What to Expect in Somatic Psychotherapy Sessions With Me?
If you've heard that somatic psychotherapy or somatic therapy can help with trauma but aren't sure what actually happens in sessions with me, you're in the right place. This guide explains how we work, what you'll experience, and answers common questions to help you decide with confidence whether body-based therapy is right for you if you are seeking trauma recovery.
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What is Somatic Psychotherapy?
Somatic psychotherapy is a way of healing that recognises your mind and body as deeply connected. It helps you work with physical sensations, breath, posture, and movement—alongside your thoughts and emotions—to process trauma and stress that may still be held in your nervous system. Rather than just talking about what happened, somatic therapy gently guides you to notice and shift the patterns in your body that keep you feeling stuck, unsafe, or reactive.
Think of talk therapy as “top-down” (mind to body) and somatic work as adding “bottom-up” (body to mind). Together, they can create a durable, whole‑person change.
What are the different types of Somatic Therapies?
There are various modalities in Somatic Psychotherapy and they encompasses several distinct approaches, each with unique techniques and emphases:
Somatic Experiencing (SE): Developed by Peter Levine, focuses on releasing trauma stored in the nervous system through tracking sensations, pendulation, and completing defensive responses.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Created by Pat Ogden, integrates cognitive and emotional processing with physical interventions, emphasising mindful awareness of body sensations and movement patterns.
Hakomi Method: A mindfulness-based approach that uses gentle experiments to explore core beliefs held in the body and nervous system.
Body-Mind Centering (BMC): Explores movement, touch, and body systems to deepen awareness and integration of physical and psychological experiences.
Bioenergetic Analysis: Developed by Alexander Lowen, works with chronic muscle tension and breathing patterns to release emotional blocks and increase vitality.
Bodynamic Analysis: Maps psychological development to specific muscle groups, using gentle touch and movement to address developmental trauma.
Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT): Uses creative movement and dance as primary tools for emotional expression, processing, and integration.
Rubenfeld Synergy Method: Combines gentle touch, verbal dialogue, movement, and humor to access and resolve emotional and physical holding patterns.
NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM): Addresses attachment, relational, and developmental trauma by working with core needs and adaptive survival styles while tracking nervous system states.
Polyvagal-Informed Therapy: Based on Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory, focuses on regulating the autonomic nervous system through social engagement, breath, and awareness of safety cues.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing): While primarily cognitive, incorporates bilateral stimulation and body awareness to process traumatic memories.
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga: Adapts yoga practices specifically for trauma survivors, emphasising choice, interoception, and present-moment awareness.
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE): Uses a series of exercises to activate the body's natural tremoring mechanism to release deep muscular patterns of stress and tension.
Many somatic therapists integrate techniques from multiple approaches, tailoring the work to each client's unique needs and nervous system.
Which Somatic Modalities Do I Integrate in Sessions?
My approach draws from multiple evidence-based somatic frameworks, tailored to each client's unique needs and nervous system. Here are the primary modalities I use:
Polyvagal-Informed Therapy: Based on Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory, I focus on regulating the autonomic nervous system through awareness of safety cues, social engagement, and tracking nervous system states (ventral vagal, sympathetic, dorsal vagal).
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: I integrate Pat Ogden's approach of working with mindful awareness of body sensations, movement patterns, and physical interventions alongside cognitive and emotional processing.
Trauma-Informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST): I use this phase-oriented approach that prioritises nervous system stabilisation before processing trauma material. TIST focuses on building affect regulation skills, establishing safety both internally and externally, psychoeducation about trauma responses, working with protective parts and developing internal collaboration, and developing resources for managing dissociation and emotional dysregulation before moving into deeper trauma work.
Somatic Movement: I incorporate gentle, intentional movement as a core tool for building body awareness, completing interrupted defensive responses, and shifting stuck nervous system states. This might include: exploring micro-movements (like subtle shifts in posture or weight), using bilateral movements to support integration and regulation, practicing boundary movements (pushing against a wall, extending arms to create space), completing action impulses that were inhibited during trauma (reaching, pushing away, turning toward/away), and using grounding movements to anchor into the present moment and establish felt safety.
I don't rigidly follow one approach. Instead, I weave together what serves you best, always prioritising your pace, consent, and nervous system's capacity for integration.
What actually happens during a somatic therapy session with me?
