When we think about therapy, most people picture talking to a professional about their thoughts, emotions, and past experiences. And for many people, that’s a vital and helpful part of healing. But what happens when you’ve already done that – when you’ve analysed the stories, understood the patterns, and still don’t feel any better in your body?
That’s where somatic therapy comes in.
Somatic therapy is fundamentally different from traditional talk therapy because it doesn’t just focus on what’s happening in your mind. It brings your body into the conversation. It’s built on the understanding that trauma is not just a psychological experience – it’s a physiological one, too.
In other words, trauma lives in the body. And if we only treat it through the mind, we’re missing a huge part of the picture.
Let’s break that down.
Why Does Trauma Stay Stuck In The Body?
When something overwhelming happens – whether it’s a sudden incident or a prolonged period of stress – your body responds instantly. Your heart rate increases, your breath shortens, and your muscles tighten. Your nervous system goes into survival mode: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
In an ideal world, once the event is over, your body processes it, releases the stress, and returns to a regulated state. But often, especially with trauma or unresolved stress, that discharge never happens. Your body holds onto the experience, storing it as tension, shutdown, or hypervigilance.
That’s why some people can talk through trauma in therapy, understand it logically, and still feel anxious, disconnected, or physically unwell. The story might be clear – but the body is still stuck in survival.
This is exactly what somatic therapy is designed to address.
What Makes Somatic Therapy Different?
Somatic therapy brings the body to the centre of the healing process. Rather than focusing purely on thoughts, it works with physical sensations, nervous system regulation, and the stored patterns that sit underneath your awareness.
Here’s how it works in practice:
1. Body Awareness
One of the first things somatic therapy teaches is how to listen to your body. This might sound basic, but many of us are so used to ignoring, numbing, or pushing through our bodily signals that we’ve lost connection with them.
You might be asked: “What do you notice in your body when you talk about that?” Or invited to scan your body for areas of tightness, heat, or numbness. These aren’t random – they’re often the sites where tension and unprocessed experience are being held.
For example, someone might realise they always feel tightness in their chest when discussing their childhood or feel numb from the waist down when they start to talk about a traumatic event. That awareness becomes the entry point for healing.
2. Regulation
Once you start noticing what’s going on in your body, the next step is learning how to regulate your nervous system.
This doesn’t mean forcing calm or pretending you’re fine. Regulation is about giving your body the tools it needs to come back into balance – out of fight, flight or freeze and into a state of grounded presence.
Somatic therapy with The Whole Body Therapist uses techniques like:
- Breathwork: It doesn’t have to be deep breaths. Actually, I prefer for you to just start by noticing your breath! Where it lands and how it feels.
- Grounding and orienting: Essentially being mindful, slowing down, doing one task at a time and feeling the ground beneath you, rather than living in the mind.
- Co-regulation (learning how to feel safe in the presence of another person): In this case, it would be with me, holding a non-judgmental safe space.
- Nervous system regulation: Techniques to shift your nervous system out of survival or shut down to a safer, peaceful state.
These practices may seem small, but they’re powerful. Over time, they retrain your nervous system to feel safer in the present moment without being hijacked by old trauma patterns.
3. Release
As your body starts to feel safer and more regulated, it naturally begins to let go of what it’s been holding. This can happen in all kinds of ways: tears, trembling, warmth, even yawning. These are signs of the body completing a stress cycle or discharging energy that was stuck.
Sometimes, this release is subtle. Other times, it can feel intense. But in a trauma-informed setting, you’re never pushed into anything. Somatic therapy works with your body at your pace. The goal isn’t catharsis for the sake of it – it’s a safe, titrated release that leads to long-term integration.
Somatic Therapy Isn’t a Replacement – It’s a Missing Piece
To be clear, somatic therapy isn’t here to replace talk therapy. For many people, talk therapy is life-changing. But if you’ve hit a plateau in your healing or feel like your body is still stuck even though your mind understands, somatic therapy offers a way forward. We learn to work with the body’s signals rather than mask and numb. Trusting the body’s innate wisdom.
The best results often come when the two are combined.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say someone had a parent who was emotionally unavailable growing up. Through talk therapy, they’ve learned how that experience shaped their beliefs: “I have to earn love,” “I can’t rely on others,” etc.
But every time they get close to someone in adulthood, they feel a pit in their stomach or a sense of dread. They push people away – not because they want to, but because their body remembers what it feels like to be let down.
Talk therapy helps them name the belief. Somatic therapy helps them work with the physical reaction so they can begin to feel safe in connection again.
When you combine both – awareness and embodiment – you get a fuller, more sustainable path to healing.
Why Somatic Therapy Is Especially Helpful For Chronic Illness & Stress
At The Whole Body Therapist, many of the clients I work with are dealing with chronic conditions: pain, fatigue, IBS, and autoimmune disorders. And what we’re starting to understand, through both research and lived experience, is that many of these conditions are not just medical. They’re also connected to trauma and long-term nervous system dysregulation. They often have an emotional root cause.
Somatic therapy doesn’t claim to “cure” illness. But by supporting the nervous system and helping the body come out of chronic stress states, it often reduces symptoms and improves quality of life.
Clients frequently report things like:
- Feeling more grounded in their body
- Sleeping better
- Digestive symptoms improving
- Less reactivity to stress
- More trust in their body’s signals
These aren’t just “nice extras.” They’re real, measurable shifts that ripple out into every area of life.
“Healing Happens in the Body”
If you’ve been talking about your trauma for years and still feel stuck, it might be time to bring your body into the process. Or maybe your body is showing symptoms of being in survival, and you can’t quite understand why. It’s time to communicate with it and build a connection.
Somatic therapy helps you move beyond insight into actual embodied change. It teaches your body how to feel safe again so that healing can happen not just in your mind but in your whole system.
This work isn’t fluffy. It’s clinical, grounded, and backed by neuroscience. And more importantly, it works.
Let’s go beyond the talking. Let’s get into the body.
If you’re ready to explore somatic therapy and see how it could support your healing, you can book a session with Jaspreet through our website or by downloading our app.
