What Somatic Work Is Not
Somatic work is not reliving your trauma, and it is not getting stuck in the story of what happened. Somatic Experiencing® works with grounding, resourcing and pendulation, which means moving in and out of difficult material instead of diving in all at once. It is not retraumatizing. It is building capacity.
Most people arrive here scared of the wrong thing
I was first introduced to somatic psychology 20 years ago while earning my B.A. at Naropa University. Then I went and found my own somatic practitioner, and Somatic Experiencing® became a huge part of my own healing. Now it is a big part of how I support other people.
So I have heard the fear a lot of times by now, usually in the first ten minutes of a free consultation, usually in a lowered voice.
Am I going to have to go back through it.
Almost nobody asks that about talk therapy. They ask it about this work, because "somatic" sounds like it reaches somewhere words do not, and that sounds less like relief and more like being held under.
I want to answer it plainly, because I think that fear has kept people away for years when what they needed was already here. Here is what this work is not.
It is not reliving your trauma
You do not have to go back into the worst thing that happened to you. Not in detail, not from the beginning, not in order.
This is the one that matters most, so I want to be specific about why it is true and not just reassuring.
Somatic Experiencing® is not working with the event. It is working with what your nervous system is still doing about the event, right now, in the room, today. Your shoulders. Your breath. The way your stomach drops when you get close to a certain topic. That is present tense material. We do not have to travel anywhere to find it, because it never left.
There are sessions where we barely discuss what happened at all, and the work still moves. I have had those sessions myself, on both sides of the chair.
It is not getting stuck in the story of what happened
A lot of people who find me can tell their story with real precision. They have told it many times. They know the year, the room, the person, the moment it turned.
And they are still stuck.
For years I was in a painful, toxic relationship. I knew it was not good for me. I could explain the pattern. Explaining it did not move it an inch. What moved it was going into the body, where the stress was actually living, and noticing what was there underneath all the words I had already used up.
Insight is not the same as your body letting go. You can understand your history perfectly and still have a nervous system that responds as though the thing is happening now. That gap is the entire reason this work exists. If you want the longer version of why the body holds on like that, I wrote about why trauma lives in the body.
It is not telling a stranger everything
You decide what you say. You always did, but I want to say it out loud because a lot of people assume disclosure is the price of admission.
It is not. You can say "something happened when I was nine" and leave it exactly there, and we can still work. You can say "I do not want to talk about that yet" and I will not go around the side of it. You can bring nothing but a sensation in your throat and no explanation for it, and that is a full session.
What we track is sensation, not confession. If you never tell me the details, the work does not stall. Your body is not withholding evidence from me. It is already telling me what it can carry today, and that is the information I actually need.
It is not losing control
You are awake. Your eyes can be open. You can stop, change the subject, ask for water, or say "that is enough for today" at any point.
This is not hypnosis. Nobody is going under. Nothing opens up that you have not agreed to open.
And stopping is not a failure of the session. Stopping is the skill. A nervous system that can say "not this, not now" is a nervous system that is getting its choice back, and getting choice back is a lot of what we are here to do. In my sessions, when someone puts a hand up, we slow down. That moment is often the most useful thing that happens all hour.
It is not a replacement for therapy or for your medication
I do not prescribe, I do not diagnose, and I will not tell you to stop taking something. That is between you and your prescriber, and anyone who tells you otherwise from a distance is being reckless with your life.
Plenty of the people I work with are in talk therapy at the same time, and it goes well. The two do different jobs. Talk therapy works with meaning, story, understanding, the part of you that needs to make sense of things. Somatic work adds what your body is doing while you carry all that understanding around.
People often come to me after talk therapy, not instead of it. They tell me some version of the same sentence. I understand everything and nothing has changed.
I will also tell you honestly when I am not the right support for what you are carrying. Sometimes the most useful thing I can do is point you somewhere else.
It is not spiritual, and you do not have to believe anything
You do not need to be spiritual. You do not need to meditate. You do not need a practice, a worldview, or any particular opinion about energy.
Your nervous system works the way it works whether or not you believe in it. It is physiology. The reason grounding helps is not faith, it is that orienting to the present moment gives a system that has been bracing something real and current to land on.
I am a yoga teacher and I teach meditation, so I understand why people expect a certain vocabulary from me. This work does not require it. Bring your skepticism. Skepticism tracks sensation just fine.
It is not massage, and it is not bodywork
I am a licensed massage therapist, so I say this with some authority: they are different things.
Somatic simply means of the body. It comes from the Greek soma, meaning body, especially as distinct from the mind. That is all the word is claiming. If the term itself is new to you, here is the plainest explanation I have written of what somatic actually means.
