Hakomi Method
Somatic Psychotherapy
Core Principles of Somatic Therapy
Somatic Therapy / Healing / Counseling / Guidance – somewhat interchangeable words. I’ll detail more of my process below.
Let’s get technical for a moment: Somatic therapy is a holistic approach to healing that emphasizes the connection between mind and body. It recognizes that psychological distress, trauma, and habitual patterns are not just stored in the mind but are also held in the body through tension, posture, and physical sensations. By working directly with the body, this process helps access deeper emotional experiences and create lasting change.
Mind-Body Integration: The body is seen as a gateway to the unconscious mind and emotional experiences. Physical sensations and movements often reveal underlying beliefs or unresolved emotions.
Mindfulness and Present Awareness: My clients are guided to notice their bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions in the present moment. This helps bring implicit memories or patterns into conscious awareness.
Trauma Resolution: Trauma often disrupts the nervous system, leading to patterns like hyperarousal or shutdown. Somatic healing uses gentle techniques to help my clients regulate their nervous system and release trauma held in the body.
Experiential Learning: Instead of only talking about problems, my clients actively explore them through body-based exercises like movement, breathing, or posture shifts.
How Healing Works – Growing Emotional Capacity & Resilience
Emotions flow like waves—they arise, peak, and eventually subside if allowed to move freely. Each emotion, whether joy, sadness, anger, fear, or pleasure, is connected to our flow of aliveness and contributes to the natural ebb and flow of our inner experience. Our life force and sense of aliveness is like the ocean, and each emotion is a wave that comes and goes. However, when we block one emotion—by suppressing sadness or avoiding anger, for instance—we disrupt the entire emotional system and therefore, shut down life force aliveness. This blocking can create stagnation, where unresolved feelings linger beneath the surface, affecting our well-being. Allowing the full wave of emotion to move through us creates balance and helps us access the depth and richness of our emotional lives. By embracing all emotions, we support a healthier, more integrated way of being
For instance, imagine feeling deep sadness after a loss but suppressing it because it feels too overwhelming or inconvenient. Over time, this unprocessed sadness might manifest as irritability, numbness, or even physical tension. By allowing yourself to fully experience the sadness—perhaps through tears, shifting your posture, or feeling and releasing built up body tension related to the sadness—you allow the wave of emotion to move through you. This process not only helps release the sadness but also makes room for other emotions, like gratitude or peace, to arise naturally. Blocking one wave, however, can create a bottleneck that prevents the flow of all emotions, including joy and aliveness, leaving you disconnected from your emotional vitality.
So, with this work I offer to you a skillset for a new way of being - aliveness is on the other side of letting go.