Somatic Therapy

If you are here, you probably have been struggling with stress, depression, or trauma.

Has the help that you have been getting included your body’s natural healing mechanisms in your therapy?

Finding a therapist that has the tools and skills to help you to heal yourself and feel better may be easier than you may realize. When the natural healing systems within the physiology of your bodies response to stress and trauma can be allowed to work in the way that they were meant to, underneath the talking and feeling that happens in therapy, things can shift where they just kept staying stuck before.

But I gotta warn you, “This dance ain’t for everybody, only those that really want to feel better.”

Many people come to me, and want to passively sit in their chair, or on the table, and do nothing, and are frustrated when they don’t get better. If you are really  ready to grow and heal, and to meet your life, even if it is only a little right now, that is enough to get started.

• Learn how to “resource” and connect in to the positive sensations and experiences that you are already having.
• Understand some of how your bodies natural defense mechanisms have gone awry and are the underlying cause of some of your difficulties
• Discharge and heal the underlying charge in your anger and rage.
• Allow your body, mind, and heart’s, attempts to make you feel safe to be clearer and more effective in your life now, rather than stuck in your past.
• Become more comfortable with intimacy in your life.

What you can expect in somatic therapy sessions with Eric:

• Support in feeling better, even a little better, first.
• Very gently working with any stressful or traumatic things, for short times, from a place of still feeling access to safety;  and then coming back to feeling good.
• At least a little laughing from time to time.
• Sometimes, if your system is willing and able, going back and forth from feeling good to exploring what feels bad several times in a session.
• If you desire it, and it is appropriate for the work, we may do some gentle bodywork. You would remain clothed, on a very comfortable massage table, and maybe even still in your chair.
• We may talk about what is going on in your life now, and perhaps explore how childhood experiences may have shaped your current responses to life.
• We may explore your habits and how they may be supporting you, or keeping you stuck. Same with addictions.
• I will support you in finding a psychiatrist or psychotherapist to work with should that become necessary. If you already have one, I am happy to work with them as a team in your healing.
• If you live away from the San Diego area, or travel, I also work on the phone or on Skype.

Live your life more fully, in body, mind, and heart. Don’t wait!

One of the things that stress & trauma do is put us into what is called ‘freeze’, where we become unable to make decisions, or second-guess ourselves.

It is important to do the work you need to do to feel comfortable with a therapist. But don’t be tricked by your nervous system into not doing anything!

The bottom line is, I want you to feel better.

Very soon… you could be getting the help you need.

Why are you settling for a life that’s stale, static or full of suffering or anger? That’s not like you, at all!  Get some help soon, and begin to grow into Who You Really Are today!

Ready to feel better?

Schedule your FREE 20 minute consultation now!

What is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic Therapy is essentially an integrative therapy that brings about growth and healing in a deep way by addressing all aspects of the client: physical (or “soma”), emotional, mental, and spiritual. In particular, Somatic Therapy facilitates this healing by supporting the client to come into relationship with their bodies through sensation, movement, touch, postures, as well as through talk and awareness practices.

Slowing down, and focusing on what we feel in our bodies and our feelings can bring about natural healing processes when supported in a safe and skilled manner. Remaining issues from stressful or traumatic issues may manifest in movements of muscles or tissues, chronic illnesses, emotional issues like rage or depression, or any number of ways. Healing these issues in a somatic way can bring about healing and growth where other therapies might not.

How does somatic therapy work?

The places where we struggle in our lives invariably have related emotions and sensations associated with them, when we look closely enough with trained eyes. The therapist gently supports the client in becoming more aware of some of these underlying clues, and supports them in becoming more able to not only tolerate them, but to become curious about them, to discover where they do not need to be avoided, where they may have roots in health and a healthy response to what may have been a threat in the past.

Supporting this process in somatic therapy helps to bring about integration of sensations, feelings, movements, and understanding and coming to terms with the past, and learning new ways to be in the present on all cylinders: emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Perhaps the breath is stuck or shallow in a particular way, or there is a habit of reacting to imagined humiliation with rage, or there is an addictive attachment to destructive people or behaviors, with any of these there are keys that present in the client that a somatic therapist can decode and reflect to the client in such a way that they can begin to unravel the unhealthy patterns and release the stress and trauma from their system.

An important aspect of this process is that despite the presence of unpleasant feelings or sensations associated with stress and trauma, somatic therapy works best when the focus is primarily on the aspects of the present moment that are positive, empowering, pleasant, or in some way positive. From these positive aspects, forays into the more difficult material in brief and manageable ways are essential to the success of the work. The myth that healing these difficult things has to be purely painful and uncomfortable is clearly dispelled with effective somatic therapy.

Ready to feel better?

Schedule a FREE 20-minute consultation today!