Somatic Therapy Techniques for Trauma: An Evidence-Informed Guide for Clinicians

Somatic therapy begins with a clinically important observation: clients do not experience trauma only as thoughts, memories, or beliefs. They may also experience it through a racing heart, constricted breathing, chronic muscular tension, numbness, startle responses, digestive distress, agitation, shutdown, and an enduring sense that danger is still present.

A client may understand intellectually that a traumatic event is over while continuing to brace physically whenever a door closes, a voice changes, or another person moves too quickly. Traditional talk therapy can help the client understand what happened, but insight alone may not fully change the conditioned physiological responses surrounding the experience.

This is where somatic therapy can add value. It brings attention to posture, movement, sensory experience, breathing, interoception, autonomic arousal, and the client’s moment-to-moment relationship with their body.

The central argument of this article is not that somatic therapy should replace established trauma treatments. Rather, somatic therapy is most clinically defensible when it is used as an evidence-informed, consent-based framework that complements careful assessment and established psychotherapy. It can help therapists recognize dysregulation, improve pacing, strengthen present-moment awareness, and support clients who struggle to access or tolerate trauma material through language alone.

Current PTSD guidelines continue to give the strongest support to structured trauma-focused psychotherapies such as Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and EMDR. Somatic approaches have promising evidence, particularly for improving body awareness and autonomic regulation, but the research base is smaller and more heterogeneous. The VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for PTSD is therefore an important reference point: clinicians can integrate body-focused strategies without presenting them as replacements for better-established treatment when a client meets criteria for PTSD.

What Is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic therapy is an umbrella term for psychotherapeutic approaches that deliberately include bodily experience in assessment and treatment. Rather than treating thoughts, emotions, behavior, and physiology as separate systems, somatic therapy examines how they interact.

A somatic therapist may notice that a client holds their breath while discussing conflict, curls their shoulders inward when setting boundaries, becomes suddenly motionless during trauma recall, or reports pressure in the chest before consciously recognizing fear. Those bodily changes become clinically relevant information rather than background noise.

Somatic therapy may incorporate:

• sensory grounding and environmental orientation;
• interoceptive awareness;
• posture and movement tracking;
• paced breathing;
• resourcing and stabilization;
• pendulation between activation and relative ease;
• titration of emotionally intense material;
• exploration of defensive movement impulses;
• mindfulness adapted for trauma;
• boundary and agency exercises;
• co-regulation within the therapeutic relationship.

Some models, including Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, organize these methods into distinctive treatment systems. Other clinicians use somatic interventions selectively within CBT, EMDR, psychodynamic therapy, mindfulness-based treatment, parts work, or trauma-focused psychotherapy.

For a broader explanation of how bodily and cognitive trauma responses interact, clinicians can read The Neuroscience of Trauma: How Memory and Healing Connect. That discussion provides useful background for understanding why a client’s verbal narrative and physiological response may change at different speeds.

Somatic Therapy and the Meaning of “The Body Remembers”

Popular trauma language often suggests that trauma is “stored in the body.” The phrase can be emotionally meaningful, but clinicians should use it carefully.

Traumatic memories are not literally stored inside muscles or connective tissue as if the body were a filing cabinet. What can persist are conditioned associations, procedural habits, autonomic responses, avoidance patterns, changes in attention, and learned reactions to internal or external cues.

A person who was attacked from behind may automatically tighten their neck when someone approaches. A survivor of medical trauma may become nauseated when smelling antiseptic. Someone raised in an unpredictable home may detect subtle shifts in tone long before others notice them. These responses are embodied, but they also involve learning, memory, emotion, cognition, and context.

This distinction matters because inaccurate neuroscience can weaken clinical credibility. Somatic therapy does not require therapists to claim that every sensation contains a hidden trauma memory or that trembling always represents physiological “release.” A body sensation may reflect fear, fatigue, pain, medication effects, illness, hunger, cultural learning, or ordinary variation. The therapist’s task is to investigate collaboratively rather than impose an interpretation.

The National Center for PTSD provides a reliable U.S.-based resource for understanding trauma symptoms, evidence-based care, and the interaction between reminders, arousal, avoidance, mood, and daily functioning. Its materials are valuable because they distinguish clinically established knowledge from attractive but insufficiently tested explanations.

