What Is Somatic Therapy? Why Trauma Lives in the Body — Not Just the Mind

Have you ever noticed that your body does things you didn't decide to do?

Your chest tightens before a difficult conversation. Your stomach drops when your phone rings with a number you don't recognize. Your shoulders climb toward your ears when you walk into a particular room. Your jaw clenches at a sound, a smell, a tone of voice — before your mind has even registered what it was.

This is the body's memory. And for people who have experienced trauma, that memory can be more powerful than anything stored in conscious thought.

Bessel van der Kolk's landmark book was titled “The Body Keeps the Score” for a reason. The research is clear: trauma changes not just our thinking and our memories, but the structure and functioning of the brain and nervous system. Trauma lives in the body. And talk therapy alone — however good — often can't fully reach it there.

Why Traditional Talk Therapy Sometimes Isn't Enough

Conventional talk therapy works primarily through the cortex — the rational, verbal, analytical part of the brain. It's excellent for gaining insight, restructuring thought patterns, processing meaning, and building coping skills.

But trauma — especially early or repeated trauma — is often encoded in the subcortical brain, in the limbic system and brainstem, in structures that predate language. These structures don't care about insight. You can understand intellectually that the car accident was five years ago, that you are safe now, that your reaction is disproportionate — and your nervous system will still respond as though the threat is present. Because from its perspective, it is.

This is the gap that somatic approaches are designed to address.

What Somatic Therapy Actually Is

Somatic therapy is an umbrella term for body-centred therapeutic approaches that work directly with physical sensations, posture, movement, and breath — in addition to thought and narrative — to facilitate healing.

The most established and evidence-informed somatic approaches include:

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — developed by Pat Ogden, this approach works with the physical impulses, tensions, and movements that are the body's incomplete responses to threatening events. Trauma often involves a defensive action that was interrupted — the impulse to fight or flee that was suppressed, or the collapse that occurred when neither was possible. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy helps complete those interrupted responses in a slow, titrated way, allowing the nervous system to discharge the energy that's been held.

Somatic Experiencing — developed by Peter Levine, this approach focuses on tracking body sensations to help titrate (gradually process) the physiological activation associated with traumatic memories. The goal is to help the nervous system move through the trauma cycle to completion rather than remaining stuck in a state of chronic activation.

Body-informed EMDR — EMDR already incorporates a body scan as one of its eight phases, and skilled EMDR therapists integrate attention to somatic experience throughout the processing work.

What to Expect in a Session

Somatic work looks quite different from conventional therapy. Rather than primarily telling your story, you might be invited to:

• Notice what you feel in your body right now — tightness, warmth, movement, pressure
• Track how those sensations shift as you talk about or think about something
• Slow down and stay with a sensation rather than moving away from it
• Follow a physical impulse — a movement that wants to happen — at a very slow pace
• Work with breath, posture, or grounding practices

This can feel unfamiliar at first, especially if you're used to talk therapy. It requires a different kind of attention — turning inward rather than outward, sensing rather than analyzing. Most people find that with practice it becomes a powerful way of accessing and releasing things that words alone couldn't reach.

Who Benefits Most

Somatic approaches are particularly well-suited for:

• People who have tried talk therapy and found it helpful but incomplete
• Those who notice strong physical symptoms associated with their distress (chronic tension, digestive issues, chronic pain, racing heart)
• People with trauma who find that talking about events re-activates distress without providing relief
• Those who feel disconnected from their bodies or have difficulty identifying their emotions
• Anyone working with complex or early childhood trauma

Healing from trauma is not a purely intellectual project. The most lasting change tends to happen when both the mind and the body are part of the process.

Andrew Garnet MSW, RSW

Registered Social Worker with 18 years of experience in Scarborough, Ontario. Andrew specializes in trauma therapy, EMDR, men's mental health, and support for first responders and veterans. Full bio →