What Is Somatic Therapy?
Medically reviewed by Kira Graves, PhD
Somatic therapy is a type of alternative mental health treatment designed to address trauma and stress-related disorders like post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by exploring how the body impacts the mind.
This body-centric approach is rooted in the idea that your body physically expresses deeply painful experiences, and by addressing these manifestations people can release tension, trauma, and stress from their body. The primary goal of this type of treatment is to modify your trauma-related responses so that they no longer trigger you.
Typically, therapists trained in this type of treatment use breathing exercises, meditation, massage, visualization, and various forms of movement or touch to help lessen your body’s response to stressors.
Keep reading to learn more about this type of therapy including the types, benefits, and uses.
Types of Somatic Therapy
When someone engages in counseling or therapy, they often participate in either talk therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), both of which only engage the mind. The goal of this type of therapy is to create an awareness of thoughts and behavior patterns and work to change them.
But when someone engages in somatic therapy, the counselor or therapist will focus on the body first. The goal of this type of therapy is to help people create an awareness of their bodily sensations and then teach them how to feel safe in their body so that they can explore their emotions, memories, and thoughts. There are several types of somatic therapy. Here are the most common approaches to somatic therapy.
Somatic Experiencing: This type of therapy focuses on resolving symptoms of stress, shock, and trauma that accumulate in the body. During this therapy, you will learn to release built-up bodily sensations in a safe space so that it no longer becomes a trigger for you.
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): With EMDR therapy, you are urged to remember traumatic experiences in short doses while focusing on an external stimulus like sideways eye movements. The goal of this approach is to allow your mind to heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from the physical trauma.
Hakomi: This therapy approach uses mindfulness, or being aware of your internal state and your surroundings, to heal the body and the mind. Throughout the entire session, you remain in a state of mindfulness in order to help you recognize and work with emotionally-charged material.
Neurosomatic Therapy: With neurosomatic therapy, the hidden sources of tension and physical pain in the nervous system, skeletal system, and soft tissues are identified. This pain and tension is then released and healed using massage, posture work, and exercises.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Combining principles of psychotherapy with the techniques from the Hakomi method, sensorimotor therapy is designed to let you re-experience a specific traumatic event and then change the ending. The goal is to allow you to experience some closure.
Related: Best Online Trauma Counseling
Benefits of Somatic Therapy
The primary purpose of somatic therapy is to help people who have experienced trauma or particularly distressing situations restore the mind-body connection so that they can effectively deal with the after-effects of trauma. When going through somatic therapy, people are often urged to explore the physical sensations that accompany their emotions and uncover the habits that are formed in response to those sensations.
Supporters of this type of therapy believe that trauma is not caused by the actual event, but instead caused by the fact that the nervous system is overwhelmed by the perceived threat. This perceived threat then causes distress and imbalance in the body.
But somatic therapy can help a person release the trauma trapped in the nervous system. Consequently, the negative emotions they are experiencing like hyper-vigilance and overreaction disappear.
And though research on the benefits of this type of therapy is limited, one study found that those who engaged in somatic therapy experienced significant reductions in anxiety and somatic symptoms. They also showed an ongoing reduction in their symptoms over the course of three years.
What Somatic Therapy Is For
If you are looking to reduce stress within your body as the result of trauma, PTSD, or another mental health issue like anxiety or depression, somatic therapy may be beneficial for you. Not only does it strengthen the mind-body connection, but it can build resilience and help you learn to navigate and cope with negative thoughts and feelings.
These goals are primarily accomplished by assessing physical sensations and tension through a variety of techniques such as massage, breathwork, and body awareness. Most of the time, somatic therapy is used for people who are struggling with:
PTSD
Trauma
Grief and loss
Addiction
Anxiety
Depression
How It Works
Somatic therapy is still a developing form of therapy. As a result, you will likely find a variety of techniques and approaches within the therapy. Here are some of the more common techniques used to help people identify and connect their physical sensations, emotions, thoughts, and feelings:
Breathwork: This technique involves breathing intentionally to boost awareness of your body so that you can learn self regulation. It also links the mind and body because it involves the physical act of breathing and the mental act of focusing on breathing.
Body awareness: As one of the first steps in releasing tension from the body, you learn to recognize and identify areas of tension as well as calming thoughts and feelings.
Grounding: This is the act of connecting deeply to your body and the earth. When you utilize grounding, or connect your body to the earth, you focus on feeling your feet on the ground. This approach is thought to calm your nervous system.
Titration: With this technique, you will be asked to recall a traumatic memory and as you do so, you will note any physical changes taking place in your body. You then address these changes as they occur.
Pendulation: When using pendulation, a therapist will guide you from a relaxed state to one that feels similar to the trauma you experienced. Then, they will guide you back to the relaxed state. The goal of this approach is to teach you how to get to that relaxed state on your own.
Touch or massage: This technique is designed to directly stimulate the autonomic nervous system. This, in turn, accelerates healing the body where it has been holding in stress and traumatic experiences.
Does It Work?
While there is limited research on the effectiveness of somatic therapy, the existing research demonstrates that it can be particularly useful in treating people who have PTSD or who have experienced some level of trauma.
In fact, one review found that somatic experiencing is effective in reducing traumatic stress and affective disorders, and improving a person’s quality of life. Researchers also noted that the practice is applicable cross-culturally and can be easily combined with other therapeutic options.
Meanwhile, another study found that after using somatic approaches to therapy, 44.1% of people no longer met the criteria for PTSD diagnosis. Likewise, several studies have found that incorporating somatic therapy into a treatment plan can be instrumental in healing, especially when using techniques like grounding and touch.
Risks and Side Effects
Anytime a therapy is used that requires people to touch or be in intimate situations, there are risks involved. At the top of the list are risks for misinterpretation of touch, re-traumatization, regression, and abuse. Because most of these risks are rooted in the abuse of the therapeutic relationship, many people criticize the usage of this type of therapy.
What’s more, when people have a history of trauma, there is a risk of re-traumatization. When this occurs, it can prolong the damage and pain caused by the original trauma. Most experts advise that therapists proceed with caution when treating people with a trauma history.
There also is the risk of regression. When this occurs, the person receiving therapy becomes dependent on the therapist and the relationship begins to resemble a parent-child relationship.
A Quick Review
Somatic therapy is an alternative approach to treatment that is designed to heal a person from traumatic and painful events and restore their mind-body connection. Typically, this type of therapy involves focusing on sensations or feelings in the body that occur in response to difficult or traumatic memories.
Through the use of different techniques or movements, tension and stress are identified so that the person can not only heal from what they have experienced but also learn more effective ways of coping with these sensations. Ultimately, people can use this body-centered approach to become more in tune with the physical manifestations that occur as a result of difficult memories or experiences.
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