Somatic Therapy
Does talking about it really help?
You have to keep track of everything, all the time, and can’t let one thing slip, or it all comes crashing down. It all forms a knot in your stomach that you’ve unfortunately gotten used to.
Although you slept all night, you woke up dreading another day of just surviving. Your body aches, and your head throbs at the thought. However, you must pull yourself together, despite feeling exhausted.
When the phone rings, your heart races because nobody calls you for good reasons. Maybe this one can go to voicemail – like all the others.
You try to talk to your friends and family, but wonder, “Can I trust them with my safety? Besides, all they can do is give you a ‘that sucks’ or some cliched advice.” It’s better not to burden them with your complaining.
In the back of your mind, you think, “Talking doesn’t actually help. Does it?”
Talking does help when it is the right person.
Therapists are trained to engage you in ways that make you comfortable and safe enough to express what is really going on with you, and how to respond to help you resolve or reduce the disruptions to your life.
Unlike friends or family, a therapist’s responses and choices are informed by years of training, studying, and experience.
Is this a mind-over-matter thing?
Yes. And no. Your brain and your body are not separate. They are both parts of you, and they affect each other in ways people can’t easily define.
Somatic therapy resembles “standard” talk therapy in that it doesn’t use physical tools, rigid modality structures, or follow a specific pattern.
Instead, we focus on how your body and mind influence each other, and by untangling a problem in one, we follow the thread back to issues in the other.
How are these problems manifested?
Stress from anxiety can cause an upset stomach, heartburn, or loss of appetite while agonizing over all the scenarios you feel compelled to keep track of, and stress and depression can disrupt your sleep, and disrupted sleep is ruining your ability to focus and respond to typical, day-to-day issues.
Anxiety and depression use your body’s responses to lie to you, to make things seem worse than they are.
The unseen shackles you feel when you try to open up to someone, only to realize they can’t help you and care for you so much that telling them what’s hurting you will hurt them.
Somatic therapy is an inclusive therapy technique that views the body and mind as a single, connected entity.
What in the name of the Cosmos does that mean?
First, it means I look through a lens focused on when you were last seen and heard by a medical doctor. Is sleep apnea, hormones, or a lack of exercise impacting your mental health? I will inquire about these matters and request that you address any physical health issues before we begin working together or as soon as possible thereafter.
We will then track your sleep patterns and how they are affecting you, and examine various rhythms that may also be influencing you, from the people around you to the heavenly bodies. I will ask about your physical self-care and discuss ways to incorporate it through meditation or other practices you enjoy. We may even do somatic release exercises together, or I will introduce you to resources for you to work with on your own.
Second, we will work from a bottom-up perspective, seen in Somatic experiencing. I will start by asking where you feel tightness or other sensations in your body before I ask, “How does something make you feel?” I will only ask how something makes you feel inside after I know you can identify and label emotions and feelings.
Third, a key part of somatic therapy is learning to find calmness and healthy control by setting boundaries. These boundaries can be real, such as asking for needs from friends or family, or they could be metaphysical, such as imagining a bubble or laying a salt line. These boundaries will help you understand how you react to boundaries and how setting them feels.
Somatic therapy helps with trauma-induced disorders.
When you’re traumatized, the parts of your brain that govern logic and self-expression are often impaired.
By working from the body into the head, calming the nervous system, and engaging all parts of the brain and the mind it houses, they can be freed from the web of trauma that weaves around them.
Let’s start the conversation.
You’ve started looking for help and have already taken the first step. The hard part’s over. Now, please reach out to me so we can get started. You took that monumental first step on your own; now I can guide you on the correct second, third, and fourth steps.
I am ready to help you, to see you, hear you, and watch you stride forward into the life you want with your head held high. You will breathe deep and free. Feel the tension slide out of your body. See clearly as the brain fog dissipates. Calm the raging storm in your mind.
You can contact me by calling or texting (925) 325-4239, emailing fey@feytherapy.com, sending a message through my contact page, or completing the form at the bottom of this page.
One call or message, and the most challenging part is over. You deserve healing. You deserve to find yourself again.