In a somatic session you stay dressed, you usually stay seated, and much of the time nobody touches anyone. Most of my sessions happen over video. The work is you noticing what is happening in your own body, with me helping you stay with it and helping you come back. Not me doing something to your tissue while you wait for it to be over.
It is not only for severe trauma
You do not need a diagnosis. You do not need a story bad enough to qualify.
I started this work during a real crisis. I was in a downward spiral, dealing with anger, grief and shame all at once, and I was embarrassed about most of it. Somatic Experiencing® helped me stabilize.
But I kept going after the crisis passed, and that is the part I want you to hear. I still do this work, not because I am broken, but because I want to show up fully in my life and in what I do. Healing is not only for when everything falls apart. Sometimes people come because they feel anxious for no reason they can name, or disconnected from themselves, or because life is fine and they still want more than they have. All of that is a good enough reason.
So what is it, then
Three things, mostly, and none of them dramatic.
Grounding. Getting your attention into the present, into your feet, your seat, the room you are actually in.
Resourcing. Finding the things that bring your nervous system back toward balance. The first time I sat down for a session I was a hot mess, crying, completely overwhelmed, and my practitioner asked me gently, "Where's your resource?" I had no idea what she meant. I was fairly sure I did not have one. Now I know mine. Feet on the ground. Sensing my breath. A hand over my heart. Letting my eyes land on something in the present moment, especially something in nature. So I will ask you the same question she asked me. Where is your resource? If you are not sure, that is a normal place to start, and I wrote more about what a nervous system resource actually is.
Pendulation. Moving toward the difficult thing and then back out again. Toward, and back. Never all the way in and staying there.
That last one is the piece people misread as avoidance. It is the opposite. Going all the way in is how a system gets overwhelmed, and an overwhelmed nervous system does not integrate anything. It just survives the hour.
It is also not fast, and I would rather tell you now
Looking back at my own healing, most of what actually worked was slow. It was not linear. Some of it was messy.
My practitioner once told me, "The only change I trust is change that is slow." It took me a long time to understand why she was right. Safety is not a decision you make. It grows through resources, support and being met consistently, and it does not happen overnight.
I am not saying that to discourage you. Honestly, most people find it a relief, because they have been quietly failing an imaginary deadline for years. Healing takes the time it takes, and it is still available to you. If you want the honest version of that answer, it is in how long trauma healing actually takes.
What we are building is capacity. Not the absence of hard feelings. A shorter distance between getting knocked over and standing back up, so you can move through your life with more ease, more clarity and more connection.
Ready to begin?
If the reason you have not started is the fear that this will make you go back through the worst of it, I hope this took that reason away.
I offer a free consultation before anything begins, and it really is a conversation, not a sales call. You get a sense of how I work. I get a sense of whether I am the right fit for what you are carrying. It has to go both ways.
If you would like to talk it through, book a free consultation. I would love to support you.
FAQ
Does somatic therapy make you relive your trauma?
No. Somatic Experiencing® does not require you to go back through the event in detail or in order. It works with how your nervous system is holding the experience in the present, through grounding, resourcing and pendulation, which means moving in and out of difficult material rather than diving all the way in. Some sessions barely discuss the events at all.
Is somatic therapy safe?
Yes, when it is paced properly, and pacing is most of the method. You stay awake and in control, you can stop or change direction at any moment, and the work moves in small amounts with time to settle in between. The goal is to build capacity, not to push you past what your system can handle that day.
Do I have to talk about what happened to me?
No. You decide what you share, and you can work with a sensation without ever explaining where it came from. Somatic work tracks what your body is doing now rather than the details of the story, so declining to tell it does not stall the session.
Is somatic work the same as massage?
No. In a somatic session you stay dressed, usually seated, and often no touch is involved at all, and many sessions happen over video. Massage works on tissue from the outside. Somatic work has you notice sensation from the inside while someone helps you stay with it and come back.
Can I do somatic work while I am in therapy or on medication?
Yes, and many people do both. Somatic work is not a replacement for psychiatric or medical care, and a somatic facilitator does not prescribe or diagnose. Decisions about medication belong to you and your prescriber. People often add somatic work when talk therapy has given them insight without much relief.
About Josie Kramer
Josie was first introduced to somatic psychology 20 years ago while earning her B.A. at Naropa University. She holds a master's degree in transpersonal psychology, where she also studied mindfulness based therapy, and she specializes in Somatic Experiencing®. She is a certified yoga teacher, teaches meditation, is a licensed massage therapist, and is trained in integrative nutrition. She offers free consultations, 1:1 somatic sessions online and in person, and integration support.
by Josie Kramer