What Is Somatic Therapy and How Can It Support Your Health and Wellness?
- Brainz Magazine
- May 29
- 5 min read
Theresa Rybchinski is a Mental Health Somatic Therapist and founder of Wild Journey Recovery. Her private practice supports individuals navigating trauma, addiction, and chronic stress, through a holistic approach to mental health and wellness.
Have you spent years in talk therapy, only to find that while your mind feels clearer, your body still holds onto persistent symptoms, anxiety, chronic fatigue, tension, or emotional reactivity? You're not alone. Many people experience partial relief through traditional therapy but are left wondering why some issues never seem to fully resolve.
The reason may be that talk therapy primarily targets the mind, our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours, using what's called a top-down approach. While this is essential, it leaves out a key player in the healing process: the body.
That’s because humans are more than minds; we’re also bodies. Our nervous system and brain live in the body, and they play a critical role in how we experience, process, and heal from pain. Our bodies hold deep-rooted memories, patterns, and survival responses shaped by past experiences, including trauma. To create lasting change, therapy needs to include the body, not just the mind. This is where somatic therapy comes in.
What is somatic therapy?
Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to healing that integrates the wisdom of the body with psychological insight. It explores how trauma, stress, and early life experiences are stored in the nervous system and physical body, not just the mind.
I practice Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a somatic modality developed by Dr. Pat Ogden. It draws from mindfulness, interpersonal neurobiology, Hakomi, somatic psychology, and cognitive practices.
The core belief of somatic therapy is this: the body holds a landscape of information. If we leave it out of the healing process, we miss vital data about how our past continues to shape our present.
Other somatic modalities include:
Each of these therapies shares a common belief, that our body holds a story, and that story matters in healing.
Why talk therapy alone isn't always enough
You can process traumatic memories in your mind for years, yet still feel on edge, hypervigilant, or emotionally shut down. Why? Because the body doesn’t speak in words; it speaks in sensations and emotions. That’s why healing trauma isn’t just about talking through it but about showing the body that it’s safe now.
When something traumatic or threatening happens, your nervous system captures it like a time stamp. It stores this memory not as a story but as a pattern of protection: muscle tension, posture, breath holding, or emotional suppression. These patterns shape how you walk, speak, feel, and relate to others long after the event is over.
This shows up in:
Posture or tension patterns
How we walk, breathe, or hold ourselves
Emotional responses like shutting down or overreacting
Cognitive distortions like “I’m never safe” or “I’m not enough”
Somatic therapy helps identify and shift these deeply held body patterns. It uses bottom-up processing to communicate safety to the nervous system, showing the body it’s no longer in danger rather than just telling it so. Somatic therapy gently helps us interrupt outdated survival patterns and form new experiences rooted in safety, presence, and regulation.
Healing happens in the right brain
Traditional talk therapy relies heavily on the left brain, the part responsible for language, analysis, and logic. Somatic therapy, on the other hand, taps into the right brain, which governs emotion, imagery, body sensation, and memory.
To access and shift the deep-seated patterns shaped by trauma, we need these right-brain-based, experiential approaches. This is where somatic therapy helps us access the subconscious and create new, embodied experiences of safety.
We call this building a felt sense of safety, the body’s way of knowing that it’s no longer in danger. It’s what allows real healing to happen.
What happens in a somatic therapy session?
Somatic therapy sessions begin with building safety and stabilization in the body. Without this foundation, deeper trauma work can be overwhelming. In the somatic world, we often say, “Go at the pace of the nervous system.”
The work is slow and intentional. A trained somatic therapist helps you:
Cultivate awareness of internal sensations (interoception)
Tune into the body's sensations without judgment
Track subtle cues (breath, posture, impulses)
Recognize habitual emotional and physical responses
Build capacity to tolerate discomfort
Gently guide the body to complete unresolved stress responses
A trained somatic therapist supports clients in building the capacity to be with difficult sensations or emotions. This is key. Before trauma can be processed, the body needs to know it can survive discomfort without shutting down or spiraling.
Once this capacity is established, we move into processing trauma through gentle, experiential techniques. These might involve subtle movements, breath work, vocalizations, or even symbolic gestures or words that the body was unable to complete during the original trauma. The goal is to allow the nervous system to complete the stress response and return to regulation. This process is sometimes called discharge or completion of the trauma cycle.
The body’s wisdom: Why shaking matters
If you’ve ever narrowly avoided a car accident and noticed your body shaking afterward, that was your nervous system discharging stress. Animals in the wild do this instinctively, shaking off tension after escaping a threat. Humans are wired the same way, but our cognitive minds often suppress this natural process.
Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, observed this in animals and applied it to humans. In somatic therapy, we intentionally create space for these unconscious, nonverbal processes to unfold, shaking, trembling, sighing, crying, as part of the body’s innate way of healing.
This process, called sequencing in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, helps the body return to a state of regulation. When the body releases what’s been stored, the mind follows.
Simple somatic practices you can start today
Curious about somatic therapy but not ready to dive into full sessions just yet? Here are two gentle practices you can try at home to begin reconnecting with your body:
Practice 1: Pause and tune in
When you feel activated or emotional, pause and:
Close your eyes and bring awareness to your body.
Ask yourself: Where do I feel this most in my body?
Notice the sensations (tightness, heat, pulsing, etc.).
Stay with the sensation, observing it without judgment.
Allow the body to move, shift, or release naturally.
Practice 2: Follow your body’s cues
Start tuning into your body’s basic needs:
Eat when you're hungry.
Drink when you're thirsty.
Notice when you need to rest or use the bathroom, and honour it.
Avoid pushing through just because your mind says “keep going.”
These small shifts help rebuild trust with your body and reconnect you to its innate wisdom, something our fast-paced, mind-driven culture often teaches us to ignore.
Final thoughts: A new way to heal
Healing doesn’t happen through the mind alone. It happens when we include the whole person, mind, body, nervous system, and spirit. Somatic therapy offers a deeply integrative, trauma-informed, and embodied path toward healing.
If you're in Alberta, Canada, and are looking to work with a somatic therapist, you can learn more about me here.
Read more from Theresa Rybchinski
Theresa Rybchinski, Mental Health Somatic Therapist
Theresa Rybchinski is a Registered Social Worker (RSW) and Mental Health Somatic Therapist who integrates body-centred approaches like Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, and mindfulness into her work. With a decade of experience in trauma and addiction recovery, she specializes in supporting clients navigating chronic stress, burnout, and mental health challenges. Her lived experience with trauma and addiction informs her compassionate approach, creating spaces where individuals feel seen, heard, and supported. Theresa’s career began at Wilderness Addiction Treatment Centers and evolved into founding her private practice, Wild Journey Recovery, where she combines somatic therapy with trauma-focused care.
