What is Somatic Therapy? Learn What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How It Helps
Somatic therapy is a gentle, body-based approach to healing that recognizes how trauma, stress, and emotion can live in the nervous system, not just in our thoughts.
There is so much misinformation these days about what somatic therapy for trauma is and what it isn’t. I will be exploring this today from my point of view as a licensed clinical social worker who has completed three years of training plus consultation hours to become a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. I am hoping to be able to dispel some myths about what I do and what I don’t do in order to help people know if this type of therapy is what they are actually looking for.
At Embodied Healing Collective, we talk about trauma healing through the lens of the mind-body connection, nervous system regulation, and compassionate, client-centered care. Somatic Experiencing is one way to support that process, especially for people who feel like talk therapy has helped, but has not fully reached what their body is still carrying.
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy is a gentle, body-based approach to healing that recognizes how trauma, stress, and emotion can live in the nervous system, not just in our thoughts. In the compassionate, client-centered spirit of Embodied Healing Collective, somatic work invites you to slow down, listen to your body with curiosity, and build enough safety and capacity to process what you have been carrying at a pace that feels supportive rather than overwhelming.
Somatic Therapy Isn’t a Quick Fix for Trauma Healing
People seek out therapies like EMDR and somatic therapy in order to get “straight to the point” and change their relationship to their trauma. This can leave people frustrated when the therapist starts to get information from them about their backgrounds, their social supports, their work life, their coping skills, and their spirituality. Building rapport and understanding a client is absolutely necessary before doing any trauma work.
Also, it might be clinically unwise to go straight to trauma work depending on how regulated a client is able to be. As weird as it sounds, going slow can be more effective and actually faster than going straight in and retraumatizing somebody. (It is more ethical, too.)
This is why trauma-informed therapy often focuses first on safety, pacing, and building capacity. If you are looking for somatic therapy in Kansas City, the goal is not to rush your nervous system. The goal is to support your system in a way that feels sustainable.
Somatic Therapy Isn’t a Trauma Exorcism
Somatic therapy gets a weird reputation in the clinical world due to the term “somatic” being used everywhere by all sorts of different people and practitioners. I am not asserting that these other ways practitioners are using their skills are not helpful, but it isn’t what I practice. Potential clients come to me with the vision in their heads that they will be shaking, screaming, and stomping things out and getting better from that. That isn’t what this is.
Somatic Experiencing is a body-based trauma therapy that uses careful attention to body sensations, emotions, images, impulses, and meaning. Research on Somatic Experiencing describes interoception and proprioception as central parts of the work, which means the therapy often involves noticing what is happening inside the body in a safe, supported way. A Frontiers in Psychology article available through the National Library of Medicine explains how Somatic Experiencing uses these internal cues as core elements of trauma therapy.
Somatic Therapy Isn’t Nervous System Biohacking
Biohacking is the use of strategic interventions based on data in order to improve mental or physical health and performance. I have seen with my own two eyes how somatic therapy has become a form of biohacking in the mental health space. It has the connotation of being able to heal people quickly from trauma so they can go about their lives. The idea is that you can just focus on the nervous system and feel better by “letting things go and flow through you.” This is a small picture of what we are doing in somatic therapy, but it is way more complex than this.
Nervous system regulation is part of the work, but it is not a shortcut, hack, or performance tool. For many people, trauma healing includes learning to notice stress responses, build emotional resilience, and reconnect with the body over time. If you want to learn more about how this fits into a broader wellness context, you may also like How Somatic Therapy Supports Kansas City’s Wellness Community.
Somatic Therapy Still Includes Feelings, Trauma Narratives, and the Therapeutic Relationship
I truly believe that some of the allure of somatic therapy for a small group of people is that it is just a body-based modality that stays at the body. It is true that somatic therapy heavily involves body sensations and explores nervous system states in order to help resolve trauma patterns. However, this doesn’t mean that trauma narratives, certain behaviors, and emotions won’t be analyzed. It doesn’t mean that the therapeutic relationship isn’t prioritized and that the work isn’t deeply vulnerable.
A body-based approach does not mean your story disappears. It means we may listen to your story with more information available, including what your body is communicating. For some clients, combining somatic work with other approaches, such as CBT and somatic therapy, can create a gentler bridge into trauma healing.
Somatic Therapy Isn’t Solely Directed by the Therapist
I have had potential clients say things to me like “I just need you to get the trauma out of me,” or “just tell me what to do,” or “is there a certain stretch or exercise that I can do to help release this trauma?”
