Somatic therapy is a body-centered therapeutic modality. Our providers at Sage have extensive training in Somatic Experiencing™ (SE), a model developed by Dr. Peter Levine through studying mammals' bodily responses to traumatic events. While animals are usually able to effectively "shake off" the impact of trauma on the body, humans have lost this capacity.

For humans, traumatic events are often overwhelming to the nervous system, cannot be processed effectively in the moment, and remain trapped in the body. This produces a wide range of painful and disturbing psychological symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, and hypervigilance, as well as physical symptoms of bodily tension.

Sage Integrative Health offers Somatic Experiencing in a caring, safe space staffed with skilled practitioners. We serve the San Francisco Bay Area from our offices in Berkeley, CA.
Call today to schedule an appointment or use this form to book a free, 15 minute non-medical consultation to determine whether our integrative approach to somatic trauma therapies is right for you.

SE is a holistic approach that supports the resolution of trauma by working with the body's innate capacity to heal. This body-centered approach bypasses the conscious mind and allows access to trauma that lingers in the body, supporting the release and processing of the emotional and physiological symptoms.

Somatic Therapy often begins with education about the nervous system and how trauma affects the body's physiology. Your therapist will then guide you back to your body, supporting you in gaining awareness of bodily sensations, triggers, and related emotions.
Often, the therapist will use a process known as Somatic Resourcing to help you access your innate strength, build capacity, and cultivate peace in the nervous system. Once you have a better understanding of how your past trauma lives in your body, are able to access the related sensations, and have developed resources to support you in moments of overwhelm, your therapist will be better able to support you in slowly revisiting and unpacking that trauma.

This gradual process of slowing the release of trauma down to allow you to process it in a safe setting is known as titration. In a somatic therapy session, it is common to experience sensations in the body such as shaking, shivering, or crying. Do not be alarmed. These are a discharge of energy that is trapped in the body from past trauma, which many patients find cathartic and which is helpful and necessary to long-term healing. The therapist may also use specific breathing or relaxation techniques, or touch work to help you process and release trauma from the body.

This approach is very patient-centered. Our therapists always meet you at your comfort level, and will only compliment the therapy with touch work with your expressed consent.

Somatic Therapy is best known for its focus on trauma, but is capable of much more. Good candidates include anyone who has experienced obvious trauma (sexual, physical, emotional abuse) as well as a variety of issues including or resulting from medical interventions, chronic pain, falls, the stresses of long term illness or difficult workplace or home environments, global pandemics, major life transitions, and even living in our busy society.

In addition somatic therapy can be useful in helping patients dealing with anxiety and depression for whom traditional talk therapy has not been successful. This approach to healing helps guide individuals to the root of their symptoms and develop skills to work with them for personal growth. Somatic therapy is also an incredible adjunct to psychedelic integration, as altered states of consciousness often reveal much about our relationship to our bodies throughout the healing journey.

Somatic sessions teach patients about how their own reactions are part of the response of their nervous system seeking to protect both their mental and physical health. Patients will learn how to interpret comfortable and uncomfortable responses in the body, fostering a deeper relationship and connection with self. Somatic therapy also creates an opportunity for the patient to explore their body's own innate capacity to restore regulation, building tools and increasing the capacity to adapt to future stressful or traumatic situations or events.