Somatic psychotherapy gets out of the head and into the felt experience in moment-to-moment psychobiological unveilings, recognizing that stress, trauma, and relational frustration and grief are often stored in many systems within the body including the nervous system. By gently tuning into physical sensations, using movement and breath, we create space for your body and mind to regulate, process, and integrate experiences fully. This approach helps you reconnect with your inner wisdom, strengthen resilience, and feel more grounded in your body and relationships. Healing happens when you begin to notice the contradictions to pain in your body, the signals of you are going to be okay. Healing is lived and felt, not just mentally understood.
Somatic Training and Professional Development
As a new therapist, during graduate school, I worked with hurricane victims, foster youth, youth in a Juvenile Detention Center, and women at a substance abuse rehabilitation center. With each of the populations, safety was a genuine unknown. Immediately and urgently, my training focused on nervous system regulation, teaching how to embody moments of ease, expanding on moments of taking a deep breath and feeling confident in a decision or ability–everything became mapped out by a Window of Tolerance understanding, aiming to increase each person’s flexibility and resilience with time. Nearly every training and professional book I engage with builds on this foundation of neurological and nervous system science and the implications of the knowledge on how we interact in the therapy setting.
- Inner Relational Focusing deepens your understanding of the present moment experience through body scans, identifying parts and their needs, and how it is to meet your Parts’ needs in the moment-to-moment unfolding.
- Somatic Experiencing introduced me to the importance of titration and pendulation—ways of working that honor your system’s natural pacing and ensure we’re never doing too much, too fast. Titration means taking experiences in right-sized pieces, and pendulation is the gentle movement between what feels difficult and what feels supportive or steady, what we’ll call Resource.
This rhythm often looks like a child at the playground—free to climb, explore, and play, then pausing to check that a parent is still nearby, watching from the bench. With that reassurance, the child relaxes, laughs, and returns to play with ease. In our work together, you’re never asked to enter the metaphorical deep end alone. I am here with you each step of the way.
One of Peter Levine’s significant contributions to trauma healing is this understanding: when the nervous system is supported at the right pace, it can safely release the fight, flight, or freeze energy that became trapped during overwhelming experiences—allowing the body to complete what was once interrupted and find its way back to regulation and choice.
Window of Tolerance
provides a map of your hyperarousal and hypoarousal, allowing us to identify precisely when and what sends you out of your window so that we can safely expand your sense of living life as your genuine self.
Polyvagal Theory
provides a map of your hyperarousal and hypoarousal, allowing us to identify precisely when and what sends you out of your window so that we can safely expand your sense of living life as your genuine self.
Trust-Based Relational Intervention
was the second model of therapy I learned in graduate school, primarily used with foster kids and their families for mood regulation. The model taught me different playful, creative, artful, and movement strategies for working with hyperarousal and hypoarousal states, and how to communicate with clients in reactive states.
What to Expect in Somatic Psychotherapy Sessions
Somatic sessions are invitational, paced according to your comfort, and grounded in curiosity and care. I’ll welcome you to share your chronic pain journey with me, and together, we’ll explore body awareness, grounding techniques, needed movement, and the physical sensations that arise in response to emotions or relational patterns. We’ll uncover the origin stories when available, and attune to the meaning and warnings your body shares with us now, processing the correlated words with the physical needs for support, relief, and safety.
I’ll guide you in befriending your body, tuning in with curiosity and compassion, supporting you in building regulation, safety, and integration in a way that feels manageable and supportive. Each session is a space to notice, tend to, and work with sensations as they arise, helping you strengthen your connection with your body and your present-moment experience within the safety of the therapy room
As you deepen your connection to your inner self, this approach can help you feel more present, resilient, and at home in your body, fostering a sense of safety and ease that extends into your daily life and relationships.
Specialties Somatic Psychotherapy Is Great For:
My work is guided by the belief that therapy should meet you where you are. Rather than relying on a single approach, I adapt and blend different methods to support your goals and what you are navigating in the moment. These are the types of sessions we may use this approach in:
Frequently Asked Questions
Starting therapy often begins with a massive sigh, an exhaustion of looking for help, for relief, for change. I welcome your curiosities and hope that you will begin to find answers to your unsettled questions on the pages of my website.
Here are answers to the most common questions I am asked about working with Upward Roots. For any additional questions, please reach out so I can support your next step of growth.
Related Posts about Somatic Psychotherapy
Why Tracking Sensation Heals Trauma: A Somatic Parts Work Approach
As you read this, you might pause for a moment and notice your body.There’s no right way to do this. Simply observe—your breath, the weight
Introduction to Somatic Psychotherapy
You Do Not Need to be an Expert on the Language Such a beautiful attribute about somatic therapy is the attunement to the exact right words or
Intuition vs. Inner Wisdom: Learning to Tell the Difference
Many people come to therapy saying, “I don’t trust my intuition,” or “I feel disconnected from my inner wisdom.” Often, what they’re really describing is confusion between two very