Why Somatic Therapy Has Become Central to Trauma-Informed Practice

Somatic therapy has grown partly because clinicians increasingly recognize the limitations of a purely top-down model. A client may be able to challenge a thought while still feeling immobilized, disconnected, or physiologically unsafe. In such cases, additional attention to sensory and bodily experience can make cognitive work more accessible.

This does not mean that cognition is irrelevant. It means that cognition operates within a living physiological system. Breathing patterns influence attention. Pain influences mood. Posture can reflect both habit and emotional state. Hyperarousal can narrow cognitive flexibility, while dissociation can interrupt memory, attention, and engagement.

Somatic therapy is therefore often described as a bottom-up approach, whereas cognitive therapies are described as top-down approaches. The distinction is useful but incomplete. Most effective therapies move in both directions. CBT affects behavior and physiology; movement affects meaning and self-perception; EMDR includes cognition, emotion, imagery, and bodily sensation; mindfulness trains attention while changing the person’s relationship to internal experience.

The better clinical question is not “Should treatment be top-down or bottom-up?” It is:

Which entry point is most accessible, safe, and therapeutically relevant for this client at this moment?

That question supports individualized, measurement-based care rather than loyalty to a single therapeutic brand.

Somatic Therapy Compared With CBT, CPT, EMDR, and Mindfulness

The following comparison clarifies where somatic therapy overlaps with other approaches and where it differs.

Approach	Primary clinical focus	Typical mechanisms or strategies	Role of bodily experience	Strength of PTSD evidence
Somatic therapy	Sensation, movement, autonomic state, agency, embodiment	Tracking, grounding, orienting, titration, movement, resourcing	Central treatment focus	Promising but still developing; varies by model
CBT	Thoughts, behaviors, avoidance, coping patterns	Cognitive restructuring, behavioral experiments, exposure, skills training	Included when relevant, but not always central	Strong for several trauma-related and anxiety presentations
Cognitive Processing Therapy	Trauma-related beliefs and “stuck points”	Written or verbal processing, cognitive examination, meaning revision	May be tracked as part of emotional change	Strongly supported for PTSD
Prolonged Exposure	Avoidance and fear learning	Imaginal exposure, in-vivo exposure, emotional processing	Physiological arousal is expected and monitored	Strongly supported for PTSD
EMDR	Distressing memories and associated networks	Dual attention, bilateral stimulation, memory reprocessing	Body sensations are explicitly assessed	Supported and recommended in major guidelines
Mindfulness-based therapy	Present-moment attention and nonjudgmental awareness	Meditation, observation, acceptance, body scan	Often central, especially through interoception	Supportive evidence, though findings vary by protocol

The comparison demonstrates why somatic therapy should not be framed as the opposite of evidence-based trauma treatment. There is substantial overlap. A trauma-focused CBT clinician may use grounding and breathing. An EMDR clinician may track constriction or dissociation. A somatic therapist may address beliefs, meanings, and avoidance.

Clinical Events’ article on CPT vs. EMDR offers a more detailed analysis of two established trauma treatments. The accompanying guide to how EMDR works in trauma reprocessing explains how attention to bodily disturbance can be incorporated without abandoning a structured treatment model.

What Does the Evidence Say About Somatic Therapy?

The evidence supporting somatic therapy is encouraging but should not be exaggerated.

A randomized controlled study of Somatic Experiencing included 63 adults who met criteria for PTSD. Participants received 15 weekly sessions or were assigned initially to a waitlist. The study found significant reductions in post-traumatic and depressive symptoms, suggesting that Somatic Experiencing may be beneficial. However, the researchers also identified limitations, including the small sample, use of a waitlist rather than an active treatment comparison, and limited evidence regarding which populations benefit most. The complete study is available through the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central database.

This is an important finding, but one small randomized study cannot establish equivalence with therapies supported by larger research programs. The most accurate conclusion is that Somatic Experiencing has promising preliminary evidence, not that it has been definitively proven superior to CBT, CPT, EMDR, or exposure-based treatment.

Research on broader body-focused practices also produces a mixed picture. The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health reports that mindfulness and meditation may reduce PTSD symptoms in some populations, while also noting variation across interventions and studies. Its guidance on yoga similarly describes possible benefits while emphasizing that much of the PTSD evidence remains low quality.

