Somatic therapy emphasizes the body's role in healing trauma, stress, and emotional disconnection, unlike traditional talk therapy that focuses mainly on thoughts and stories. It uses body awareness, movement, breath, and sensation tracking to release stored tension, helping you reconnect with your authentic self beyond survival masks. Somatic therapy is also a broad umbrella term for any modality that recognizes the body–mind connection and works with both, rather than treating them as separate. Often it uses a “bottom up” approach, which means starting with the body and nervous system (sensations, impulses, movement) so that shifts can naturally ripple up into emotions, beliefs, and behavior—rather than trying to think your way into feeling different.

Online somatic therapy takes place over a secure video platform (such as Zoom) and is adapted to fit your space, comfort, and nervous system pace. You’ll be guided through practices like breathwork, grounding, sensing into different parts of your body, and sometimes creative or expressive exercises. In your own space, you might be invited to gently move or sway, stretch, change your posture, hum or make simple sounds, place your hands on your heart or belly, or draw and journal between or during sessions. The work is collaborative and consent-based, so you’re always choosing what feels supportive and doable in the moment.

Because this practice is offered online, there is no physical touch from the therapist. Instead, you might be guided to use forms of self-touch that help your nervous system feel safer and more regulated. This can include self-hugging, placing your hands over your heart or shoulders, gently holding your own face, or using havening-style techniques such as slow, soothing stroking of your arms. All touch invitations are optional and can be adapted or skipped entirely; the focus is always on helping you notice and respond to your body’s internal sensations and cues.

Somatic therapy can be supportive for people navigating childhood emotional neglect, complex trauma, dissociation, depression, burnout, chronic pain, or autoimmune conditions with a trauma component. It is especially helpful for overachievers and highly intellectual people who deeply understand their patterns and diagnoses yet still feel stuck in them. If you feel “high-functioning” on the outside but numb, shut down, or overwhelmed on the inside—especially if talk therapy has helped you understand yourself but not fully feel different—body-centered work can offer another way in.

Talk therapy works primarily through cognition and narrative. Somatic therapy works through sensation, breath, posture, and the felt sense of what your body is holding. Both have value. Somatic work is especially useful when insight hasn't been enough, when the body is still bracing or numb regardless of what you understand.

Somatic therapy is informed by a growing body of research in neuroscience, trauma, and attachment. Clinicians and researchers such as Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, and others have shown how trauma is stored in the body and nervous system, not just in memory or thought. Approaches that include body awareness, movement, breath, and sensory regulation are increasingly recognized as important components of trauma treatment. Many somatic practitioners also integrate expressive, creative, and spiritual frameworks, allowing you to draw on multiple pathways of healing—not just cognitive insight.

Yes. Online somatic work is genuinely different from in-person, and it's not less effective. We use video to track your body language, breath, and shifts in tone. You're in your own space, which often makes deeper work easier. Most of my caseload is online and I've been working this way since training.

This varies. Some people work short-term to navigate a specific transition. Others work longer-term on complex trauma or attachment patterns. We talk openly about pacing and you decide what works for you.