What does therapy actually look like these days? It varies a lot! Therapy comes in many different modalities with therapists of many backgrounds usually using multiple methods they’ve trained in.
The beauty of having so many different modalities is that you can pick the one (or a combination) that suits you best. Body-based, or somatic therapies, help you attune to your body and learn to pay attention to your body’s sensations and cues to help you disrupt behavior patterns that are no longer serving you. Somatic therapy can strengthen the messages from your body that will help you create the life you want. Body-based therapies like somatic therapy can be used to address any number of issues including trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship issues, bi-polar disorders, grief, loss, and more.
Somatic therapy helps release trauma stored in the body. This release results in changes in behavior and emotional responses to help you feel lighter and less burdened by the past.
Think you’re ready for a body-based mode of therapy? Here are three reasons why you might want to try somatic therapy.
1. You’ve tried talk therapy before but you’re looking for more.
Oftentimes, I will hear that a client has gained some insight into their patterns using talk therapy, but they’re still feeling stuck, still feel like there is a hook that is pulling them back, like they’re still not quite able to move forward the way they want in their life.
Somatic therapy can help identify what that “hook” is and release that pull.
2. You’re ready for the next step in your mental health journey.
You’ve tried or regularly practice yoga, reiki or acupuncture and noticed positive effects on your life: increased ability to manage stress, less pain, more flexibility. You are ready to combine attention to your body with your mental health.
3. Somatic Therapy will change your life.
It sounds cheesy but it’s completely true. Somatic therapy allows you to reach deep inside your habits and patterns, allowing you to shift elements of your life you haven’t been able to reach before.
For example, many of my clients feel like they are not allowed to make mistakes in their lives. Let’s say I have a client named Maria, who when she pays attention to how she feels in her body at the very idea of making mistakes, notices her body is rigid, her heart races, her breathing is shallow and her shoulders scrunch up to her ears. With somatic therapy, Maria can now start to watch for these signals with curiosity, and I can watch for them to come up in session. Noticing when the body moves to these positions we can offer Maria’s body comfort and attention. For example, she may take deep breaths, or lovingly touch her chest over heart with her hand. Then we can follow how the body responds to this attention.
Going through these steps and following the body will often show us a psychological need that we could never have uncovered by talking through this pattern with words alone.
Want to know about somatic therapy, body-oriented therapy, or dance/movement therapy? Drop me an email (kimberly@bemovedtherapy.com) or fill out my contact form so we can connect! I am currently accepting new clients who live across Massachusetts, including Boston and the surrounding area such as Allston, Belmont, Brookline, Chestnut Hill, Concord, Jamaica Plain, Lexington, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Needham, Norwood, Milton, Somerville, Waltham,Watertown, Wellesley, West Roxbury, Westwood and more.