In the Greek language Soma means body, which translates loosely to “the living body known to the self’.
Conventional forms of therapy or counselling are often focussed on the mind. We are encouraged to “talk about” or “think through” problems or issues, so that we can make sense of them or perhaps view them differently. This is a largely cognitive process.
However our emotions are a bodily process. All emotions originate in the body, directly experienced in the fascia, tissues, muscles and organs. Every emotion has a particular ‘somatic signature', a combination of sensation, movement, posture and neurochemistry, at a level of intensity that varies from person to person. And the purpose of an emotion is to provide information, to others, and to ourselves.
Neuroscience, and in particular Poly Vagal Theory, has demonstrated that the mind and body are intricately interconnected. To simplify a complex process, we now understand that the brain (neocortex) receives information from our senses about our internal and external environment via a channel known as the Vagus Nerve. About 80% of the vagus nerve is ‘afferent’ meaning sensory. The brain then filters and evaluates this information and feeds it back to us as ‘thoughts’.
This means that the words we use to describe our feelings actually reflect the way in which the ‘mind’ has interpreted information from the body and nervous system. Over time we develop a narrative about what those signals mean. As Dr Stephen Porges - who developed Poly Vagal Theory - suggests, the ‘story follows state’.
This has a number of implications for therapy. Firstly, much of our experience as infants or children occurs before the brain has developed the capacity for verbal reasoning, or acquired language. The primary way that infants experience their bodies is nonverbal, and is stored in the ‘implicit’ memory system - as images, sounds, smells and bodily sensations. The mind will not be able to access this information through cognitive processes (no matter how much time we spend ‘thinking’).
Secondly, the emotional ‘pain’, and physiological responses that arise due to relational ruptures, stress or trauma can be quite overwhelming, preventing us from feeling at home in our body, and we may consciously or unconsciously ‘disconnect’ from (dissociate) or suppress bodily sensations.
Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing, notes that when we suppress our thoughts feelings and behaviours … suppressing tears, suppressing anger, suppressing fear, we interrupt the bodies spontaneous restorative process. The energetic charge (stress) of that experience remains in the body. This can result in physical symptoms of stress, such as migraine, chronic pain, or fibromyalgia.
We live in a culture where there are (often unspoken) messages for us to “manage” or suppress our emotions. A society in which we are frequently distracted with information, media, screens, or constant activity. In a literal sense, many of us have become disconnected from our ‘selves’, or from bodily information. Unknown to ourselves. If we cannot accurately discern our emotions and label them, the ‘mind’ may misinterpret what our body is telling us. We will respond very differently if we ‘think’ we are experiencing anger, when what may be occurring is sadness or anxiety.
In somatic approaches to therapy, the mind and the body are considered as two parts of the whole. Clients learn to befriend their body, and feel the sensations within it - a skill known as interoception - and to observe movement such as orientation, gesture or posture, a sense known as proprioception. Our ability to notice sensations and movement within our body is known as somatic (body) awareness.
This skill helps us sense our internal state, and witness how our nervous system responds in different situations. We can then work directly with the body to bring our physiology back into balance. A somatic approach widens our ability to sit with and ‘listen’ to sensations (emotions) that may be frightening or uncomfortable, and which we may otherwise avoid, ignore, dismiss or distract from. Perhaps more importantly, it helps us to access nonverbal information that lies outside of our conscious awareness, in a way that does not overwhelm us. To more accurately discern what is occurring within.
How do thoughts, feelings, sensations, movements, images, memories interact with one another? How did the mind interpret certain sensations, and how might that influence behaviour? What processes are occurring when my nervous system is ‘activated’ in this way? How might the interaction of mental and somatic processes have shaped perception, and the way in which we relate to ourselves, others and the world?
The somatic psychotherapies emphasise building trusting relationships in which co-regulation can occur, turning inward with compassion, and mindfully observing sensation. This provides a container in which clients can develop insight into unconscious patterns, unwind trauma and restore wellbeing.
Somatic Psychotherapy aims to:-
Restore the body as a place of safety, and help to increase our capacity to process body memory (preverbal and nonverbal memory)
Metabolize unprocessed emotion
Complete interrupted (incomplete) stress responses
Restore an optimal relationship to our self, and to the world around us.
Somatic Psychotherpies include Somatic Experiencing (Peter Levine), Hakomi Mindfulness-based Somatic Psychotherapy (Ron Kurtz), and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Pat Ogden). These approaches share a ‘focus’ on internal awareness with practices such as Yoga, Tai Chi and body oriented meditation, and also draw on knowledge from systems such as the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais.
Fiona Meredith is a Clinical Psychologist and Somatic Psychotherapist based in Adelaide, Australia.