Interoception is another active research area. In one randomized clinical trial involving veterans with PTSD, mindfulness-based stress reduction was associated with improvements in symptoms and measurable changes in interoceptive brain responses. The researchers proposed that improved processing of bodily signals may partly explain the therapeutic effects. The study can be reviewed through PubMed’s interoception and PTSD record.

The emerging thesis is therefore nuanced: body awareness may be a meaningful therapeutic mechanism, but somatic therapy remains a broad category rather than one uniformly validated protocol.

Assessing Readiness for Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy should begin with assessment, not technique.

Some clients find body awareness immediately grounding. Others experience the body as frightening, painful, unfamiliar, shameful, or unsafe. A trauma survivor may have learned to survive by disconnecting from physical sensation. Asking that person to close their eyes and scan their body can increase distress rather than reduce it.

Assessment should explore:

• current PTSD, panic, depression, dissociation, and substance-use symptoms;
• medical conditions that could affect breathing, balance, pain, heart rate, or fatigue;
• history of seizures, fainting, respiratory problems, or cardiac concerns;
• comfort with movement, eye closure, stillness, and physical proximity;
• experiences of medical trauma, sexual trauma, restraint, or coercive touch;
• cultural and religious meanings attached to bodily expression;
• the client’s ability to notice activation before reaching overwhelm;
• current coping strategies and external supports;
• treatment goals and preferences.

Clinicians should also distinguish between activation and danger. A racing heart may be anxiety, but it can also have a medical cause. Dizziness may occur during panic, but it may also be related to medication, blood pressure, vestibular dysfunction, dehydration, or another condition. Somatic therapy should not become a reason to interpret every physical symptom psychologically.

Core Somatic Therapy Techniques

The table below summarizes frequently used somatic therapy techniques, their clinical aims, and important cautions.

Somatic therapy technique	Primary purpose	Example intervention	Clinical caution
Orienting	Reconnect with the present environment	Slowly identify colors, exits, light, sounds, and signs of safety	Rapid scanning may resemble hypervigilance; slow the pace
Grounding	Increase present-moment stability	Feel feet on the floor or support from the chair	Do not assume inward attention is calming
Interoceptive tracking	Build awareness of internal signals	Notice pressure, warmth, movement, breath, or numbness	Sensations should be described, not overinterpreted
Resourcing	Strengthen access to stability	Recall a supportive person, place, movement, or sensory cue	Imagery may not work for every client
Titration	Limit the intensity of processing	Approach distress in brief, manageable doses	“Small doses” must be guided by the client’s response
Pendulation	Increase flexibility between activation and ease	Shift attention between tension and a neutral sensation	Avoid forcing positive sensation
Paced breathing	Influence arousal and attention	Use a comfortable, slightly longer exhale	Deep breathing can worsen panic or dizziness
Movement completion	Explore blocked agency or defensive impulse	Press gently against a wall or step backward	Do not claim a movement proves a specific trauma narrative
Containment	Create a sense of boundary and manageability	Press palms together or hold a pillow	Physical pressure should remain optional
Co-regulation	Support stability through relational presence	Use clear pacing, predictable language, and attuned tone	Therapist calm should not become emotional control

Orienting: Using the Environment to Establish the Present

Orienting directs attention outward. The client may be invited to look around the room, notice where the doors are, identify several colors, observe daylight through a window, or locate objects that feel neutral or pleasant.

The goal is not distraction. It is contextual updating.

During a flashback or dissociative episode, the client’s attention may become dominated by internal material. Orienting helps reintroduce information from the present environment: this room is different, the therapist is visible, the exit is accessible, and the client has choices.

The therapist might say:

“Take your time and let your eyes move around the room. You do not need to search for anything. Simply notice what your attention lands on.”

This language is less controlling than telling the client to “calm down.” It also avoids assuming that every visible object feels safe.

Grounding: Establishing Contact Without Forcing Calm

Grounding may include noticing the feet, the chair, the weight of the hands, or the texture of clothing. The therapist can invite the client to press the feet gently into the floor and then release, creating a clearer sensory contrast.

Grounding is often treated as a universal intervention, but it should be individualized. A client with chronic pain may not benefit from focusing on body weight. A survivor of restraint may dislike pressure. Someone experiencing panic may become more alarmed when asked to monitor breathing.

