I will guide you through somatic exercises to explore, attune and stay present with bodily sensations.

While there may be movement involved, not all sessions are oriented to create movement. Sometimes stillness is better suited to create a sense of safety in your body.

You can expect to explore explicit memories, but also memories of the body that need to be released, looking like a sense of calmness or painless in terms of body.

To heal from trauma, we can employ various "top-down" and "bottom-up" techniques. "Top-down" techniques refer to therapeutic modalities that focus on processing trauma cognitively, such as through talk therapy or journaling. While these modalities are important tools for healing, we cannot simply talk our way out of trauma. We must also teach our bodies and Nervous Systems to release the maladaptive patterns caused by trauma. "Bottom-up" techniques focus on creating new neural pathways and retraining the nervous system to recognize its own sense of safety. Some bottom-up techniques include yoga/meditation/mindfulness, somatic experiencing, brainspotting, and dance/movement therapy.

Somatic Psychotherapy is the study of the body-mind interface (Soma means body and psyche means mind). When a person's relationship to their body has been harmed by trauma or abuse, the relationship can be repaired through somatic practices that help clients regain connection with their body, learn to listen to their body’s signals and physiological symptoms, and learn to remain grounded.

Somatic therapy would fit anyone interested in exploring interoception (the capacity to feel one’s present body through emotions, sensations and different body states), and heal from that connection. If you find talk therapy redundant or are not making much progress, somatic psychotherapy could be a great option. Somatic sessions are ideal for working on stress, trauma and anxiety responses.

Not necessarily. During both online and in-person sessions, I will verbally guide you through exercises that might or might not include self touch (tapping, place hands as supporting your body). However, all prompts are merely suggestions. You are free to choose how to participate in the guided exercises. If you feel that self touch is not tolerated, it doesn’t mean Somatic Therapy won’t work for you.

How many sessions are needed differs from client to client. Just one session can be sufficient to release tension from the body. However, most likely the brain and Nervous System need time to adapt and create new connections.

One-hour sessions are charged at $150. Two-hour sessions are charged at $300.

The two-hour session is geared towards working on proprioceptive sense (self-awareness experienced through body movement), which is useful when processing trauma.