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Frequently Asked Questions
Somatic Healing is a body-oriented approach to help individuals overcome trauma, unhealthy patterns, anxiety, or dissociation. This style teaches folks how to reconnect with their body, and learn their natural body senses to heal and better navigate their lives. This work is based in Somatic Psychology and has roots in neuroscience, anatomy, and body psychotherapy. The goal is to discover safety in the body, find freedom in your own skin, and create healthy relationship with your emotions.
Somatic Healing looks at the way your body has been impacted by your life experiences. This can be observed in one's inability to regulate big feelings, decompress after activation, or feel overwhelmed by a seemingly small trigger. Somatic Healing sees these behaviors from an anatomic and body level, and translates them into a language so you can change and heal these responses.
Somatic Healing gives you an understanding of what the feelings in your body really mean. Feelings like a pit in your stomach, a tightening in your chest, or the feeling of needing to physically run in your legs. Somatic Healing teaches that your body is communicating to you with these sensations.
Think of your emotions as a body of water. Somatic Healing will help you learn to swim so you never have to feel like you're drowning ever again.
Each individual brings their own unique challenges, so there is not a single time-frame for full healing. We have folks who graduated from their work with us in 6 months, and some in 2 years. It depends on what we're working with, and at what stage you're in of your healing journey.
However, folks who work with us 1:1 weekly and do the assigned homework have a tendency to progress quicker. If you do well with a more structured model, you might benefit from our 30 Day Course which has a clearer and more definitive timeline.
Our rate is based off of our expertise, training, and energetic exchange. We do hold a few spots for sliding scale clients, as we know this is a financial investment. Set up a consultation today to find out.
We are not able to take insurance because Somatic Healing, while therapeutic, is not a therapy practice. Though all our facilitators are trained clinically, we do not offer clinical advice and do not diagnose in this practice. We use our training to make sure we are only working with folks who are ready for this kind of work, and if we feel a client is needing more structure due to their diagnostic background, we will refer out. We do work with clients who have had a diagnosed disorder, however they come to us after having gained resources, tools, and capacity for discomfort.
We work with adults who are ready to learn about their body, and the ways their emotions show up within them. We like to say this work is like getting comfortable swimming into the deep end of the pool, which means our clients are ready to address their emotions even if it feels scary in the beginning.
We don't want to throw you into the deep end, so we work slowly to help you acclimate to this work. Once you are comfortable in the shallow end, we'll start practicing diving in deeper and deeper.
We work with all gender identities, ages, cultures and backgrounds. Because we offer our 1:1 sessions online, we have the opportunity to work with people all over the world.
Somatic Healing is all about feeling connected to your body, and safe inside it. Trauma can often rob us from our sense of "home" in our own skin, and Somatic Healing helps you recover that. This work teaches you how to create a sustainable practice with yourself so that even when you've stopped working with us, your tool belt remains and will give you a sense of capability and empowerment for whatever life brings your way.
Somatic Healing offers you a sense of peace, expands your ability to manage with the uncomfortable parts of life, and brings freedom from the emotions that overwhelm you.
Talk therapy is great for cognitively understanding, but it doesn't always help us change the way we feel in the midst of a trigger. Somatic Healing works from your body-up, whereas talk therapy works from your head-down. This doesn't mean your brain won't be working hard in Somatic Healing, but it will be doing a different kind of work.
Our goal is to address the way you feel, and the way you think organically follows this lead. We will use sensory activities and exercises that directly help you connect to the feeling in your body first. This is like digging a weed out of the garden by the roots, rather than snipping the tops off with scissors.
We'll still need to talk together to establish what we're looking at, and track what you notice in your body, but the focus will be on the feelings rather than the thinkings.
Somatic Healing goes straight to the source by using your body's memory, addressing the root cause rather than only the symptoms.
Our sessions are facilitated online via zoom, and are 50min.
You and your practitioner will work together to establish key themes you want to focus on, though we encourage you to bring your day-day experience in as well. We typically begin sessions with a somatic arriving activity. This is the first way we invite your body into the conversation.
Throughout the session you will experience body focused exercises and verbal reflections. You can expect to practice things like interoception (your internal sensing ability), co-regulation, small movements, and more. We always adjust to meet each client where they are emotionally, and facilitate each session with a trauma-informed lens.
Yes! We are all trained to identify, address, and help you heal your trauma. This means we are equipped to specially help you retrain your trauma responses both cognitively and somatically.
What this can look like in a session will be individually based on how we are reading your nervous system. Folks with trauma backgrounds will present with different characteristics and behaviors that we are familiar with, and we will help you learn to spot these as well. Since trauma impacts the nervous system, and the body, we'll move at a pace that supports you in finding safety and relief.
We get this question a lot, and unfortunately it's tough to give a single answer to fit them all. You are a unique individual, and your life story has influenced your body's particular way of communicating and expressing. Because of this, we need more information about you to help you understand what's happening.
What we can say is that your nervous system typically expresses quick tempo, intense heat, tight compressions, or alert body signs when you are activated. These are typically signs of some kind of anxious activation. If your nervous system is expressing slowness, heavy limbs, lethargic breathing, or difficulty with auditory or visual focusing, it is a sign of an attempt to regulate from a challenging experience.
If you're curious about your body's personal signs, you can find a lot of the answers in our 30 Days to Embodiment Course. If you're still struggling to understand the meaning, it's time for a 1:1 session, and you can book a 15-minute consultation here.
We highly recommend by starting with the 30 Day Course to Embodiment. This offers you not only the experiential learning, but also the educational information about how Somatics works. You'll receive countless worksheets, helpful how-to videos, and interactive activities to help you not only learn the concepts, but integrate them as well.
Maybe you're ready to jump in for 1:1 work! Working together in this format speeds up the process because you have someone present in real time to help guide you through the healing. Working 1:1 can feel intimidating, like it's going to open everything all at once. We understand this fear, and are trained to help you manage and address it. If you're curious, or would like to chat with us more about it, book a 15-minute consultation here.
We also recommend following Stephanie Somatics on instagram for daily tools, tips, and information about your body's emotional wisdom!
Our goal when working with people individually is to teach them the skills to connect and navigate their lives on their own. We am here to reflect and support you in using the body-mind connection as one of the most effective and successful ways to get in touch with the unconscious mind. Make the decision to work with us directly to gain personal freedom, connection to your body, and a sense of trust in the world.