A trauma-informed version offers options:

“Would it be more helpful to notice your feet, look around the room, hold something textured, or keep talking without focusing on your body?”

Choice is not a decorative feature of somatic therapy. It is part of the intervention.

Interoceptive Tracking: Learning the Body’s Early Signals

Interoception refers to the perception of internal bodily states, including heartbeat, breathing, temperature, hunger, tension, and visceral sensation. Somatic therapy uses interoceptive tracking to help clients identify patterns before they become overwhelming.

A client might discover that anger begins as heat in the face, panic begins as tightness in the throat, or shutdown begins with heaviness behind the eyes. These observations can improve early intervention.

The clinician should remain curious rather than interpretive:

• “What do you notice?”
• “Does it stay in one place or move?”
• “Is it changing, staying steady, or difficult to locate?”
• “What happens when you give it ten percent of your attention rather than all of it?”

For clinicians interested in the intersection of attention and body awareness, Integrating Mindfulness Into Trauma Therapy Sessions discusses how mindfulness can be modified when inward focus increases activation or dissociation.

Resourcing: Expanding Access to Stability

Resourcing helps clients identify experiences associated with steadiness, support, competence, connection, or relative comfort. A resource may be an image, person, animal, memory, object, prayer, piece of music, posture, place, or movement.

The word “safe” should not be imposed when it feels unrealistic. For many clients, “less threatened,” “more supported,” or “slightly steadier” may be more accessible.

A therapist might ask:

“When you think about the person who treated you with respect, what changes—if anything—in your breathing, face, or posture?”

The therapist is not trying to manufacture a positive state. The purpose is to help the client recognize that multiple states can exist and that distress is not the only available experience.

Titration and Pendulation

Titration means approaching distress in small, tolerable increments rather than immersing the client in the most intense material immediately.

Pendulation describes movement of attention between activation and a comparatively neutral, stable, or pleasant experience. A client may notice tightness in the chest for several seconds and then shift attention toward the support of the chair or warmth in the hands.

These techniques are sometimes presented as uniquely somatic, but they also resemble graded exposure, attentional flexibility, affect regulation, and pacing strategies used in other therapies.

A clinically sound application avoids using regulation to escape all discomfort. If every increase in arousal leads to immediate retreat, treatment may reinforce the idea that activation is dangerous. The goal is to develop flexible contact with experience—not permanent avoidance and not forced endurance.

Breathwork in Somatic Therapy

Breathing practices are among the most common somatic therapy interventions and among the easiest to misuse.

Slow breathing may reduce arousal for some clients, but instructions to “take a deep breath” can intensify panic, air hunger, dizziness, or self-consciousness. Clients with respiratory illness, chronic pain, pregnancy-related changes, cardiac conditions, or trauma involving suffocation may need adaptation.

A gentler sequence is:

1. Notice the natural breath without changing it.
2. Identify whether attention to breathing feels neutral, helpful, or uncomfortable.
3. Experiment with a slightly softer or longer exhale.
4. Stop if dizziness, panic, numbness, or pressure increases.
5. Shift to external orienting when internal attention is destabilizing.

Breathwork should be framed as an experiment, not a performance. The client does not fail because a technique is unhelpful.

Movement, Defensive Responses, and Agency

Somatic therapy may explore movements associated with protection, approach, withdrawal, boundaries, or escape. Examples include pushing against a wall, standing more upright, stepping backward, turning the head, raising a hand, or experimenting with the word “stop.”

These practices can be powerful because trauma often involves loss of control. Rehearsing choice and boundary-setting may help clients experience agency in the present.

However, therapists should avoid claiming that a particular movement “completes” a specific historical defensive response unless that meaning arises from the client. A clenched fist does not automatically prove suppressed anger. Shoulder tension does not reveal a hidden memory. Somatic data require context.

The safest stance is collaborative:

“When your hands press against the wall, what do you notice emotionally, physically, and mentally? Does the movement feel useful, neutral, or too much?”

Somatic Therapy and Polyvagal-Informed Language

Polyvagal theory has significantly influenced contemporary discussions of nervous system regulation, social engagement, fight-or-flight activation, and shutdown. Many clinicians find its language accessible for psychoeducation.

Yet therapists should avoid presenting every emotional state as a direct reading of a specific vagal pathway. Polyvagal concepts can function as clinical metaphors and organizing tools, but they should not replace assessment or be treated as complete explanations for complex behavior.

