Types and Uses of Somatic Trauma Therapy (2024)

Somatic trauma therapy is a type of intervention that encourages you to work through traumatic experiences and chronic stress by focusing on the physical body.

Through the use of movement and guided exercises, people are taught to recognize how stress and trauma are stored in the body, the ways in which the mind and body are connected, and methods to use specific exercises to release the emotional pain stored within the body.

This article will provide an overview of somatic trauma therapy, how it addresses the fight, flight, or freeze response, and ways it can help you.

What Is Somatic Trauma Therapy?

The trauma response is a normal, natural way of reacting to significant stress and life-threatening situations. In split seconds, the brain and body perceive a potential danger and respond to it in a way that is meant to keep you alive.

Blood pressure and heart rate increase in an effort to get the blood flowing more quickly; vision becomes more focused; and systems that are not needed for survival, like reproduction and digestion, are diminished.

This response is called the flight, fight, or freeze response: Your brain responds with one of the three, leading you to run away (flight) through avoidance or detachment, physically fight back with anger, or freeze as protection from potential danger. The body then automatically returns to its natural stable state, called homeostasis.

Sometimes, however, the brain still perceives a threat. Neurotransmitters (like epinephrine) and other systems (like the amygdala or the brain's prefrontal cortex) continue their stress responses. This is how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related physical and mental symptoms develop.

The central goal of somatic trauma therapy is to teach people how to become attuned to these physical changes through focus and mindfulness. They become aware of their body's responses to emotional experiences, such as those that result from traumatic or highly stressful situations.

How Somatic Trauma Therapy Works

Therapists trained in somatic approaches focus on this mind-body connection to help you identify and release stored traumatic memories "stuck" within the physical body. They help create a sense of safety and comfort, and teach you how to become more deeply acquainted with the physical expression of trauma in order to release stored emotional pain.

Resourcing

With trauma-focused therapies, it's important to pull from inner feelings of comfort and strength to form a sense of being OK as the hard work happens. Resourcing is the process of developing a sense of safety.

It promotes competence and self-reliance in finding balance and stability during disruptions in healthy self-regulation, and while you experience the discomfort of emotional pain as it's expressed in the body.

Titration

Titration describes a process of moving cautiously, introducing discomfort slowly and in small amounts in order to build tolerance and resilience. It's meant to ensure a person is not re-traumatized or re-triggered during the treatment process.

A therapist will also want to teach you how to manage the discomfort at increased levels without becoming distressed. This process takes time and practice.

Pendulation

Pendulationrefers to the process in somatic therapies that encourages moving back and forth between discomfort and regulation. People learn to safely navigate this distance.

The goal in somatic therapy is to help the person become tuned in to their bodies and build increasing tolerance toward the discomfort related to traumatic experiences. Thus, pendulation allows the person to recognize when balance needs to be restored and how to do so.

Types of Somatic Trauma Therapy

The types of somatic trauma therapy include standard somatic experience, sensorimotor psychotherapy, the Hakomi method, bioenergetic therapy, biodynamic psychotherapy, and brainspotting.

Standard Somatic Experiencing

Somatic Experiencing® is a therapeutic approach developed during the 1970s by trauma expert Peter Levine. It involves developing a connection with the body and learning to pay attention to internal physical experiences. These experiences serve as information for working through physical and emotional pain caused by severe stress or trauma.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

For most people, the systems within the body naturally return to a normal state of functioning after a traumatic or highly stressful event is over. Some, though, remain in a state of dysregulation (unbalanced). Sensorimotor psychotherapy, developed by psychotherapist Pat Ogden during the 1970s, aims to bring a person's system back into homeostasis.

Like other forms of somatic trauma therapy, sensorimotor therapy relies on the body, not on a person's words, to heal the effects of trauma. With this approach, the therapist helps the person see how dysregulation feels in their body. They then assist them in moving back and forth through states of arousal and regulation for each emotion associated with the experience to build tolerance and a deeper connection to the body.

The Hakomi Method

The Hakomi method is a therapeutic approach developed by Ron Kurtz also during the 1970s. This method focuses on using mindfulness as a way to understand the thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations associated with different experiences. People are encouraged to be fully present and aware, and the therapist provides a supportive and calming alliance.

Bioenergetic Therapy

Bioenergetic therapies use touch and movement to relieve the emotional pain stored within the physical body. One example is called tapping. The therapist teaches the person to tap repeatedly on different areas while recalling feelings associated with the traumatic event. The idea is that the person cannot become distressed while using this form of physical distraction.

Bioenergetic approaches are based on the theoretical framework that negative emotions are stored subtly within the body and can be released with specific, controlled movements.