A typical 50–90 minute session may include some or all of the following depending on what is supported in session:
Gentle check‑in: You’ll share how you’ve been and what feels most important today and we track your nervous system state in plain, non‑jargon language.
Building a felt sense of safety: Practices to settle, ground and orient. These are invitations, not requirements.
Noticing through 5 senses
Feeling your feet on the floor or the chair supporting you.
Yielding, Rhythmic Rocking, Rolling
Trauma informed breathing practices
Postural alignment
and many more
Tracking sensations and internal states: You might be guided to notice specific sensations like warmth in the chest, tightness in the jaw, or a “butterfly” feeling in the belly—only in tiny doses you can handle. If intensity rises, you might learn how to “pendulate” between what’s uncomfortable and what’s neutral or resourcing, so your system learns it can move through activation and come back to steadiness.
Micro‑experiments to support stuck patterns:
Depending on your goals, we might try:
Movement experiments: subtly straightening posture, turning slightly away or toward, placing a hand on your heart, pushing gently into the wall to feel support and boundaries.
Boundary work: rehearsing a firm “no” with the body, then adding voice, so your system encodes safety and agency.
Completing interrupted responses: if your body wanted to run, curl, or push during past events but couldn’t, you may safely complete that impulse now in a contained, titrated way.
Meaning-making, not re‑living: You’ll connect what you noticed in your body with emotions and thoughts. The story becomes clearer without having to tell every detail of the past. The goal is harmony and integration, not re‑traumatization.
Learning to tend to your parts: In trauma work, you may notice different "parts" of yourself showing up—one part that wants to push forward, another that shuts down, or a critic that says "you're too much." These aren't signs of fragmentation; they're protective strategies your nervous system developed to help you survive.
In sessions, you'll learn to:
Notice parts without judgment: "A part of me feels small right now" or "A part is saying it's not safe to feel this."
Track where parts live in the body: The shutdown part might show up as heaviness in the chest; the hypervigilant part as tension in the shoulders.
Ask what each part needs: Rather than fighting or overriding parts, we explore their protective function and what would help them feel safer.
Build internal collaboration: Over time, parts learn they can trust you (your core Self) to lead, so they don't have to work so hard. This isn't about "getting rid of" parts—it's about helping them trust you, having their needs met in different ways and working together. When parts feel heard and safe, they naturally soften, and you experience more choice, presence, and wholeness.
Closing and take‑home practices. You’ll end grounded, with a simple practice to use between sessions, like a posture cue, orienting exercise, or a boundary rehearsal phrase. Not all sessions can end in feeling grounded, as trauma work can be heavy. The focus for such sessions is to help you learn to contain and tend to the heaviness.
Some Common Questions Clients Ask:
Q: “I’m afraid I’ll be forced to relive trauma.”
A: You won’t. Somatic work is titrated and consent‑based. You set the pace. The focus is on present‑moment body signals, not retelling the worst memories in detail.
Q: “I’m not ‘in touch’ with my body. I’ll fail at this.”
A: Many people start numb or disconnected or dissociated. Noticing even 1% more sensation is progress. Noticing the lack of sensations and inner feelings as a protective parts of you working towards safety is also a big part of the process. Your therapist will use simple, concrete prompts that meet you where you are.
Q: “This sounds woo‑woo. Is there a rationale?”
A: Trauma is stored as patterns in the nervous system—muscle tension, startle reflexes, breath patterns. Habitual Neuromuscular activations in response to experiences and triggers. Processing those patterns requires including the body. Somatic methods give your physiology new experiences of safety and agency, which the brain and body can then encode.
Q: “What if emotions overwhelm me?”
A: You’ll learn skills to regulate in-session: orienting, grounding, pendulation, and resourcing. If activation rises, you slow down, pause, or stop. You stay in charge and learn to develop the nervous system capacity for connecting with your emotions and holding space for them without getting overwhelmed.
Q: “I’ve tried talk therapy; why would this be different?”
A: If insight hasn’t shifted the automatic reactions (freeze, fawn, shutdown, panic), bottom‑up work helps change the reactions themselves. Many people find the combination unlocks change that talk alone didn’t.
Q: “Will I have to touch the therapist or be touched?”
A: No. Touch is not required. If it’s ever considered, it’s discussed thoroughly and only used with explicit consent and clear boundaries. Many therapists never use touch.
