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9/2/2026 0 Comments What is Somatic Therapy?What is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic Therapy is an umbrella term used to describe a wide variety of different ways of helping people, ranging from somatic psychotherapies, somatic bodywork, Somatic Experiencing, and more. The key commonality between these different approaches, of course, is the word ‘Somatic’. ‘Somatic’, from the greek ‘soma’ (body), basically means ‘relating to the body’. But in recent decades the word has been used more and more to indicate the blurry overlap between mind and body. For example, you’ve heard of the fight/flight/freeze responses. Have you ever noticed that when you feel scared you might feel a clench in your belly, or a racing feeling in your chest? Or when you feel angry, you might feel hot or experience tunnel vision? Or when you feel happy and loving, you might feel a gentle warmth in your chest, and an uplift in your spine? These are all ‘somatic sensations’: physical sensations which also seem to be connected somehow with our emotional and/or mental state. One of the benefits of somatic therapy is that you get to step out of endlessly ruminating on questions like “why do I feel this way? Why am I like this? When did this start?” and instead pay attention to what is happening right now. And the amazing thing is that when you start paying attention to the somatic experiences that are occurring right now, they often change and resolve much faster than when we try to figure out how to understand the larger pattern. To say that in another way: What could take days or months to change by thinking and analyzing can sometimes change in minutes or seconds by feeling and observing. So, somatic therapy, also known as ‘body-based therapy’, is any approach that aims to help you work with your somatic experiences to help your body move toward comfort and safety that much faster. That explains somatic therapy, the umbrella term. But what about Somatic Experiencing, which is the approach I’ve chosen to study and specialize in? What is Somatic Experiencing? Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a somatic therapy developed by Dr. Peter Levine in the early 1970s. SE specializes in helping people navigate their fight/flight/freeze responses more effectively. If you find yourself nervous or anxious, easily losing your temper, or feeling numb/disinterested in the world around you, these can all be indications that your fight/flight/freeze system is dysregulated in some way. One of the benefits of Somatic Experiencing, then, is that a trained practitioner can help you notice the moment where your nervous system starts to get dysregulated, and can guide you in following the nervous system activation step by step until it starts to land into something more regulated. One of my earliest experiences with SE, as a client, was when my practitioner noticed that every time I started to get angry, I would distract myself with humor. He would catch the exact moment I distracted myself, and encourage me to pay attention to my internal body sensations instead. I found that if I sat with those feelings, I felt quite nauseous. He was able to guide me in feeling the nausea- taking just enough breaks that it wouldn’t get overwhelming- until the nausea faded. After several very strange sessions of exploring these sensations, the nausea started to change: instead of feeling like a sickness, it started to feel like strength. I felt more vital. And I noticed that in my day-to-day life I became more able to pursue my goals, to feel passion and drive, to set boundaries. I felt like a stronger person, because my body wasn’t afraid of that type of activation anymore. Once again, this takes us back to that fundamental principle of somatic work: Things change far faster when you’re willing to observe them, rather than think about them. For years I’d tried to figure out why I wasn’t more productive, why I had a hard time setting certain types of boundaries…but after a few hours of sitting with this weird sensation (and taking lots of breaks along the way), things changed pretty dramatically. One fun side-affect: One of the other benefits of Somatic Experiencing is that you can start getting more tuned in to what you want. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to see my clients start to ask for things in and out of sessions that they rarely would have asked for before. Maybe you’ve learned that you should sit in a certain way to appear professional, or maybe you’re very careful to set aside your own wishes because you don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. In fact, when people learn to sit with their somatic sensations, with proper encouragement they can start to get more in-tune with what their body actually wants. A glass of water, a pillow behind their back, a short break from conversation…I’ve seen many people become more comfortable with asking for these things (or just getting it themselves). And the really cool thing is that as they get better at asking this often not only improves their own comfort and well-being but also their relationships with those around them. Because they are more comfortable, more rested, and more authentically themselves. Long story short: it can really pay-off to get to know your body. Is there any reason not to do Somatic work? For many people, paying attention to body sensations can be uncomfortable, scary or even downright overwhelming. There’s a reason why so many people won’t touch meditation with a ten-foot pole despite all the research discussing its many benefits. For some, the body can be a scary place. I say this because I’m not trying to tell you that you should start sitting and paying attention to your body all the time. That could be overwhelming, and might not actually help you, especially if you’re one of these folks who have a lot of painful feelings associated with their body. However, if you can find a practitioner who knows how to approach things very gradually, it can be very helpful. Taking lots of breaks is key. Only dipping your toes in for a few moments (if it’s intense) is important. Avoid practitioners who promise to give you a really intense experience. Less is more. Everyone is different: some people benefit greatly from the intense experiences. But our culture tends to tell us that Big is Always Better. I’m here to remind you that for a big chunk of the population, taking things in extremely subtle, gentle doses will actually be a far faster and more effective way to grow. In conclusion So there we have it. Somatic Therapy is an umbrella term to describe any therapeutic approach that helps you connect to your body sensations. Somatic Experiencing as a powerful somatic therapy that helps your fight/flight/freeze system get more regulated, helping you feel safer, happier, and more effective in life. And sometimes taking things in small steps can actually be the best way to take a leap. If you have any questions, please schedule a free fifteen minute consult here! https://oncehub.com/thoughtfulintro FAQ Is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner a psychotherapist? Not necessarily. A psychotherapist may choose to take the 3-year SE program as a form of continuing education, to add that modality into their psychotherapy repertoire, but there are also massage therapists, yoga teachers, and coaches who study Somatic Experiencing. When finding an SE practitioner or any somatic specialist, make sure to learn enough about their training and experience to feel confident they could be a good fit for you and your specific goals. How many sessions do I need? I think of SE as analogous to personal training, only we are working with your nervous system instead of your muscles. How many personal training sessions do you need? It depends on your fitness goals, what your exercise routine looks like aside from your training sessions, and what your starting point is. If this is the first time you’ve exercised in your life, it may take some months just to get your tendons strong enough that they won’t be injured by lifting heavier weights! That said, you are not committed to seeing your practitioner a certain number of times. I recommend that you set clear goals, and then after 5-10 sessions, check in with your practitioner. Are you on the right track? Are there any tweaks the two of you should make to feel more aligned with your goals? If it’s not feeling right, it’s perfectly alright to find a new practitioner who may be a better fit. In fact, that could be the wisest move. What if I don’t know my body well enough to do somatic work? What if you’re not strong enough to go to the gym? I get it- it is really uncomfortable to do something you’re not instantly good at. But the people who don’t know their bodies very well are often the people who can get the most rapid benefits from somatic work. Because here’s the thing, your body is constantly trying to give you feedback about when to eat, when to rest, when to get some blood circulating, and if you’re missing those signals, then you’re enduring unnecessary discomfort! And when we endure unnecessary discomfort we don’t think as clearly, we don’t empathize as well, we are less present and often just less happy. So, if you come for a handful of SE sessions and all you learn is how to tell when you’re feeling slightly uncomfortable in your chair, that is a huge win because now you won’t be enduring uncomfortable chairs for the rest of your life! Sorry to wave my arms so much, I’m a bit passionate about this. If somatic work is deeply uncomfortable for you, don’t force it. But if you’re curious about it, and you’re just worried it will be hard? Give it a shot.
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11/6/2025 1 Comment Boundaries and boldnessIf you could choose one type of thing to be able to say "no" to, with no consequences, what would it be?
