Somatic therapy means relating to the body
We cannot talk about shifting what happens in our minds without also exploring what is happening in our bodies.
When appropriate according to my clinical judgment and your internal knowing, I can use touch in our work together.
Touch can be a very powerful, deep way of healing when combined with talk therapy. Touch can be especially effective while treating developmental trauma and preverbal attachment wounds.
I have training in both Hakomi and Relational Somatic Healing around the use of touch. Relational Somatic Healing incorporates the teachings of Hakomi, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohn’s Body Mind Centering (BMC), as well as poly-vagal theory, attachment theory, and the fundamentals of cranio-sacral work.
“We are not meant to heal alone, individual healing is a myth. All healing is relational”.
- Resmaa Menakem, somatic therapist and author of My Grandmother's Hands
What kind of touch do I use?
I use table work to offer safe embodied holding with a combination of psychological and attachment inquiries.
You will be fully clothed and I use gentle light touch to hold places on the body that feels safe to touch. Placement of holds can vary from one person to another. Some examples of holds are shoulder and knee, the feet, the diaphragm, sacrum, kidneys, head, heart, chest and belly.
The purposes of the holds are to attend to the body on a somatic level, to allow resources in, to regulate, to slow down, to relearn how to breathe, to feel more connected to parts of the body that aren’t in connection, and to create co-regulation. It is collaborative work.
Sexual touch will never be part of our work.
I always ask permission before using touch. You can always decide not to use touch, even if you agreed to it the moment before. Space to change your mind is an important part of consent. If at any time you feel uncomfortable, please let me know right away.
In addition, if and when after the session you felt that the touch was triggering for you, I strongly encourage you to bring it up in the next session so we can modify and/or reassess.
Before I use touch, I will learn about your relationship to touch, your history with it, your motivations to explore healing through touch, and your fears and concerns, so I can assess the appropriateness of using touch in our work.
I aim to move especially slowly in exploring healing touch–with extra focus on consent, boundaries, and safety. If you have questions, concerns, or anything else you would like to understand at any point about touch in psychotherapy, please reach out.
If you are interested, we can incorporate these particular forms of touch into your therapy. It is completely optional, and your therapy can proceed effectively without it.
To learn more you can explore the following resources:
Book: Integral Psychedelic Therapy: The Non-Ordinary Art of Psychospiritual Healing: Chapter 7 is on the use of touch in psychotherapy