Biodynamic Psychotherapy

Biodynamic therapy was developed during the 1940s by clinical psychologist Gerda Boyesen and is based on the theory that traumatic experiences are stored in the muscles and cause them to become contracted and rigid. Helping the muscles to relax allows the body to have better blood circulation and, thus, to release any trapped biochemicals that were stored during the time of the trauma, such as lactic acid and adrenaline.

During biodynamic therapy, the therapist will determine where muscles are constricted by listening to the body, such as through a stethoscope. Through massage and other approaches, these muscle groups are relaxed and able to release the trapped fluids, helping the person's body process the trauma.

Brainspotting

Brainspotting is a method for treating trauma that was developed in 2003 by psychotherapist David Grand. It is an alternative therapy types that uses spots in a person’s visual field to help them process trauma.

The method involves slowly tracking eye movement to identify spots or "windows," such as blinking, twitching, or eye wobbling. These "spots" are then used as a map for where a person should hold certain eye positions and note the internal experience through mindfulness.

Brainspotting is used to access trauma trapped in the subcortical brain, the area of the brain that is in control of learning, emotions, motion, and consciousness. The therapist helps people to work through any sources of physical or emotional pain as they are discovered.

Who Can Benefit From Somatic Trauma Therapy?

Somatic trauma therapy can help with both emotional and physical pain.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Somatic treatments are mainly used as a way to treat past trauma experiences. These methods approach trauma as a natural response to a significant stressor. Somatic trauma therapists do not see PTSD as a disorder (a disruption of regular bodily functions), but rather as a syndrome (a collection of co-occurring traits associated with a specific disease).

In providing somatic treatments, therapists aim to help the person appropriately process the trauma in a way that reduces physical symptoms and gets the experience "unstuck" from the physical body.

Chronic Pain

Somatic treatment approaches focus on developing a deep awareness of the body and how the physical experience is connected with the emotional or psychological experience. These treatment methods encourage intentional movements as a person uses mindfulness to better understand where pain is and what the source could be.

Somatic approaches can serve as a source of education about chronic pain and which movements bring discomfort as well as those that bring pleasure or relief from pain.

Anxiety

Somatic therapy can help release stored emotional discomfort or pain that occurs after stressful or traumatic incidents. This can include a variety of symptoms, including anxiety.

An Italian study of people diagnosed with breast cancer found benefits when using the Somatic Experiencing® model to reduce stress over hospitalizations, medical procedures, body image, and more. Participants described deep emotional experiences and feeling grounded within the mind-body connection.

Complicated Grief

Grief is a profoundly individual experience, but some types of grief exceed cultural or social norms. Complicated grief can interfere with daily life and attaches to other experiences in addition to death. They can include job loss, the end of relationships, health setbacks, or natural disasters.

Studies in traumatized migrant populations identified prolonged grief in those fleeing for safety, and the need for somatic therapies to address chronic pain and other physical symptoms. Similar research has focused on Indian tsunami victims, hurricane survivors in the United States, and other scenarios in which grief is profound and complicated.

Depression

Symptoms of depression often co-occur with physical manifestations in the body, such as back pain. Depression also occurs in people experiencing trauma, with examples that range from intimate partner violence in females to refugees fleeing war.

Some studies have shown that somatic trauma therapy can help people diagnosed with depression.

How to Get Started

Finding a therapist who is trained in somatic approaches is similar to searching for a therapist for other modalities. You can find a therapist by contacting your health insurance carrier, asking a medical professional for a referral, or using an online therapy-finder tool.

When looking for a therapist, search for someone who has specialized training in trauma treatment, and ask what approaches the person uses in treatment as well as an explanation of what those treatments involve.

What to Expect at Your First Appointment

Although you probably have a lot to talk about, expect that your first few therapy sessions will likely be mostly information gathering and building a connection.

You will not begin processing any traumatic experiences right away unless you are in crisis. The therapist will want to get to know you and provide a treatment plan before starting any of the difficult work involved in working through trauma.

Summary

Somatic trauma therapies are approaches for treating trauma and severe stress experiences. There are many types of somatic treatment interventions, which approach trauma through the lens of experiencing emotions physically in the body.

These approaches to therapy include Somatic Experiencing® to develop awareness of the mind-body connection in trauma. Sensorimotor psychotherapy uses a similar strategy to slowly build tolerance to the physical discomforts of trauma response and teach ways to move back into a window of comfort and regulation.

Somatic therapists trained in the mindfulness-based Hakomi method and other techniques are licensed mental health clinicians with specialized training in these somatic approaches.