spirit. Somatic psychotherapists may employ movement, breathing, touch, or simply awareness of sensation in their work. They may describe themselves as body-oriented, embodied, holistic, or integral (but probably not “semantic”) and they are here to support your growth, healing, and curiosity on an embodied level.
This article originally published on the Grateful Heart Holistic Therapy Center blog.