“The wound is the place the light enters you.”
— Rumi
What Is Somatic Therapy?
mind + body
It is so important in therapy to address not only the mental component of your suffering (thoughts, memories, self-images, beliefs and deficiency stories) but also the energetic component that is stored in the soma (body) as contractions, defences and patterns of energy. Woven together, this mental and somatic material is why we suffer: be it shame, depression, anxiety, addictive compulsions or trauma.
This is why traditional talk therapies can struggle to help resolve things like addiction and trauma, because the somatic 'content' remains unaddressed.
Somatic Inquiry reconnects body and mind, illuminating deep, subtle, and even unconscious layers of suffering, empowering you to bring them to rest. In this way, it is a profound tool for personal discovery, healing and growth
How Somatic Healing Works
Somatic therapy starts by helping you to calm and regulate your nervous system. Leaning into the Polyvagal theory of Stephen Porges, I first teach you tools to move out of painful fight, flight or freeze responses, into greater embodied presence. This can help reverse the impacts of early traumatic experiences that can lead to a feeling of disconnection from the body and your emotions. This foundational work creates a powerful container for somatic healing to occur. Combining focused awareness with skilful lines of inquiry I then guide you gently inwards, connecting you to the natural healing capacity of the body and the deep process of change that transforms your suffering.
As a certified inner focusing teacher, I help you come into a deep and compassionate relationship with your inner family of parts. These show up as a tapestry of contractions, energies and images that are held deep in the body. Often unconscious, and almost always overlooked, they hold the keys to your healing, together with a treasure trove of unmetabolised emotions and feelings. From abandonment, grief, anger, hurt and shame, to feelings of not belonging, being unlovable, broken, weak or not enough, somatic therapy gives you the tools to hold, heal and re-parent your many inner parts and wounded places.
Trusting the deep intelligence of the body, we soon discover that nothing ‘external’ is needed to heal because the body already knows what to do. The keys to the medicine you seek are already within you.
Some benefits of somatic therapy with me
As a somatic psychotherapist, I help you to connect to the dynamic inner guidance of your body on a path of healing, growth & discovery
Go deeper than traditional talk therapy; feeling into rather than talking about
Explore the root causes of your suffering, building pathways to sustainable change
Free yourself from unconscious beliefs and programs that keep you in suffering
Explore the possibility of who you are beyond diagnostic labels
Befriend the rejected, misunderstood or scary parts of you
Learn how to bring the inner critic to rest
Find freedom from old patterns of trauma, depression, anxiety, and shame
Experience a deeper, more embodied sense of wholeness
Cultivate a somatic spiritual practice that is embodied, tangible and relevant to your life
Feel more connected to yourself and the world around
Build a sense of safety in your body and mind
If you are a somatic psychotherapist or somatic counsellor, learn somatic therapy exercises to deepen your work with clients
If you are interested in somatic therapy courses, I teach Inner Relationship Focusing and Somatic Focusing
My Approach to Somatic Therapy
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Kiloby Emotional Repression Inquiry
Founded by Scott Kiloby, the Kiloby Inquiries (KI) are laser-like tools that unearth the deep drivers of our suffering from the unconscious recesses of the mind and body. This includes material that is actively repressed by the ego - such as the memories and body contractions comprising stored trauma, but also positive qualities and attributes such as our power, agency, innocence or the sense of being good enough.
I trained 1:1 over the course of two years with Scott in private session and am a certified facilitator of the Kiloby Inquiry method. It is the basis of a ground breaking outpatient program in the US known - the Kiloby Center for Recovery - which uses somatic awareness practises to treat addiction, trauma, anxiety and depression
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Somatic Focusing
Discovered by Eugene Gendlin, Inner Focusing is the art of deep somatic listening. It is a process that first creates safety in the body before gently bringing into focus a type of inner knowing in the body called 'the felt sense': a fuzzy mix of emotion, feeling and sensation that is often hard to describe in words. The felt sense is a dynamic reservoir of wisdom that offers the possibility of healing our many wounded inner parts: painful, lonely, angry, ashamed, compulsive, grieving and beyond.
By consciously, gently and compassionately tuning into all of our parts in this way, we give them space to be fully felt and to heal. This also yields insights into their origins, offering new opportunities for healing the past, transformation, self understanding and growth.
Focusing also connects us to inner resources of Being such as peace, clarity, self love, flow and connectedness, powerfully equipping us on our journey through life and in the depths of any given situation.
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Diamond Inquiry
Founded by A. H. Almaas, the Diamond Approach is a spiritual school that fuses contemporary psychology with the contemplative practices of eastern wisdom traditions. At its core, the Diamond Approach holds that all inner phenomena (feelings, sensations, body energies) - whether fleeting and subtle or powerful and dynamic - are doorways into deeper spiritual resources and states of being.
The core practice of the Diamond Approach is self-inquiry, which moves us through these inner doorways to connect with and ultimately embody deeper essential facets of our being: our spiritual inheritance. This includes navigating the many inner obstacles we encounter along the way.
Somatic spirituality
Once discovered, the doorway of somatic inquiry can open into a journey of life long discovery, even into the sacred (or non-dual) dimensions of Being. This affords the possibility of a spirituality that is both accessed through the body, but one that is also rooted in it. A spirituality that feels tangible, palpable and flesh-and-blood real. One that is dynamic and fully alive, capable of unfolding us ever more deeply and perpetually, into embodied dimensions of Truth.
As a certified meditation teacher, I combine somatic work with mindfulness and deep self-inquiry practises to help you cultivate a deeper connection to the sacred dimensions of Being.