Today I'll share a couple articles with you that may seem different on the surface, but I believe are actually related. Have you ever noticed that you have friends or colleagues who speak their mind in a way that seems to work for them, yet you say "there's no way I could ever say that"? There are a lot of reasons why that could be, of course. Since I love to have choices in my life, I will often ask the question: "Am I avoiding this for a good reason, or is something old and no longer useful holding me back?" 1 Learned Helplessness. Kendra Cherry, and educational consultant, describes some fascinating research done several decades ago. The research shows how, if you're repeatedly exposed to something painful that has no apparent solution, then later on even when there is a new solution available, you'll be significantly less likely to try and solve it. There's a rather sad article about dogs getting acclimated to living in very uncomfortable cages...so acclimated that they didn't bother leaving even when the door was opened. This is just the default reaction, mind you. There are many of ways to undo the learned helplessness. 2. Setting loving boundaries with those around you. I've long been fascinated by boundaries: what are they, when are they useful, and why are they so hard for us? Lindsay Holmes writes a great article about the many ways they can make our lives better. Many of us don't set boundaries well, though. Either we aren't clear enough when we express our needs, we're too aggressive with them, or we don't set any boundaries at all. Part of the "why" behind this may be simply that no one ever taught us to do this. But why haven't we gone and learned ourselves? Is it possible that at some point along the way we learned that setting boundaries won't help? I'm thinking of the shrieking child I saw in the grocery store, yelling at her mom to "put me down! put me down!" If it doesn't work- if she doesn't get put down- will she eventually decide that yelling doesn't work? Is that a good (less shrieking) or a bad (suppressed boundary expression) thing to learn? 3. My own theory: Seligman, the scientist who discovered learned helplessness, found he could reverse the apathy in his subjects (the dogs) by physically leading them through the motions it would take to avoid the discomfort. With the dogs, it would take many repetitions of that leading before they would learn to start taking the initiative on their own. However, our fancy human brains may help us here. If we can be led, or lead ourselves, through an action previously thought to be impossible, we now have a counter-example to our previous learned helplessness. We can now recall that counter-example, imagine other situations of sucess, and continue to practice in comparatively safe situations until our feelings of helplessness begin to fade. I've personally experienced this in the context of boundary setting: There were certain things that I simply wouldn't say "no" to because I thought it was impolite. But really, even when a friend offered to practice with me in a role-play context, I was mortified. Learned helplessness: "I just don't say that." However, after we practiced for 30 minutes, wherein I got to say "no" to the same thing in a wide variety of different, sometimes playful ways, I no longer felt mortified, I felt empowered. My brain realized that I had an entirely new option that it hadn't considered until then. Also, you know that question I asked on the top line? I really want to hear the answer. Drop it in the comments or e-mail me! Warmly, Aaron Back when I was doing a lot of bodywork in addition to me Somatic Experiencing (SE) practice, there was often a fair amount of confusion from the people I talked to. I'd have people calling in, asking for Somatic Experiencing, but speaking about it as if it were massage. So I'd have to answer this question:
What is the difference between therapeutic bodywork and Somatic Experiencing? The easy answer is: Therapeutic bodywork (aka 'massage therapy') generally consists of physical touch, usually via some form of soft tissue manipulation, and often on a massage table. Somatic Experiencing, on the other hand, is traditionally done interpersonally, through dialogue, between a practitioner and client who are sitting with each other (or over video sessions). While there are some advanced SE techniques that may offer the option of light touch on the body, I think that a big part of the confusion is that the word "Somatic" does refer to the body. It means "relating to the body, especially as distinct from the mind". Somatic Experiencing is a therapeutic approach that focuses on your experience of your body, including your internal sensations, your external 5 senses, and even your sense of memory and imagination. But it's not a massage, and doesn't require touch. Ultimately, I think what people really want to know is: Which one is better for me? In what ways does therapeutic bodywork help and in what ways does SE help? This is one of those questions with a million answers. I'm going to give the answer that feels true for me today. Hands-on bodywork can help people reduce pain, calm their bodies, increase their ability to move fluidly and with greater flexibility. It can also help people improve their proprioception (knowing where their body is in space, even with their eyes closed), which can improve balance and agility, as well as their ability to make small adjustments in their movement and posture in order to improve their health and comfort. It can also help them feel a great degree of well-being, sometimes for days or weeks after a session. Somatic Experiencing, especially a series of sessions over time, is more oriented on improving your nervous system's ability to handle stress. It can help people get less upset by things that used to upset them, it can help them feel more energy and resourcefulness in situations that used to be exhausting or overwhelming, and it can help them derive deeper enjoyment from the 'good' things in life. Basically, if you have a problem that's aggravated by stress: your temper, your sleep cycles, your ability to focus, Somatic Experiencing work can be aimed at bringing your body's natural stress regulation abilities into focus so that challenge can be reduced. Sometimes a Somatic Experiencing's client might be in so much pain from muscle tension that it's challenging for them to focus on the exercises that could help them relax in the long run. Perhaps bodywork would be helpful in that case. Sometimes a bodywork client's muscle tension might come back only days after a massage because their life is so high stress. In that case, a series of SE sessions might help them stay in a comfortable state of mind and body for longer and longer than before. If you've ever had questions about the difference between bodywork and SE, and you still have more after reading this, please comment below, or shoot me an e-mail! [email protected] Cheers! Aaron 10/30/2025 0 Comments October 30th, 2025I used to host a regular "Self-Care Lab" where we'd meet and try different "somatic experiments": trying on different ways of moving, thinking, or feeling and seeing how they affected us. I'm a big fan of gentle life experiments like this.
