SOMAtherapy is a space in which to be seen, heard and your experiences to be valued. A space and therapeutic relationship to begin to reveal insights and create strategies to positively transform emotions, thoughts and actions.  

 

Life is full of change and uncertainty. Experiences, challenges and possibilities. Some of which can generate hurt, anger and fear.  When we are hurt, by people or events, it is natural to react by protecting ourselves. With continual hurts we can begin to shut down connection and damp down or 'suck up' our emotions. We learn to instinctively protect ourselves. This holding creates tight muscles, stiff inflexible postures and movements, perhaps a reluctance to engage with people, recognise joy or feel pleasure.  Our experience of the beauty and joy in our world shrinks as we withdraw from events, people or thoughts - anything which make us feel sad, angry or hurt. We are often unaware that this is even happening.  

 

During difficult and stressful times such protection helps us survive these events, it enables us to do what is necessary to protect ourselves or others.  However, when the event is past our body response can continue to act as if it is still in a state of stress, developing a pattern of resistance which makes it difficult for us to leave the past behind.  We may continue to carry very highly active autonomic nervous systems and/or belief structures which are our adaption to the past. Our autonomic nervous system and its relationship to our body and mind is unable to release and relax.

 

A SOMAtherapy session works with what is going on NOW by encouraging a mindful focus on body sensations and your unique body mind responses to events and thoughts.  Through gently learning to recognise how we judge ourselves we can then practice ways of being less self critical and begin to become more open, compassionate, and curious.   

 

SOMAtherapy helps when we feel...

• overwhelmed

• disconnected from yourself, others or the world

• stuck

• depressed

• anxious

• stress

• fearful

• unconfident

• uncertain

 

 

What happens in a SOMAtherapy session...

Every Somatic session is unique. Your individual body movements and way of holding yourself when you stand, walk and sit is unique to YOU. The words you use to describe your experiences: past, present and to come are unique to YOU. However our past lives within us as memories which are both a word story and a body story. 

 

Your insights, combined with my observations, inform us where you may be holding physical and psychological tension. Together we will identify resources which nurture, begin healing work by expanding awareness of your unique body mind self. This may be through movement, Clinical Somatic exercises, talk, use of somatically enhancing materials, supportive touch or a combination of all.  This awareness encourages new ways to move, creates new patterns and helps remember old ones.  It develops strategies which can be used in times of stress, while also working on healing past hurts and nurturing new connections which encourage personal growth and healing. 

 

Somatherapy & movement:

Life is movement.  As a Movement based Somatic Therapy I value movement as an agent for change and personal growth.  However, I also understand that movement can be challenging or uncomfortable, we can literally feel 'frozen'.  Working together we will explore how movement lives within your body, how sensations shift and change with emotion and thought, how it is possible to create greater flexibility and to reach out for more nurturing interactions with life.  

 

SOMAtherapy & breath:

Breath is the source of life.  It is also the area which reacts dramatically at times of stress, as we hold our breath in fear or anticipation.  Together we will witness and respect how breath moves within your body, using somatic interventions which involve meditation and visualisation. 

 

SOMAtherapy & talk:

SOMAtherapy combines elements of counselling and coaching.  What you think and say is important.  The way you see your world and tell me about it matters. In order for healing to occur it is important to combine both body sensation with thought, to express this through gesture, movement and voice.  To engage both body awareness and cognitive thought to truely create positive change.

 

SOMAtherapy and relational attachment:

Attachment security emerged as the missing piece in my work and studies into the psychophysiological ramifications of trauma. Working through an attachment focus encourages a relational connection within the therapeutic space. Our personal connections with family, friends and colleagues are experienced through the ways in which we have evolved into the person we are now. How we learnt and felt safe within our connections to others and how we  inhabit ourselves when connecting and disconnecting. No matter what your past experience your human system is wired to connect.Creating a healing therapeutic relationship allows our complex human system to begin to expand in new ways creating healing and change. 

 

A typical SOMAtherapy session begins with sensing in to how your body is feeling - NOW.

 

With practice Clinical Somatic Movement Exercises thaw frozen body patterns while encouraging flexible and free movements. Developed by Thomas Hanna these exercises are gentle, non invasive and easy - a form of meditation with motion. Movements which mirror early motor development often occur naturally when we are encouraged to move freely - such movements help us grow in spirit, mind and body.  

 

Most importantly within a SOMAtherapy session I seek to encourage a feeling of play -

sensing and/or doing spontaneous movement which is joyful and without judgement.