6 Reasons Trauma Therapy Should Include the Body

As a somatic psychotherapist in private practice for almost 10 years, I often get the question “what’s the difference between body-centered approaches and more traditional talk therapy?” and “is it really beneficial to include the body?”. Most of us are familiar with focusing on our thoughts, emotions and behaviors in therapy, rather than paying attention to our physical states. And yet, I’ve also heard from many individuals experiencing disappointment after engaging in years of talk therapy without achieving the desired changes. You may relate and feel like you’ve tried everything. But think about this for a moment, the mind is not the only factor that contributes to personal growth and transformation. In fact, neglecting the body's role in the therapeutic process can create a barrier to change.

When we solely focus on cognitive processes, we may overlook the crucial information stored in the body. This can lead to feelings of frustration and discouragement, as the desired changes fail to materialize. By incorporating somatic (body-centered) approaches into therapy, we can unlock a more comprehensive understanding of our experiences and emotions. Yes, it’s true! So, here are six profound possibilities of healing when incorporating the body in psychotherapy:

6 Reasons Body-Centered Therapy Can Create More Change

1. Access and release stored emotions, tension, and stress held in the body, which can contribute to better mental and emotional health. Our physical body holds emotions, memories, and trauma, and it often reflects our mental and emotional state. The impact of trauma and overwhelming experiences live inside the body through nervous system responses of anxiety, depression, fear, dissociation, and more. These nervous system responses are often things we can’t talk our way out of and we need more somatic skills to help address the states of overwhelm and get support for underlying needs.

2. Work with the body's physiological and energetic systems to help process at the necessary pace for the individual, avoiding overwhelm that can result from solely talking through difficult experiences. When we recount traumatic or challenging experiences on autopilot, which many of us do, our bodies can become activated and experience increased stress levels, as if the original event were happening all over again. When we aren’t paying attention to this we can often leave a talk session feeling worse than when we started. When we take a somatic approach, we pay a lot of attention to signs that the body is getting overwhelmed and we take care to gradually process the information so that we can create and integrate a new nervous system pattern. Through this process, the body and mind can heal and reorganize, reducing the hold of trauma and creating new, more adaptive ways of responding to triggers.

3. Build a mind-body connection, and deepen self-awareness. Somatic therapy helps individuals become more aware of their bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions, promoting a better understanding of how these aspects interact and influence each other. This increased awareness can lead to improved overall well-being and a more balanced state of mind. This deep understanding also empowers us to respond to our needs and desires in a more mindful and compassionate way. We learn methods to self-soothe, get grounded and centered, and stay more connected to body, mind, and spirit.

4. Deepen understanding of attachment wounds that often start with non-verbal experiences stored in our body. Many of us have attachment issues from childhood that show up again and again in our current relationships. Our most profound attachment experiences begin in infancy, when experiences are non-verbal, and taken in through our senses such as touch. You can reach new levels of attachment understanding by working with therapeutic touch and body-centered modalities.

5. Befriend and reconnect with your whole self by repairing past boundary ruptures. Multifaceted factors such as trauma, oppression, and cultural influences on race, gender and body image, can contribute to a complex and disconnected relationship with one’s own body. Somatic therapy aims to repair these boundary ruptures and alleviate distress within the body, leading to a more gratifying and integrated embodied experience.

6. Understand the autonomic nervous system and window of tolerance to help feel more empowered and involved in the healing process. We all have a nervous system. And states within the nervous system are huge factors in our mental health and well-being. An important concept in trauma healing and a somatic approach is the window of tolerance. This is the sweet spot where you’re functioning well. It’s a comfortable zone where your body can handle stress and recover from it without getting too overwhelmed. Somatic therapy helps build understanding and provides direct experiences of tracking physiological states, helping individuals learn to return to their window of tolerance more easily, and expand the zone so that they can stay there more often. We can’t think our way into understanding this because it is in the language of the body - which are sensations and physical signs of distress, relaxation, and ease.

In Conclusion

Somatic approaches can help you feel more resilient and comfortable when dealing with life’s stressors. By focusing on the body’s physiological and psychological processes, these approaches can help individuals adapt to and manage significant changes in their lives. It can also help you feel more connected to yourself and your emotions, which is often an ultimate goal, right? And you know what else? Somatic therapy has a huge experiential component, meaning that you engage in new practices in sessions, which can really assist with learning new ways of being. This type of holistic approach is helpful for healing and recovering from trauma and difficult life experiences, as well as managing chronic stress, attachment issues, low self worth, anxiety and depression.

Somatic Therapy and Somatic Experiencing in NC

I am a somatic therapist and am passionate about incorporating the body in the therapeutic work to really help with transformation. If you are looking to incorporate the body in your therapeutic journey and want to learn more about treatment options in NC, please reach out below:

• Check out my services here including somatic therapy, somatic experiencing, therapeutic yoga, and somatic focused EMDR.

• Contact me to schedule an initial session or discovery call here.