A psychotherapist’s guide to mind-body integration in therapy

As a psychotherapist and someone who has also experienced therapy as a client, I have come to deeply appreciate the profound impact that somatic interventions can have when integrated into traditional talk therapy.

“Somatic” comes from the Greek word soma, meaning “body”, and refers to working with bodily awareness.

While talk therapy has been the foundation of mental health treatment for decades, exploring thoughts and emotions through dialogue, it often overlooks the body, a critical aspect of healing. Some experiences are too intense to be fully expressed in words, and language can only take us so far. This is where somatic approaches come in, bridging the gap to include the body in the process.

Why include the body

Our bodies carry our lived history. The nervous system, which shapes our survival responses – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn – learns patterns from our experiences, particularly those from early life. 

These patterns can become familiar ways of coping. For example, a quick temper (fight), avoidance of conflict (flight), shutting down emotionally or numbing (freeze), or constant people-pleasing (fawn) might feel like personality traits; that’s “just who I am”. But these were often smart solutions for challenging situations in the past. They helped you to function, belong, and get on with life. The challenge is that what once helped can start to limit you in the present when it’s no longer needed. 

How these patterns can show up physically:

• A clenched jaw, tight fists, or a surge of heat in the body as if preparing to confront a threat can be a fight response.

• Restless legs, or an urge to physically leave or escape a situation, could be a flight response.

• Numbness, spacing out or feeling far away when under stress can signal a freeze response.

• A racing heart, trembling, over-accommodating others to keep the peace may be a fawn pattern.

Integrating the body in therapy helps us work with unhelpful patterns at their source, not just talk about them. Because we cannot think our way out of traumatic experiences.

What is trauma?

When we think of trauma, we often associate it with major life-altering events like war, natural disasters, abuse, or similar distressing situations. While these are the more obvious traumatic experiences, there is a whole spectrum of experiences that can be traumatising; shock traumas like accidents and assaults, as well as more subtle traumas stemming from everyday experiences, called developmental or relational trauma. Adverse Childhood Experiences (Felitti et al., 1998; CDC and Kaiser Permanente ACE Study) such as neglect, emotional unavailability from caregivers, lack of a felt sense of safety, bullying, or growing up in a chaotic environment can leave lasting imprints.

The body’s role in trauma

Trauma isn’t just a mental phenomenon. Research shows that overwhelming events can become embedded in our physiology, keeping the nervous system on alert long after the threat is over (Levine, 1997; Van der Kolk, 2014). 

The impact can show up in seemingly unrelated ways, such as persistent gut issues, chronic pain, skin conditions, the stoop of your posture, or the rhythm of your breath. Until the body registers safety, it continues to sound the alarm as if the threat is still present.

From alarm to regulation: what changes with somatic work

At times, you might feel overwhelmed or hijacked by panic and anxious feelings, or feel low or listless so even simple tasks feel effortful. What makes somatic approaches so powerful is their potential to create new neural pathways in the brain, as if rewiring the connection between brain and body, updating old patterns so you can respond to the current situation differently.

For some people who have survived traumatic experiences, the body may not feel like a safe place. This disconnect can make it difficult to trust physical sensations or feel grounded in the here and now.

With the understanding that trauma disrupts the body’s sense of safety, somatic approaches go gently and at your pace, building stability before reconnecting with sensations that might trigger old responses. The focus is on present‑moment body awareness that helps distinguish past events from current ones. With gradual, trauma‑focused interventions, the body can release stored stress without becoming overwhelmed.

Do I have trauma?

If you find yourself questioning whether you have trauma, know this: trauma isn’t defined by the severity of what happened to you, but rather by how your internal systems responded to those experiences. Ultimately, what matters isn’t whether the events were “bad enough” by your own judgment or someone else’s, but whether you’re still carrying the weight of those experiences in ways that limit or negatively affect your life today.

Trauma is less about the event itself and more about the lasting impact it has left on you. Two people can live through the same experience, and yet process and internalise it differently.

Trauma is an experience, not an event. It’s what happens inside of us, as a result of what happens to us.

What it means in practice

With somatic approaches, we track physical sensations to access implicit memory – stored impressions and habits beneath conscious thought. It’s a “bottom-up” process that starts with the body and allows the brain to update, rather than a “top-down” focus on thoughts alone. 

A sample of what this might look like in session:

• We notice if thoughts and beliefs hold a corresponding physical sensation.

• We get curious about body sensations like heat, heaviness or tingling when you speak about something that brings up emotional intensity.

• I might ask some curious or unexpected questions, like whether a sensation has a shape, a colour, or a weight.

• We explore how your physiology learned to hold certain patterns.

• We see if sensing your feet on the floor or the support of the chair feel like a safe resource to help you feel grounded in the present.

You might be surprised by how much you notice, like a tightness in the chest or a heaviness in your shoulders that you didn’t realise was there. There are different kinds of bodies; some are readily open to feeling physical sensations right away, while for others it takes a few minutes, and some bodies find it more difficult to connect. There’s no “right” way to feel sensations. The process is guided and at your pace.

More than self-regulation

Somatic work isn’t only about feeling regulated and calm in the moment. It’s about reshaping patterns at a deeper level. We gently turn toward – rather than push away – sensations and emotions we have long avoided or resisted. That we didn’t even know we were avoiding or resisting. Over time, this builds awareness and more choice in how we respond.

In my psychotherapy practice, I incorporate EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Mindful Focusing, Embodied Inner Child Integration, Embodied Imagery and Somatic Sensory Awareness as appropriate.

Somatic ideas aren’t new

In the 1930s, Wilhelm Reich, a medical doctor who worked with Freud, explored how trauma can show up as chronic tension, rigidity, or characteristic movements or postures, such as hunched shoulders or specific ways of walking. Reich called it “body armour,” a protective mechanism that can limit a person’s ability to connect with their emotions fully.

In the 1950s, Eugene T. Gendlin, an Austrian-American philosopher and psychotherapist, developed the therapeutic approach of Focusing, a body-oriented practice for gaining insights and emotional healing through a mindful connection to one’s “felt sense”.

Contemporary approaches like Somatic Experiencing (developed by Peter Levine in the 1970s) and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (Pat Ogden, 1980s), along with developments such as Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges, 1994), emphasise the critical role of the nervous system in processing trauma and stress.

What’s new is the growing recognition and research that body‑based approaches complement talking therapies, especially when familiar patterns persist.

Who can benefit:

• Those who experience anxiety, overwhelm, low moods or a sense of disconnection from themselves and want to feel more balanced and regulated.

• Those who understand their story cognitively from talk therapy but feel something is still missing.

• Anyone looking for deeper self-awareness and emotional regulation.

What somatic approaches are not:

• Not about re-experiencing painful memories: we focus on safely processing and releasing stored tension in the present.

• Not about analysing or thinking things through. 

• Not about performance or doing it “right”: the process is personal and unique to each individual.

• Not a quick fix: somatic therapy is a gradual process of building awareness, change and resilience over time, rather than offering instant solutions. 

When guided by an experienced professional, somatic approaches are trauma-informed and prioritise safety, working at a pace that feels manageable for you.

A step towards change

If you’re considering therapy, know that somatic approaches are not a separate service or an add-on. They are an integral part of my integrative approach, blended with talk therapy to meet you where you are right now. This article offers a hopefully helpful explanation, and a glimpse of what somatic work might look like in practice.

If you have questions and are curious to see if this approach could help, I offer a complimentary 15-minute consultation to help you take a first step. Book a consultation to explore therapy with me.