Somatic therapy is a bottom-up therapy, meaning that we take the cues from the body in order to understand and process what needs to happen in order to close stress cycles. While I understand the desire for quick answers and the desperation for things to feel better quickly, it is important that clients know that the therapist is there to guide them to find their own wisdom.
It would be entirely too egotistical of me as a therapist to assume that I know just the right thing for you to do in order to feel better. I have seen time and time again that by listening to somebody’s body and taking cues from there, we find just what somebody needs in order to feel better.
This client-centered approach is one reason consent, choice, and pacing matter so much in trauma therapy. If you are curious about another body-based, consent-forward approach, read Trauma Touch Therapy in Kansas City: What It Is, How It Works, and Why Consent Matters.
Somatic therapy is not “just noticing sensations.” It is an integrated trauma therapy approach that makes room for the body, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and the meaning you have made from your experiences.
Somatic Therapy Involves the Whole Person, Not Just the Body
Sure, the thing that draws a lot of people in is that somatic therapy focuses on the soma (aka the physiology). However, in somatic therapy (particularly Somatic Experiencing), we use all aspects of SIBAM in order to treat somebody. SIBAM stands for:
Sensation: what is felt in the body
Image: what picture is in the mind
Behaviors: what somebody is doing (habits, movements, etc)
Affect: how expressive somebody is
Meaning: how a person is making sense of things
SIBAM is an important part of this treatment because it helps the therapist and the client to get a full picture of what is going on. It can also help people who don’t have strong interoceptive awareness start somatic therapy in a way that is less intimidating to them.
In other words, somatic therapy is not “just noticing sensations.” It is an integrated trauma therapy approach that makes room for the body, emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and the meaning you have made from your experiences.
What Does Somatic Experiencing Help With?
Somatic Experiencing is often used to support people working through trauma symptoms, chronic stress, anxiety, emotional numbness, and patterns of nervous system dysregulation. A scoping review on Somatic Experiencing notes growing interest in somatic therapy as a body-oriented trauma therapy and summarizes early findings on its effectiveness and key factors. You can read the review through the National Library of Medicine.
This does not mean somatic therapy is the right fit for every person in every season. It does mean that, for some clients, a body-based therapy can help access parts of the healing process that talking alone has not fully reached.
How to Know if Somatic Therapy Could Be Right for You
Somatic therapy with a licensed therapist could be right for you if:
You have tried talk therapy and it has only gotten you so far
You have intellectual beliefs that it doesn’t feel like your body believes
You are ready to talk about your feelings
You are willing to slow down and get curious about your sensations
You are curious about the nervous system
You are comfortable with the bottom-up orientation of this intervention
You are tired of thinking in circles about the problem
If you are exploring trauma therapy, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, or a more integrated mind-body approach, you can learn more about somatic therapy for trauma at Embodied Healing Collective or read Somatic Therapy for Trauma: A Gentle, Client-Centered Healing Approach.
Happy Healing!
Start Your Trauma Healing Journey With Somatic Therapy
At Embodied Healing KC, our trauma-informed therapists guide you with compassion and skill, helping you safely process emotions and build resilience. If you are ready to start healing from trauma and would like some support, reach out! Trauma-informed therapist Lauren Bradley has immediate openings and is ready to help you on your journey.
Frequently Asked Questions About Somatic Therapy
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Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to therapy that pays attention to how stress, trauma, and emotions show up in the body. In Somatic Experiencing, a therapist may help you notice sensations, impulses, emotions, images, and meaning so your nervous system can process experiences at a safe and manageable pace.
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You may talk about your experiences, but somatic therapy does not always require retelling every detail of a traumatic event. Many sessions focus on what is happening in the present moment, including body sensations, emotions, and nervous system responses. A licensed therapist can help you move at a pace that supports safety and choice.
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Somatic therapy may help some people better understand their anxiety, stress responses, and patterns of nervous system activation. The work often includes building awareness of body cues, practicing regulation, and increasing capacity to stay connected to yourself during difficult emotions.
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Talk therapy often focuses heavily on thoughts, stories, patterns, and emotions. Somatic therapy includes those pieces, but also brings attention to physical sensations, impulses, posture, breath, and the body’s stress responses. Some people find that this helps them access healing in a different way than talk therapy alone.
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If you are looking for somatic therapy in Kansas City, Embodied Healing Collective offers trauma-informed therapy services that may include Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, talk therapy, and other supportive approaches. You can learn more about services at Embodied Healing Collective.
Stevie Olson-Spiegel is a Licensed Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner located in Kansas City. She uses Somatic Experiencing as her main body-based trauma healing modality, as well as EMDR. As an Intuitive Eating Counselor, she uses these principles to help her clients challenge their relationship with their cultural misconceptions about their body and food.