Clinical Events’ guide to understanding polyvagal theory in trauma therapy can help clinicians examine nervous system language while maintaining a practical focus on regulation and therapeutic application.

Integrating Somatic Therapy With Established Trauma Treatments

The strongest use of somatic therapy may be integration rather than competition.

Somatic Therapy With CBT and CPT

In CBT or CPT, bodily awareness can help identify when a belief is emotionally activated rather than discussed only at an intellectual level.

A client may say, “I know the assault was not my fault,” while simultaneously collapsing their posture and holding their breath. The therapist can continue cognitive work while gently asking what happens physically when the new belief is stated.

The body does not serve as a lie detector. A lack of physical relief does not prove that the belief is false. It may indicate fear, grief, unfamiliarity, or the need for repetition.

Somatic Therapy With Exposure

Exposure therapy requires engagement with feared memories, sensations, or situations. Somatic tracking can help clinicians observe whether the client is engaged, avoiding, dissociating, or becoming medically distressed.

It should not be used to eliminate all arousal during exposure, since learning can involve tolerating anxiety and discovering that feared outcomes do not occur. Instead, somatic awareness helps maintain workable engagement.

Somatic Therapy With EMDR

EMDR explicitly includes body sensation in its assessment and reprocessing phases. Tracking jaw tension, breath-holding, numbness, gaze changes, or sudden collapse can help the clinician identify shifts in activation.

Grounding and orientation may be used when the client loses dual attention or becomes disoriented. However, they should be applied within the therapist’s EMDR competence rather than improvised as a substitute for protocol knowledge.

Somatic Therapy With Mindfulness

Mindfulness and somatic therapy share attention to present experience, but mindfulness is not automatically trauma-informed. Prolonged silence, eye closure, or intensive body scanning can increase distress for some trauma survivors.

The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health explains that mindfulness has potential mental health benefits while also noting research limitations and the importance of appropriate implementation.

Consent, Touch, Culture, and Ethics

Somatic therapy must be grounded in explicit consent.

Body-focused practice can recreate powerlessness when the therapist assumes authority over what the client should feel, how the client should move, or what a sensation means. Even apparently mild instructions—closing the eyes, placing a hand on the chest, standing up, or changing posture—may be experienced as intrusive.

Touch requires particular caution. It should never be assumed to be necessary simply because a modality permits it. Clinicians must consider licensure rules, professional ethics, training, documentation, power differences, trauma history, cultural context, and the possibility that a client may comply despite discomfort.

SAMHSA’s trauma-informed approach emphasizes safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, empowerment, and meaningful choice. These principles align closely with ethical somatic therapy because they prioritize the client’s control over the treatment process.

Cultural responsiveness is equally important. Direct eye contact, expressive movement, silence, distance, prayer, touch, and emotional disclosure carry different meanings across communities and individuals. Somatic therapy should expand cultural curiosity, not universalize one style of embodiment.

Common Clinical Mistakes in Somatic Therapy

Treating Every Sensation as Trauma

Not every headache, tremor, stomach sensation, or posture is evidence of unresolved trauma. Overinterpretation can increase health anxiety and dependency on the therapist’s explanations.

Promising “Trauma Release”

Claims that one exercise permanently releases trauma are not supported by the current evidence base. Improvement may involve gradual changes in symptoms, functioning, relationships, sleep, avoidance, and emotional tolerance.

Pushing Clients Into the Body

A client’s disconnection from sensation may be protective. The therapist should respect it rather than treating numbness as resistance.

Using Regulation to Avoid Processing

Grounding is valuable, but treatment can stall when every difficult emotion is immediately reduced. Regulation should increase the capacity to engage—not become another form of avoidance.

Practicing Beyond Competence

A weekend workshop does not establish expertise in complex trauma, dissociation, touch-based work, or medical differential diagnosis. Clinicians need supervision, consultation, and training appropriate to the interventions they use.

Presenting Theory as Settled Neuroscience

Terms such as “vagal shutdown,” “stored survival energy,” “limbic release,” and “nervous system reset” can sound scientific while exceeding what has been directly established. Plain, accurate language often builds more trust.

