Somatics in Depth

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” Joseph Campbell

The process of Somatic Psychotherapy involves you ultimately becoming more mindful of your present state. Through this awareness, new insights and experiences arrive that assist you in feeling empowered and able to change, develop, and heal.

Let me offer an example:

Do you ever feel like things are out of control? You have had an argument with your son, talked about it with your partner and felt like you had an understanding of the issues involved, only to have the same argument the next day. It’s as though you are watching yourself have the argument and you don’t like what you are saying and how it is impacting your son. You know it is not working in the very moment you are having the argument and yet you feel helpless to change direction. Your better self takes a backseat to some internal impulse to control the situation, to win the argument.  This has been described in psychological literature as lack of individuation, or emotional reactivity. This reaction is occurring within your body.

In therapy, we may begin by describing one of these arguments. We may invite it into the room, to role-play what it feels like. The process of tracking your thoughts, emotions and physical cues in a moment-to-moment basis helps to untangle all of the factors in play. Where does this emotion come from, where did you learn it, is it true for you or is it a learned response that is no longer serving you? Is your nonverbal communication in accord with what your words are saying, and if not, does this elicit a response from the person you are communicating with that is other than what you intended, thereby eliciting a response in you that is not healthy? By bringing awareness to all the factors in play, we increase capacity for choice and reduce unconscious reactive responses.