Somatic Psychotherapy

So… what is this somatic psychotherapy?

In somatic psychotherapy, we take into account all the traditional forms of therapy and include the experience of the body in the therapeutic process. In other words, we investigate directly the felt sense of our bodies.

Let me give you an example:

Imagine yourself in my office in therapy with me. Now, let’s say you tell me that you are feeling anger, and then I ask you to tell me how you know that. If you are not in touch with your body, you will think I am insane for asking you that:

“What do you mean how do you know that… because I know… I am angry! What is wrong with you… you… shitty-ass therapist?! I am out of here and never coming back!”

No, just kidding… you probably won’t say THAT, but you might get annoyed at my question, because you assume it is obvious that you are angry… that you just “know you know.”

Now, if you are in touch with your body, you will probably recognize a series of particular body sensations and movement associated with anger. You might recognize that your jaw and your fists are tight… perhaps you also feel energy in your chest.

From here, we could do various things. We could try to explore the feelings of tightness, or we could observe the connection between the bodily sensations and your thoughts and emotions. We could also look at your relationship with anger – what is triggering it, for example.

You get the point: By having a connection with our bodies, we have more access points to your inner world, thus having more possibilities of exploration.

The benefits of somatic therapy are not purely explorative…

They are actually very practical.

Going back to our example of anger, when you explore its bodily experience, you can actually come to understand it more deeply – where it comes from and what triggers it… and you can work directly with it to either reduce it or use it in positive ways (yes, anger can be very positive, but we won’t go there right now because it’s a totally different story).

Somatic therapy is also highly effective in helping us regulate our nervous system, like calming down anxiety when needed or the opposite of stimulating energy when we are in a lethargic state. There are many helpful techniques that help us do this, so we can be at an optimal level of energy for daily functioning.

One such technique is, for example, connecting with some aspect of our experience that feels good or calm to counter or balance another aspect of our experience that may be jittery or anxious. So, imagine that you are anxious about a call with your boss that is coming in 15 minutes.

Following this technique, you would first contact how the anxiety is showing up in your body – let’s say you notice that it feels like an intense jittery buzzing sensation in your chest. Very uncomfortable. You take a few breaths and notice how it feels. After that, you scan your body to find an area that feels at ease. It could be your feet or your buttocks as they make contact with the chair. You pay attention to the sensations of ease, softness, openness, spaciousness; and then you begin to go back and forth between the chest and the buttocks. This in turn will activate a relaxation process that likely will reduce the anxiety in your chest.

There are many other ways you could go about this, but the point is that there are many options of working with our emotional/mental states. In somatic therapy, we learn those options; and we learn to discern how and when to apply what.

Putting you in touch with your most advanced GPS…

I often say that we have the most advanced navigation system in our nervous system; but, in order to access it, we need to be in touch with our physicality.

If we are only caught up in our heads or even in our emotions, we won’t perceive our bodies during our waking moments – and we’ll miss essential information about navigating reality.

The more we “get into our cells” and perceive consciously the lived experience of our bodies, the more we intuitively know how to respond appropriately to the circumstances in front us. By being in touch with our body… by really inhabiting it… we begin to develop a sense of “presence” that can became one of our greatest resources. Eventually, this sense of self can begin expanding into a palpable aliveness that is free and unencumbered by your history, your thoughts, and your feelings.

In other words, by paying attention to the sensations of our bodies, we can begin to experience a palpable sense of ourselves that is not just an idea or a mental construct. Instead, we feel our self as a concrete being who experiences thoughts and feelings, but we are not defined by them.

We can see our thoughts, we can see our feelings, but we are not our thoughts or feelings. This creates a lovely distance from our thoughts and feelings that makes us go about our day with more ease. Furthermore, as we practice this kind of embodiment, we develop a precise sensitivity that can guide us in our day-to-day navigation of life.

There was a study at the University of Iowa were participants were asked to pull from two decks of cards organized in a particular way. As they pulled cards, the value of the card pulled would indicate a particular amount of money the participant would receive or lose. One of the decks was arranged so that they would lose a little bit; the other one was arranged so that they would win a bit more. After about 50 to 80 trials, participants would figure out that the decks were rigged. Now the interesting part is that participants were connected to EEGs and other instruments to measure skin conductivity, temperature, and so on. Well, their bodies were already giving signals after 10 trials.

Are you kidding me… 10 trials? Basically, our bodies know what’s going on way before our minds catch up. By practicing embodiment and these types of practices, we can consciously begin to became aware of this processing giving us a wealth of information.