Somatic therapy can be a good fit if you: Feel “stuck” in traditional therapyHave a history of trauma, whether it’s PTSD (“shock trauma”) or CPTSD (complex trauma) Have done talk therapy before and understand your patterns intellectually, but haven't been able to actually shift themFeel disconnected from your body, or notice you "live in your head" more than you'd likeExperience anxiety, chronic stress, or a nervous system that feels stuck in overdrive (or the opposite — flat, shut down, hard to access at all)Have physical symptoms that don't have a clear medical explanation, and suspect there's an emotional or stress-related componentFind it hard to name or locate your feelings in words, but can sense that something is thereIt can also work well for people who are highly analytical or intellectualizing by nature — if insight alone has never been the missing piece for you, working through the body can access what conversation keeps circling around.

Trauma is more than a mental or emotional experience. It often gets encoded as implicit, body-level memory, held in nervous system patterns, chronic muscle tension, or dissociation. While talking about trauma can be helpful, some people find that it isn’t enough.  Somatic therapy works directly with the physical layer: tracking sensation, working in small, carefully paced increments rather than confronting overwhelming material head-on, and allowing the nervous system to complete survival responses (fight, flight, or freeze) that got interrupted or stuck at the time of the original trauma.

Talk therapy tends to prioritize intellectual understanding over the body’s experience. While somatic therapy includes talking, it includes body awareness; exploring sensations and nervous system responses; and even movement and breathing exploration.