Somatic Psychotherapy

In addition to Yoga Therapy, I provide Somatic Psychotherapy in my clinical practice. I

became interested in learning about Somatic Psychotherapy while working as

Counseling Program Director at a community agency that served survivors of abuse. I

heard from many clients who had experienced bodily violations including sexual assault,

interpersonal violence, and child abuse that they had made a lot of progress in talk

therapy but thought they had gone as far as talk therapy could take them in their healing

process. They felt like there was more work to be done that they didn’t have access to

in talk therapy. After reading Bessel Vander Kolk’s groundbreaking book The Body

Keeps the Score in 2014, I began to understand why. Memories can be stored in the

body that clients cannot process in talk therapy for a variety of reasons.

In somatic psychotherapy, the trauma has been stored in the body because it was not

able to be released during the traumatic event. This can be due to everything happening

too fast to formulate a defense response, like a car accident, a fall, or an unexpected

attack. This can also be due to seeing the assault coming but being unable to fight back

or flee because the attacker was stronger or bigger than you or because it would have

been unsafe or unwise to do so. You did what you had to do in that moment to stay

alive. The body naturally rallies preparatory energy, going back to the days of having to

get away from predators in the wild, but when no fight or flight response is activated, it is

stored in the system and needs to be discharged. Once the stuck energy is released,

clients can experience less intrusive and disturbing memories, fewer aches and pains,

sounder sleep, and better moods.

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I have been trained and certified in 4 somatic psychotherapy approaches that I will

cover in more depth in coming blog posts. These include Somatic Experiencing (SE),

the work of Dr. Peter Levine, Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM), the work of Dr.

Lawrence Heller, Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP), the work of Dr. Raja Selvam, and

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) the work of Dr. Francine

Shapiro. These approaches all use the wisdom in the body to process trauma.

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By: Dr. Jennifer Vasquez

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