Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

I am Level 1 trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and regularly integrate the body/mind approach into my therapeutic practice. This helps us to navigate a holistic treatment approach, inclusive of your physical sensations, your cognitions, and your emotional self.

Present-moment experience is used, with special attention on body sensations. This modality can be especially powerful when there is trauma. Bringing mindful attention to body sensations allows trauma activation to processed in a manageable way.

This somatic (body and mind) approach brings the wisdom of your body into the therapeutic process of addressing, accessing, processing, transforming, and resolving trauma. This modality explores the present-moment sensations and experiences (mindfulness) of the body to help heal trauma.

I am Level 1 trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and integrate this into my Person-Centered, Strengths-Based approach to all my treatment. I believe there is a strong connection between the mind and body and that sometimes mental health issues can store themselves in the physical body.

I trained in this incredible healing approach as soon as I finished school, deepening my skills and knowledge of how to include our physical, body experience in therapy for deeper, lasting healing. If you're like the folks I typically work with, you already know a lot about what is going on that isn't working for you. If knowing and talking about it was enough, you might not even be looking for a therapist. Using this treatment, I help you actually experience how it feels to live differently.

SP is a holistic approach integrating somatic, emotional, cognitive, and relational aspects to help clients heal from trauma and attachment experiences. As an SP-informed therapist I use a mindful, experiential approach to guide my clients in processing their experiences. SP is nonviolent, always following the wisdom of the client and never forcing change before someone is ready. SP honors behavior patterns as adaptive and protective for us. I am Level II trained and assist with ongoing training

I am currently in the process of training for this amazing modality. The somatic focus builds on my yoga and mindfulness trainings in powerful ways. Sensorimotor psychotherapy is an especially powerful tool for people who recovering from PTSD and CPTSD.

The body holds the wisdom to your healing. Sensorimotor psychotherapy is a profound combination of body based explorations, mindfulness sequencing of sensation in the body to help you unlock trauma, unconscious parts and move into a more whole, calm, curious and connected version of yourself. It goes through 3 phases of stabilization, processing and integration. This modality combined with other right brain approaches allows for deep transformation and more satisfaction in life.

I theoretically underpin therapy with polyvagal theory, neurobiology, and mind-body connection approaches. Therapeutic interventions we may engage in are Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, somatic therapies, DBT, mindfulness-based, Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), and safety and stability techniques.

As a sensorimotor therapist, I'll ask you a lot of questions about what you notice going on in your body: your emotions, your thoughts, your 5 senses, and physical sensations. I will work with you to recognize how your body communicates its emotions to you with the goal of being able to articulate your feelings and better manage physical responses to events or strong emotions.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy--those are some big words. I think of it more as a way to integrate attachment work, mindfulness, parts work as well as somatic work to understand your body, and help unlock the information it holds. It's not necessarily as simple as that sounds, but working in this way has really helped my clients gain so much more understanding about themselves and how they can begin to take steps to feel more present in their own lives.

One of my favorite aspects of sensorimotor psychotherapy are the tools it offers for healing wounds from childhood (aka developmental wounds). It also offers core values of organicity, non-violence, unity, mind-body-spirit holism, mindfulness, and relational alchemy that deeply inform how I engage with my client work.

Using SP, the work shifts from merely talking about something to being fully present with experience as it is. Together, therapist and client pay exquisite attention to internal experience in the here and now, exploring what the client brings to the therapy hour. This invites transformation, healing, and other gifts to unfold. I taught for the SP Institute for 20 years.

SP is a method that draws upon the natural wisdom of the body to tap into the innate drive in all of us to heal, adapt and develop new capacities. The effects of trauma, neglect and abusive or emotionally painful relationships with childhood caregivers are held in our nervous systems, posture, and movement habits as well as in unresolved painful emotions and limiting beliefs. To change these patterns, clients learn to mindfully follow the natural intelligent processes of body and mind.