Somatic Therapy (Body Centered)

During a Somatic Experiencing session, we will slowly revisit the trauma while taking the time to notice what arises in the moment. I will support you to notice sensations, images, behaviors, affect or emotions, and thoughts or meaning that naturally arise during sessions. Through each response from your body, we will find areas that hold unprocessed energy and to release as needed, slowly and gently. Through the release of this energy, your body’s nervous system will return to its normal flow.

My entire graduate studies were focused on Somatic Psychology at the California Institute for Integral Studies. This orientation provides an added dimension by taking the therapy out of the arena of second-hand reports (from your verbal mind) and into first-hand, felt experience. Our bodies often reveal first what our verbal, self conscious mind attempts to disguise and hide. I utilize Somatic interventions to potentially open you up to information that can be overlooked in most analytic psychotherapy. Traditional therapy practices pay attention almost exclusively to thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In Somatics, the added awareness of sensations and felt experiences within the body are used to deepen the work. This can provide a channel of cooperation between the unconscious and conscious. In turn, Somatics helps to facilitate communication among parts of yourself that may be lost, hidden, or isolated.

What does somatic therapy mean and look like? Implicit memories (the ones without a movie in our head) are stored in the body keep people stuck. These memories can be released and accessed to heal the body and the mind with or without the story being shared or even touched. Together we bring on regulation, safety, with a compassionate witness to have a felt sense of being seen, heard and understood. Internalizing the safety into your body is the thrive of health.

As a dedicated Vipassana meditator, I try to meditate two hours a day and have participated in more than 100 days of silent retreat. From this personal experience I know firsthand how powerful and healing somatic approaches can be. It can be far from easy to access this type of healing, however, as our bodies also carry our accumulated pain and trauma. A somatic approach can often initially lead to more discomfort, but "moving through" can lead to incredible healing.

I often use mind-body exercises when helping people cope with stress, anxiety, depression and life changes. Since the mind and the body and interconnected, I often find that blending talking with body-based work often leads to more effective and long lasting relief. Also, as a certified yoga teacher of 20 years, I draw from yoga postures, breath practices and relaxation techniques I have collected over the years. Body centered therapy is paced with your comfort level.

Our bodies hold our traumas. Anxiety, tension, always being on edge, and feeling unsafe is part of trauma. Reclaim your body and your relationship with your body. Heal your trauma and learn tools to relax and ease your body.

Somatic Psychology (body mind psychotherapy, body-oriented psychotherapy, etc.) is a holistic form of therapy that respects and utilizes the powerful connection between body, mind, and spirit. How we are in this world, how we relate to ourselves and others, is not just purely about the mind or our thoughts, but it is also deeply rooted in our bodies and our spirits. Unlike traditional talk therapy or cognitive therapy, Somatic Psychology tends to be more experiential.

My favorite way of working includes the body. When the body mind connection are recognized, you access your wisest self. You also experience an improvement in mood, a decrease in anxiety, and experience more fulfilling connections with yourself and with others.

I have been a massage therapist for 30 years and found my way to Pyschotherapy as a result of the many emotional experiences that the body released during with newborns and their parents with CranioSacral therapy. I found that the implicit memories that keep people stuck can be accessed with or without the story being shared to be released and healed in the body and the mind.

Through my Focusing & Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy methods, we can use the "felt sense" to get in touch w/ what our body is telling us - how it has a sense of "knowing" where we are stuck, or where we might like to go, that often doesn't even need words. Talk therapy can do a lot, but in many cases, we can feel like we hit a wall. Somatic approaches including cultivating the felt sense, engaging the right brain & limbic system, & working with body-based approaches can be transformative.

A lot my grad school coursework was based on somatic practices. I also, have a Hakomi Level 1 certification. My masters thesis was on The Implications of Reiki Integrated Psychotherapy. I have taken many seminars in mindfulness and have a certification from John F. Kennedy University in Buddhist Psychology.

I believe that increasing awareness of our physical experiences helps us to heal and cultivate self-compassion. Our thoughts are very good at telling us things that are not actually true. Our bodies always tell us the truth. It is in that truth where we can find relief from suffering.

Most recent research in neuroscience shows that in order to heal, we have to start with a bottom-up approach which means healing the nervous system before we focus on cognitive restructuring.

I attended the Somatic Psychology graduate program in California Institute of Integral Studies' counseling psychology program. Throughout grad school, I learned all psychotherapeutic theories and practices through a somatic lens.

My practice is informed by Somatic Experiencing.

Somatic Psychotherapy is a body-oriented therapeutic modality and holistic approach to wellness and trauma survival that builds upon and integrates the diversity of somatic approaches within the context of therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy guides you in contacting and being gently with your embodied lived-experience of race, ethnicity, and socio-cultural identity. Somatic Psychotherapy promotes embodied transformation and collective liberation that interrogates and interrupts toxic social forms of

My graduate training was in holistic/somatic psychology. I incorporate Focusing/Sequencing, Interoception, Activation Regulation and Resourcing, Mindfulness and Body/Mind connection into our work.

Somatic Experiencing Practitioner

During a somatic experiencing session, we will slowly revisit the trauma while taking the time to notice what arises in the moment. I will support you to notice sensations, images, behaviors, affect or emotions, and thoughts or meaning that naturally arise during sessions. Through each response from your body, we will find areas that hold unprocessed energy and to release as needed, slowly and gently. Through the release of this energy, your body’s nervous system will return to its normal flow.

Every experience we have affects us on a bodily level. We feel emotions in a physical way, thoughts make us cringe or tense up, memories can make us feel like we are physically back in the past. Traditional talk therapy ignored the body and tried to change our patterns by only engaging our thinking mind. Somatic therapy is a powerful new tool we have for healing. When we engage the body, we engage and heal all parts of our experience. I use sensorimotor psychotherapy, yoga, and meditation.