Measuring Progress in Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy outcomes should not be measured only by whether a client yawns, trembles, cries, or reports warmth. Those experiences may occur, but they do not independently demonstrate recovery.

Better indicators include:

Domain	Possible markers of progress
Symptoms	Reduced panic, nightmares, intrusive memories, startle, or dissociation
Functioning	Improved work, school, relationships, sleep, and daily routines
Avoidance	Greater ability to approach previously avoided situations
Body awareness	Earlier recognition of hunger, fatigue, tension, fear, or overwhelm
Regulation	Faster recovery after activation without rigid suppression
Agency	Increased ability to express needs, boundaries, and preferences
Flexibility	Ability to experience different emotions without immediate collapse or escalation
Treatment engagement	Improved capacity to participate in trauma-focused work

Measurement-based care can include validated symptom tools alongside client-defined goals. Physiological observations may enrich the picture, but they should not replace functional and clinical outcomes.

Composite Clinical Application

Consider “Elena,” a composite client created for educational purposes. Elena reports panic, emotional numbness, and chronic shoulder tension after a serious motor vehicle accident. She understands that driving is statistically safe, yet she avoids highways and grips the steering wheel whenever another vehicle approaches from behind.

A purely cognitive intervention might explore catastrophic predictions. A somatic formulation adds questions about when activation begins, how Elena recognizes it, what happens to her vision and breathing, and whether she becomes hyperaroused or dissociative.

Treatment begins with assessment and medical clarification. Elena then practices external orienting while seated in a parked vehicle. She notices the seat supporting her back and names present-day details that distinguish the current car from the accident scene.

The therapist introduces interoceptive tracking in brief intervals. Elena learns that panic begins with pressure in her shoulders and narrowing attention before it becomes a full surge. She practices releasing her grip slightly rather than forcing complete relaxation.

As readiness improves, these somatic strategies are integrated with graded driving exposure and cognitive work. The goal is not to keep Elena perfectly calm. It is to help her remain oriented and engaged long enough to learn that anxiety can rise and fall without catastrophe.

Progress is measured through driving behavior, symptom severity, avoidance, recovery time, and Elena’s confidence—not merely through what occurs in the therapy room.

The Future of Somatic Therapy

The future of somatic therapy is likely to be more integrated, measurable, and individualized.

Research is increasingly examining interoception, physiological flexibility, digital symptom monitoring, mindfulness, movement, neurofeedback, and the relationship between autonomic changes and psychological outcomes. These areas are promising, but emerging technology should not be confused with established effectiveness.

Trending concepts such as nervous system regulation, embodied healing, vagal toning, trauma release, and bottom-up processing attract significant public interest. Clinicians can use accessible language while remaining honest about uncertainty. Ethical SEO and ethical clinical education share the same rule: do not turn a developing idea into a guaranteed result.

Somatic therapy will become stronger—not weaker—when clinicians clearly differentiate among:

• a helpful clinical metaphor;
• a plausible theoretical mechanism;
• preliminary research;
• replicated controlled evidence;
• and treatment recommendations supported by major guidelines.

For clinicians building broader competence, Clinical Events’ Trauma Therapy: Evidence-Based Paths to Healing and Recovery places body-oriented work within the larger treatment landscape. Professionals can also browse current trauma-focused continuing education events to identify trainings that match their scope of practice and learning needs.

Conclusion: A Balanced Clinical Role for Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy offers clinicians a valuable way to listen beyond words. It draws attention to breathing, posture, movement, sensory experience, interoception, autonomic activation, dissociation, and embodied agency.

Its greatest strength is not the promise of a dramatic nervous system reset. Its strength is precision: noticing when a client is present or disappearing, when a cognitive insight has not yet become emotionally accessible, when the pace is too fast, and when a small movement restores a sense of choice.

The evidence for specific somatic therapy models is promising but less extensive than the research supporting leading trauma-focused treatments. Responsible clinicians should therefore avoid false comparisons, exaggerated neuroscience, and claims of guaranteed trauma release. Somatic techniques can instead be integrated thoughtfully with established treatment, collaborative assessment, measurement-based care, cultural humility, and informed consent.

Used this way, somatic therapy does not compete with the rest of psychotherapy. It helps psychotherapy become more attentive to the full human experience—the meanings clients create, the relationships they navigate, the behaviors they change, and the bodies through which every moment of recovery is lived.

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