Q: “How long does it take?”
A: People often notice early changes like better sleep, less reactivity, or clearer boundaries within a few months. Deeper pattern shifts are gradual and depend on history, support, and frequency of sessions.
Q: “I get bored and annoyed when shifts and changes are slow; what if I don’t like it”
A: That is completely understandable, trauma happens really fast and unpredictably. Your nervous system may have become adapted to feeling safety in familiarity of that fastness; so change needs to feel fast too. However, healing requires slowness and gentle titration to allow your nervous system to actually integrate new patterns of safety. We'll work together to find a pace that honours both your need for momentum and your system's need for consolidation.
Who is Somatic Therapy Best For?
You “know” you’re safe but your body still reacts as if it isn’t.
You feel stuck in freeze, shutdown, or chronic tension.
Traditional talk therapy gave insight but the triggers remain.
You want skills you can use in real time when stress hits.
You prefer practical, experiential work over heavy retelling.
Signs to discuss alternatives or adjuncts
You’re in acute crisis without basic safety or stabilization.
You have medical concerns that limit movement or breath work without supervision.
You prefer strictly cognitive methods.
You have severe dissociation, in which case parts work is more recommended to start with prior to active somatic approaches.
You find it very difficult to notice or be curious about inner sensations, thoughts, or feelings—and that difficulty persists even with support. Somatic work relies on gentle curiosity about what's happening inside. If turning attention inward feels impossible or deeply distressing right now, we can work on building that capacity first, or explore other therapeutic approaches that feel safer.
Somatic therapy can still be adapted, or paired with other supports.
What you’ll likely take away from the first few sessions?
Personalised regulation resources and practices that actually work for your nervous system
A clearer map of your nervous system, triggers, early warning signs, and effective responses
More agency: the felt ability to pause, choose, and protect personal boundaries
Subtle but meaningful shifts: more awareness, subtle shifts in breathing, posture, education to track your body and nervous system, a new language to understand your triggers and responses, deeper understanding of parts of you driving the bus resulting in your symptoms.
What a first session with me looks like?
Intake and goals, with plain‑language education about your nervous system
Safety planning and collaborative pacing agreements
Grounding and Orienting as a safety practice
One or two simple body-based experiments to identify your best “fast calm” tools
Clear next steps and a tiny, doable at‑home practice
You leave grounded, not flooded.
6 Common Myths Vs Realities for Somatic Therapy
Myth: “Somatic therapy is just breathing.”
Reality: Breath is one tool. We also work with posture, movement, memories, boundaries, orienting, and completing defensive responses.
Myth: “I have to remember every detail.”
Reality: We work with how the past shows up now—in your body—without forcing memory.
Myth: “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not working.”
Reality: Ease and choice are the medicine. Change happens through safety, not suffering.
Myth: "Somatic therapy means I have to do yoga or movement exercises."
Reality: While movement can be part of it, somatic work often happens sitting still—noticing micro-shifts in posture, breath, or tension. You don't need to be flexible or physically active.
Myth: "I need to cry or have big emotional and trauma releases to make progress."
Reality: Healing can be quiet and subtle. A slight relaxation in your jaw, a fuller breath, or feeling your feet on the ground are all signs of nervous system change. Big releases aren't required as social media will have you believe.
Myth: "Somatic therapy is a quick fix."
Reality: While some people notice shifts quickly, lasting change takes time. Your nervous system needs repeated, safe experiences to build new patterns. It's a gradual unlearning and relearning process, not a one-session cure.
How to get the most out of somatic therapy?
Go slow and be curious. Subtle body cues matter.
Practice tiny skills between sessions. Repetition rewires.
Name your pace and preferences. Collaboration is core.
Track subtle shifts: fewer flinches, clearer “no,” deeper breaths count.
Utilise the somatic practices resources portal between sessions (SomaExpanse).
Ready to Begin?
If trauma recovery has felt stuck at the level of insight, sensorimotor and somatic psychotherapy add the missing piece: your body’s innate ability to complete incomplete responses and resources. Sessions are collaborative, paced, and practical. You don’t have to retell the worst parts to heal the parts of you that still guard against them.
If this approach resonates, book a consultation or ask any question on your mind. We’ll go at your pace and help your nervous system relearn safety—one grounded step at a time.
