Somatic Therapy

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body-oriented approach to healing trauma

You might find somatic therapy helpful if:

You can explain your story clearly, but still feel disconnected from your body

You experience ongoing anxiety or panic, and feel like you are in constant stress response

You feel disconnected, numb, or overwhelmed by sensations in your body

You find your body reacting in ways that don't match what your mind has already worked through

What is somatic therapy?

Somatic therapies bring the body into the therapy room alongside the story. Alongside talking about what happened, we pay attention to what's happening in your body as we talk.

I'm trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP), a non-touch somatic therapy approach developed by Pat Ogden specifically for complex trauma (C-PTSD) survivors, trauma, and attachment difficulties.

The therapy is holistic and draws on mind-body healing, attachment theory, polyvagal theory, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and modern neuroscience. It helps us to understand and process how traumatic experiences become stored in posture, movement, physiological responses, and our nervous system.

Principles of SP

Non-violence
Unity
Organicity
Mindfulness
Relational Alchemy
Mind-Body Holism

Who tends to benefit most

This work tends to fit especially well for you if you:

  • Notice you live a lot in your head

  • Feel numb or far away from your own body

  • Find that insight alone hasn't shifted the patterns you're stuck in

  • You experienced trauma that happened early or before language

  • Your nervous system tends to quickly snap into overwhelm or shut down

Somatic work often sits alongside EMDR in our sessions, particularly when trauma is held more in the body than in clear memory.

It's also its own standalone approach for people whose difficulty shows up as chronic tension, disconnection from the body, or a sense of being "in your head" most of the time.

How might it help me?

Many people come to this work hoping their symptoms will ease.

Alongside that, clients often describe other changes too: a different relationship with their own body, less like something to manage or override and more like something they can actually live in. A wider window for handling stress. A sense of feeling more present in relationships and more able to stay grounded in hard conversations.

This approach is highly personalised, and so therapy will work differently for everyone.

Extended 80-minute sessions are available and align with best practice in trauma treatment.

SP’s research base

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy sits within a well established body of work on how trauma is held in the nervous system. This includes research on trauma and the body from Bessel van der Kolk, and Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory, which describes how our nervous system moves between states of safety, threat, and shutdown.

Research has found that SP and body based psychotherapies can lead to reductions in symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, mood, and dissociative experiences.

Qualitative feedback from research on group based SP found reports of increased mindfulness, affect regulation, body awareness, and use of self soothing skills.

Your questions answered

  • Alongside focusing on the story, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy works by focusing on the physical sensations and bodily responses to stabilise one’s nervous system.

    Over time, this helps the nervous system complete responses it wasn't able to finish in the moment, and settle into a wider window of tolerance rather than getting stuck in survival mode.

  • It is both structured and flexible in it’s process. The SP progress generally moves between the following stages:

    • Assessment and intake

    • Safety and stabilisation

    • Processing trauma through body focused interventions

    • Integration

    The therapist will draw on the following techniques in session - resourcing, tracking, titration, mindfulness, movement experiments, and completing defensive responses.

  • No. Somatic work can process what's held in the body without requiring a full, detailed account of what happened.

    For many people, this is one of the most helpful aspects of this approach.

  • EMDR works primarily through structured, memory focused reprocessing, while SP works more broadly with the body's ongoing patterns of tension, bracing, and nervous system response.

    Whilst the two work well together, SP is a standalone treatment for those wanting a more steadier, gradual approach.

  • It depends. For those with complex trauma histories, clients tend to engage over longer periods (months to years).

    We work at the pace your system can actually tolerate, tailored to your goals and preferences.

  • Yes. SP can be adapted effectively for online sessions.

    Some people prefer this, especially if they prefer to process at home, or if transport or health needs make it difficult to attend in person.

Interested in finding out more about somatic therapy?

Get in touch