Somatic Psychotherapy

What Is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic Therapy is a body-based approach to psychotherapy that works directly with the nervous system.

While often associated with trauma treatment, somatic therapy is not limited to trauma alone. It supports the exploration of any experience that feels unresolved, persistent, or difficult to shift through insight alone.

This may include:

• Anxiety or chronic internal activation
• Depression or emotional heaviness
• Addictive or compulsive patterns
• Dissociation or shutdown
• Lingering emotional states that feel difficult to name

Somatic work recognizes that many psychological symptoms are not simply cognitive — they are physiological patterns shaped by stress, attachment, and lived experience.

By gently increasing awareness of bodily sensations and nervous system responses, Somatic Therapy allows protective patterns to soften and integrate. The goal is not only symptom reduction, but d

Who Benefits from Somatic Therapy?

Somatic Therapy may be appropriate if you experience:

• Persistent anxiety or hypervigilance
• Emotional reactivity
• Chronic stress despite insight
• Attachment-related distress
• Dissociation or shutdown
• Trauma symptoms

Many clients are high-functioning professionals who feel internally activated despite external success.

Somatic Therapy helps shift the nervous system from survival mode into grounded regulation.

Integrating Somatic Therapy with other Interventions

Somatic Therapy, more broadly, refers to a category of body-based psychotherapies that work with the nervous system, physiological activation, and embodied emotional experience.

At Wall Street Therapy, somatic treatment is integrative. It may draw from somatic principles while also incorporating:

• Attachment-based psychotherapy
• EMDR-informed trauma processing
• Parts-informed exploration
• Relational depth work

This broader approach allows treatment to be tailored to complex trauma, anxiety, dissociation, compulsive patterns, and relational stress — not solely acute trauma symptoms.

Body–mind therapy helps individuals learn to regulate their emotions by increasing body awareness, supporting nervous system regulation, resolving trauma, building resilience, and fostering empowerment. By cultivating a mindful connection between the mind and body, individuals can experience greater self-regulation and overall well-being.

“The greater the role played by experiencing during the therapy hours, the greater will be the therapeutic change and [the more likely] the successful outcome of therapy” (1961, pp. 240-243). To test this hypothesis, Gendlin and his colleagues developed and tested the experiencing scale, which measures the level of experiencing in a segment of therapy. More than 30 studies now show that a higher experiencing level correlates with more successful therapy (Hendricks, 2002).” REFERENCES: Gendlin, E.T. (1961). Experiencing: Available in the process of therapeutic change. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 15(2).

Source:
https://focusing.org/sites/default/files/legacy/pdf/friedman_gendlin_annals.pdf