1. The difference between a general body check-in, and checking for pleasant sensation. One experiment we conducted was taking a few moments to notice where our thoughts naturally went if we checked on our bodies and emotions. Many of the things that folks noticed were the everyday stresses, tensions, and anxieties of life. Then to contrast that, we did a check-in where we specifically looked for anything enjoyable that was happening. Much of the room expressed pleasant surprise at finding different thoughts, sensations, or reactions that felt good- and that in noticing those, the previous anxieties diminished greatly. I'll write up a version of that exercise and post it in the link above. 2. How to use your breath to allow stress to discharge. Christopher Bergland writes a great introduction to some of the ways that modern science and ancient tradition are finally working together. A big part of that is the Vagus nerve. My Somatic Experiencing practice (and most SE practitioners') is highly influenced by the research that shows the vagus nerve to be vital in regulating whether we are in a state of fight-flight or rest-and-relax. Strengthen vagal "tone" and you improve your body's ability to regulate stress, reduce inflammation, and rest the body. One of the ways to strengthen your vagal tone is through certain types of breath, and Christopher shows you how. (hint: the heart rate tends to slow down on the exhale, and speed up on the inhale. Knowing that, how would you adjust your breath if you wanted to encourage your body to slow its heart rate?) 3. Why feeling our strength can be a part of healing. As a massage therapist, I'm often helping people relax. But as a practitioner of Somatic Experiencing, I'm often helping them connect to their strength: their drive, their passion, and even sometimes their anger. This article describes how it can be limiting to only strive for relaxation, because sometimes in order to heal from whatever caused you tension in the first place, the strength and energy behind that tension needs to express itself. I would love to see more people doing the hard work of realizing their strength, and then resting deeply with the satisfaction of knowing that they have the ferocity of a tiger ready to protect them if need be. Have you ever experienced a sense that if you needed to, you could be ferocious? How does that knowledge support you as you move peacefully through the world? Over the past nine years as I've studied and trained in Somatic Experiencing, I've started realizing that there are a lot of way to take care of ourselves, mentally, physically, and emotionally, that are highly effective yet not yet 'common sense' in the public sphere. I'd like to share some of these with you.
1. Using your body to lower stress levels. Movement specialist Betsy Polatin offers very simple, yet potent ways of using your body to shift your patterns of stress. Even something as simple as taking your right hand, placing it gently on the skin of your left wrist, and taking a few moments to enjoy the contact of skin on skin can help your breath deepen naturally, and your shoulders begin to relax. 2. Using your unfocused mind to refresh your focus and your will. Author Srini Pillay, M.D. explains the benefits of 'spacing out', and offers guidance on three different ways to space out in the most effective, healing way possible. For example, while you surely know that dwelling on "what you should have said" over and over can stress you, imagining something whimsical like running along a cliffside near the ocean can help you reconnect to your sense of self, and manage change more effectively. Sometimes it can be hard to use these approaches when you're around other people. Our sense of social duty can distract us from taking care of ourselves, and it can be exhausting just to try to stay present with those around us. So, I've written a short article exploring: 3. How to recover yourself even when you're with others. Even something as simple as how you're holding tension in your face can drain you of social energy far faster than you might imagine. And yes, I'm linking to my own blog from 6 years ago, don't judge me! |
AuthorAaron Kapin is passionate about helping others grow more comfortable in the world, more clear on what they want, and more confident in their ability to ask for it. He's spent his entire adult life studying communication, personal growth, and healing arts, and hopes to continue training and growing for a good long while. Archives
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