What is somatic therapy — and how is it different from “talk therapy?”
By Emily Olsen Black, MA, LPC | Integrate Holistic Psychotherapy | Boulder, CO
If you've been in therapy before — maybe for years — and still feel like something isn't quite shifting, you're not alone. Many people come to somatic therapy after doing meaningful work in traditional talk therapy and finding that insight alone wasn't quite enough to create the change they were looking for.
So what's the difference? And what makes somatic therapy worth trying? Let’s explore…
What Is Somatic Therapy?
The word somatic comes from the Greek word soma, meaning body. (It also refers to a mysterious psychedelic elixir that connects one to the divine in the ancient Sanskrit language… coincidence?)
At its core, somatic therapy is built on a simple but profound premise: the body holds a record of life experiences. Stress, trauma, grief, unmet needs, relational wounds, even generational patterns — these don't just live in our memories or our thoughts. They live in our bodies, too. In the tension we carry in our shoulders. In the way we brace before an uncomfortable conversation. In the numbness that settles in when things feel like too much… it’s in the small subconscious ways our whole system move through the world and shows up in relationships.
Traditional therapy can help us understand and make meaning of our experiences. Somatic therapy helps us access, feel, and process them at the level of the nervous system, where they live experientially.
How Is Somatic Therapy Different From Talk Therapy?
Talk therapy — whether that's CBT, psychodynamic therapy, or another modality — primarily engages the thinking mind, or narrative story. You talk about your experiences, explore patterns, gain insight, and develop new ways of understanding yourself. This is genuinely valuable work, and for many people it's an important foundation.
But here's what talk therapy alone often can't reach: the body & it’s emotional sensation… the subconscious patterns that play out in our relationships no matter how much cognitive reframing we practice…
When we experience life, our nervous system adapts to our experiences in order to protect us and help us survive. These adaptations happen below the level of conscious thought — which is exactly why you can intellectually understand why you react a certain way and still not be able to stop doing it. The insight is there. The embodied shift hasn't happened yet.
Somatic therapy works directly with those nervous system patterns. Therapist refer to this as a “bottom up approach”, rather than the “top down” of talk therapy. Rather than just talking about an experience, somatic therapy invites you to notice what's happening in your body as you explore it — the sensations, the impulses, the places of holding or bracing or collapse. From there, we work gently and collaboratively to bring presence to whatever is arising from the body (bottom-up), and ultimately help your nervous system find new possibilities of responding and moving through the world.
What Does Somatic Therapy Actually Look Like in Session?
This is one of the questions I hear most often — and it's a fair one, because somatic therapy can sound abstract until you experience it.
In practice, somatic therapy sessions at Integrate Holistic Psychotherapy look like a blend of:
Slowing down and tuning in. Rather than moving quickly through content, we create space to notice what's happening in your body moment to moment. What sensations are present? As you share about a certain emotion or experience, where do you feel tension, openness, tightness, warmth? Then we let that felt experience lead us.
Tracking the body's signals. Your body communicates constantly — through posture, breath, muscle tone, and sensation. In somatic therapy, these signals become important information rather than background noise.
Gentle, titrated processing. Especially for trauma, somatic therapy moves at the pace of your nervous system, not faster. We work at the edges of what feels manageable, building capacity over time rather than pushing through.
Experiential and mindfulness-based practices. Depending on what's present, sessions might include breathwork, movement, grounding exercises, visualization, or parts work — always in service of helping you reconnect with your own inner wisdom.
Who Is Somatic Therapy For?
Somatic therapy tends to be a particularly good fit for people who:
Have done talk therapy and feel like they've "hit a ceiling" with insight alone
Carry stress or trauma in their bodies — chronic tension, fatigue, or physical symptoms with no clear medical cause
Struggle with anxiety that lives more in the body than the mind
Feel disconnected from their bodies, emotions, or sense of self
Are ready to go deeper than understanding — into actually feeling the shift
It's also worth knowing that you don't need to have a trauma history to benefit from somatic therapy. Anyone who wants to develop a more embodied, attuned relationship with themselves — and create change that sticks — can find real value in this work.
A Note on Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
My somatic therapy practice is grounded in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SPI), a body-centered approach developed by Dr. Pat Ogden that specifically addresses the way trauma and attachment wounds are held in the body. I've completed both Level I and Level II training through the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and continue to deepen this work through ongoing training and supervision.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is one of the most well-researched somatic approaches available, and for clients healing from trauma, attachment wounds, or chronic nervous system dysregulation, it offers a genuinely different kind of healing than words alone can provide. For me personally, it has always felt like my professional “home” in terms of approach. I am regularly astonished and awed by the impact of skillfully led sensorimotor psychotherapy sessions, both in my own client work and in the work of my peers and mentors.
The other important influences in my somatic work with clients are my trauma informed yoga teaching / trainings (and years of personal practice), and the two shamanic apprenticeships I had the honor of completing between 2017-2023. These trainings definitely didn’t count towards my therapy license, but they have perhaps most profoundly impacted how I am able to hold space for healing. The hundreds of ceremonies, maybe thousands of seekers I’ve had the honor of holding space for over the years, the depth and intensity of non ordinary states of consciousness I’ve experienced and held, the balance of energetic attunement and holding safe, clean boundaries…. All these experiences helped me to hone both the precise skillfulness and ineffable artfulness of holding sacred, embodied healing spaces.
My shamanic and ceremonial experience helps me to guide and follow clients through inner worlds and non ordinary states of consciousness with the wisdom of practice, connection to living wisdom traditions, and personal embodied experience that can’t be taught or received intellectually.
Curious to Try Somatic Therapy in Boulder, CO?
If something in this post resonated — if you've been feeling like there's a layer of healing that's been just out of reach — I'd love to connect.
I offer somatic therapy in-person in Boulder, Colorado and virtually to residents across Colorado. The best place to start is a free 20-minute consultation, where we can talk about what you're navigating and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Emily Olsen Black, MA, LPC, CYT is the founder of Integrate Holistic Psychotherapy in Boulder, CO. She specializes in somatic therapy, trauma healing, attachment work, and psychedelic integration — offering a body-based, trauma-informed approach for deep-feelers and seekers ready to create real, lasting change.
