What Is Somatic Therapy? A Complete Guide.
If you've ever noticed your shoulders tense up before a difficult conversation, or felt a wave of nausea when reminded of a painful memory, you've experienced something somatic therapists work with every day: the body's memory of emotional experience.
Somatic therapy is a body-centered approach to healing that recognizes what talk therapy alone sometimes misses: trauma, stress, and deeply held beliefs aren't just stored in the mind. They live in the body too.
What Does "Somatic" Mean?
The word somatic comes from the Greek word soma, meaning body. Somatic therapy is an umbrella term for therapeutic approaches that bring attention to physical sensations, movement, and bodily experience as a pathway to psychological healing.
Rather than focusing exclusively on thoughts and narrative, the domain of traditional talk therapy, somatic therapy works with what the body is doing: the tension, the breath, the gut feeling, the impulse to move or freeze.
How Does Somatic Therapy Work?
Somatic therapists are trained to notice and work with physical cues that often go unexamined in traditional therapy. Sessions may involve:
Breathwork - using the breath to regulate the nervous system and access deeper emotional states
Body awareness - bringing deliberate attention to physical sensations as they arise in session
Guided imagery - using visualization to access memories or parts of the self that are difficult to reach through words alone
Parts work - identifying the different "parts" of yourself that hold specific beliefs, emotions, or protective roles, and entering into dialogue with them
Movement - using gentle physical movement to complete stress responses that the body may have stored
The goal is not just insight, it's integration. Somatic therapy aims to create change that is felt in the body, not just understood in the mind.
What Is Somatic Parts Work?
At Solomon Therapy, our somatic approach is deeply informed by understanding that the unconscious is made up of multiple "parts," each with its own perspective, history, and role. Some parts are protective. Others carry the weight of old wounds.
Somatic parts work helps clients locate where different parts live in the body, and what they need in order to heal. This approach is particularly powerful for trauma, because traumatic memories are often stored not as coherent narratives, but as fragmented physical sensations and emotional states.
Who Is Somatic Therapy For?
Somatic therapy tends to be especially effective for people who:
Have tried talk therapy and feel something is still missing
Experience anxiety, depression, or trauma that feels "stuck" despite cognitive insight
Struggle with dissociation or feeling disconnected from their body
Live with chronic physical symptoms that may have emotional roots
Want to go deeper than symptom management toward lasting change
It is also well-suited to people navigating spiritual or existential questions - those who sense that healing involves more than changing their thinking.
Is Somatic Therapy Evidence-Based?
Yes. Somatic approaches to trauma treatment, including Somatic Experiencing and sensorimotor psychotherapy, have a growing body of research supporting their effectiveness, particularly for PTSD and complex trauma. These approaches are increasingly recognized alongside EMDR and trauma-focused CBT as effective trauma treatments.
Somatic Therapy in Los Angeles
At Solomon Therapy, our Los Angeles therapists are trained in somatic parts work, Attachment-Focused EMDR, and mindfulness-based approaches. We work with adults, teens, and couples in person at our Silver Lake office and virtually throughout California and New York.
If you've been feeling stuck in your emotions, your relationships, or your sense of self, somatic therapy may offer the different approach you've been looking for.
