Somatic Psychotherapy

“The mind is like the wind and the body like the sand: if you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand.” Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Body-Process Psychotherapy

My Somatic Psychotherapy process is a synthesis of Gestalt Psychotherapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and other studies with world leaders in somatic practice over the past 40 years.

In these sessions, we still talk and relate, and you will share with me what is going on in your life. I will also help you cultivate your body-mind, tuning into your awareness, awareness of the sensations that give rise to your feelings, and drive your motivations. These inner textures and rhythms shape and tone our behaviour. Listening to them is an invaluable personal resource. When we are tuned into our embodied responses, we are able to differentiate subtleties of feeling and resonances.

This is a particularly valuable process if your nervous system has become dysregulated in order to survive traumatic experiences. I have specific modalities I use to help you restore equilibrium, and help you manage overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks. Sometimes you might need to learn how to thaw where you are frozen, revitalise where you have deadened your responses. The work is very subtle and gentle, deeply attuned to your inner rhythms and states, and the micro responses of your nervous system as you sit with me. Your sense of safety and embodiment is my main concern at all times.

Sometimes we may try small explorations and experiments, that might include sitting, standing, or walking, or constructive rest positions. Sometimes the simple use of guided self-touch or carefully negotiated hands-on work can reach awareness and integration that talking or feeling could never repair. I offer you my expertise at attuning to the emergent needs of your physiological responses.

Over time I can help you find the sensation of being at home in your own body. You will learn how to trust its perceptions, and be guided by your embodied intelligence.

My undergraduate degree was in Somatic Practice, Dance and Movement and my Master’s Degree was on the influence of neuroscience upon psychotherapy. The latest brain science and contemporary somatic psychotherapies endorse methods that have been part of my body process within therapy since the 80’s.