A Simple Definition of Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy is a broad category in the psychotherapy space that points towards leveraging the wisdom of the body to help shift blockages and stuck points in your life. Instead of simply talking about your problems, somatic therapy helps you drop down into the body and feel them from a bodily perspective. Some examples of somatic therapy include EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and Focusing. In the Focusing technique, you learn to access the felt sense, which can be defined as “experiencing the whole of the situation.” A useful analogy is to imagine an orchestra playing a song – the song being a particular life event (a breakup, move, job less ect). One part of the song or maybe even a specific instrument could be a feeling or thought you have about this life event. The felt sense of the situation would be akin to the entire orchestra playing all together. In Focusing, we are invited to take a pause in order to feel the whole of what it’s like to be alive right now. Language, thoughts, feelings are only a small part of the entire orchestra of being a conscious and awake human being. The body stores tension in connection to the stories and thoughts we choose to believe about ourselves and the world around us. Somatic therapy helps us release this tension in a new, fresh way.
How Somatic Therapy Sessions Typically Flow
I am trained specifically in Focusing, which is a somatic therapy technique created by Eugene Gendlin. In this process, consent is ever present and the relationship between the therapist and the client is always the most important. The client is always invited to “sense inwardly” regarding consent, moving forward, and what feels OK or not OK. Focusing sessions can often begin with “a pause” which gives us a chance to slow down and connect with the felt sense, our body, and all of what is present. In Focusing, we are also invited to “clear a space” at the beginning of a session, which essentially means finding creative ways to distance ourselves from the burdens that keep us blocked, stuck, or out of our body (this does not mean we suppress or ignore). One of my favorite ways to clear a space involves “shaking.” This shaking involves standing up and simply bouncing up and down on the ground – shaking the arms, hands, fingers in a “dance like nobody’s watching” kind of way.
What to Expect in your First Focusing Session
- Check in with the person you are Focusing with – does this relationship feel OK between us now?
- Invitation to take a pause and notice all of what is here right now.
- Become aware of a “something” in your field of awareness that wants your attention.
What Somatic Therapy Helps With
Let’s say you come to Focusing with an interest in exploring anxiety. Maybe you notice tension in your body and constant thoughts about what will go wrong at any moment. The more you try to think about wanting to be less anxious, the more anxious you feel. From a somatic therapy perspective (Focusing specifically), we want to cultivate a certain attitude towards the anxiety. We want to encourage a warm, friendly, and curious attitude towards the anxiety almost like we are greeting a friend that is overwhelmed or scared. This can be very hard to do at first, however the key is to make an effort here. I then might ask you to locate the anxiety in the body. Is it in the belly, throat or chest? Does it have a color, temperature, size, shape? Instead of trying to get rid of the anxiety, we make an attempt to allow it to be here, while getting curious about what it may have to tell us. Often, the anxiety may directly tell us what it needs from us. We can apply these same principles towards depression, substance abuse, mood swings, trauma, and other forms of mental and bodily stress. I do not treat eating disorders and would refer out for this problem specifically.
Somatic Techniques You Might Encounter
Focusing is “an experiential, embodied and evidence-based practice of self-reflection. During Focusing, your attention will open up to multiple layers and aspects of living” (Focusing.org). Focusing was founded by Eugene Gendlin in the late 1970s. While pursuing research for a PhD program in the 1950’s, Gendlin worked alongside Carl Rogers (well known psychologist) and noticed that clients who did better in therapy tended to take a “pause” in between stretches of conversation in therapy (this led to coining the term felt sense). Gendlin went on to create Focusing and has broken this process down to 6 steps which are listed below (these can be done in any order).
- Clearing a space: noticing anything inside you that’s getting in the way of feeling “all OK” right now.
- Felt Sense: select one problem. Do not go inside the problem – sense the “whole” of it
- Handle: What’s the quality of the felt sense? Let a word, phrase, or image come from the felt sense itself.
- Resonating: Go back and forth between the felt sense and the word or phrase or image.
- Asking: What is this problem all about?
- Receiving: practice receiving any information in a friendly way.
If you are interested in learning more on Focusing – I recommend the website focusing.org. Focusing is a world wide community that’s practiced by a wide range of people (not just therapists).
Somatic Therapy vs Talk Therapy Alone
Both somatic therapy and talk therapy can be effective if delivered in appropriate ways. Talk therapy typically means talking about thoughts and feelings in a safe therapeutic container. The therapist may point out patterns or offer insights and homework may involve setting goals and taking action towards them. This type of therapy (think CBT or psychodynamic) can be effective and has robust evidence to back up effectiveness. If you find yourself in therapy talking mostly about your problems instead of actually living and experiencing change, you may be stuck. Stuckness in talk therapy can be like this – talking over the same problems in the same way day after day (I’m depressed or have no friends ect.). The more we believe the stories we tell ourselves about our problems, the more reinforced they become into the neurons in our brains. In somatic therapy, instead of simply talking about having no friends, I would invite you into the present moment experience of this. You might check in with any sensations in the belly, chest or throat. Does an image to mind? Maybe the lack of friends feels like a small black bowling ball in your torso. Can you let this bowling ball know you are here too? What does this bowling ball have to tell you? In Focusing, it’s important to pause after asking a question like this, as the mind will almost always immediately offer answers. We wait and get an answer from the body itself.
How to know if Somatic Therapy fits you
- Curiosity towards your internal world
- Interest in going deeper into the experience of being human
- Feeling stuck in thinking
- Yearning or longing to connect with something deeper
Now may not be the right time for somatic therapy
- You have no interest in challenging your thoughts
- You want somebody else to do your healing work for you
Getting Started in Portland or Online
If you live in Maine and are interested in exploring somatic therapy, I invite you to reach out to me directly. I offer in person individual and couple’s psychotherapy sessions in Portland, Maine. I also offer virtual options when more convenient. Please visit my website focusingwithjosh.com to book an introductory 20 minute discovery call with me to help clarify if working together may be productive. I have included some questions below to bring to an initial call or first session.
- What kind of communication do you prefer in therapy? More direct? More supportive?
- What pace feels appropriate for you right now? Slow and steady? Quicker and deeper?
- If therapy were successful, how would your life change?
- What are you curious about?
- How have you been coping with distress?