Depression Therapy in Santa Monica
Somatic therapy for adults who keep showing up while feeling flat or empty inside. In person in Santa Monica and online across California.
When Everything Feels Heavy
You're still showing up. Still getting things done. But underneath, something has gone quiet.
The things that used to help don't help much anymore. Sleep is off. Motivation takes effort you shouldn't need. Small tasks feel heavy. You might be going through the motions, performing competence while feeling flat or numb inside.
High-functioning depression often looks fine from the outside. That's part of what makes it so isolating. No one sees the weight you're carrying because you've gotten so good at carrying it.
When low mood lasts long enough, it can start to feel like identity rather than a state. Many thoughtful, capable people assume "this is just me." That assumption makes sense. It can also change, with steady support and a different kind of attention.
A Different Approach to Depression Therapy
This isn't about positive thinking or pushing through harder. It's about understanding what your nervous system has been holding and helping it find a different baseline.
Depression often has roots in the body: chronic stress, old grief, attachment patterns that taught you to manage alone. Understanding those roots matters. But insight alone rarely shifts what's held at the nervous system level.
I completed the full three-year Somatic Experiencing certificate program and continue to study with Dr. Peter Levine. That training shapes how I work: slowly, carefully, with attention to what's happening beneath the words. We're not rushing toward breakthroughs. We're rebuilding your system's capacity for energy, interest, and connection.
Where This Pattern Comes From
Depression often develops in early relationships. Some of us learned that feelings were inconvenient, unwelcome, or unsafe. Maybe a parent was overwhelmed by emotion and you learned to keep yours contained. Maybe no one came when you reached, so you stopped reaching. Maybe the household required you to be steady, capable, fine.
The adaptive move was to cut off. To power through without letting yourself feel too much. Attachment researchers call this a deactivating strategy—the system learned that the safest way to cope was to dampen needs and rely only on yourself.
That adaptation served you then. It may have been the only option. But over time, the shutdown becomes the baseline. You're not choosing to feel numb. Your nervous system learned that numb was safe.
Why Somatic Therapy for Depression?
Depression isn't just a mood. It often reflects a nervous system that has learned to conserve energy, withdraw, or shut down in response to circumstances that once felt unmanageable.
You might notice it as heaviness in your body, a flattening of interest, difficulty getting started even on things you used to enjoy. These aren't character flaws. They're adaptations, often ones that developed before you could make sense of what was happening.
Talk therapy can help you make sense of this. Somatic therapy works with the body directly, helping your system shift out of conservation mode and rebuild capacity for energy, engagement, and connection. We're not overriding the shutdown. We're helping your system learn it's safe to come back online.
Why Understanding Hasn't Changed How You Feel
You may understand exactly why you feel this way. You've connected it to your childhood, to losses, to the patterns you developed. The insight is there. The lightness isn't.
The patterns that taught you to shut down were encoded early, stored in the body rather than in words. They're stored in your body: the heaviness in your limbs, the dullness in your chest, the effort it takes to begin even small tasks.
Talk therapy can help you understand these patterns. Somatic work helps your system actually shift out of them.
What Changes
Clients often describe it as feeling lighter. Not fixed, not cured, but less weighed down. The fog starts to lift. Sleep stabilizes. Small things start to matter again.
Over time, there's more room for the life you actually want: more energy, more presence, more willingness to engage instead of just endure.
Who This Work Helps
This work tends to resonate with adults who appear capable on the outside but feel flat, heavy, or disconnected underneath. Often they've been managing for years, unsure whether what they're experiencing even counts as depression because they're still getting things done.
Most have tried therapy before. They understand their history. They're looking for something that reaches the body, not just the mind.
What the Research Shows
Here's what's encouraging: the shutdown you learned wasn't a flaw. It was an adaptation. And adaptations can update.
Attachment researchers have found that people who learned to cut off from feelings can develop what they call "earned security" through new relationships. The nervous system that learned to dampen can also learn it's safe to feel again—not by forcing it, but through consistent experiences of being met without overwhelm.
That's what this work offers. Not a fix, but a different kind of relationship with your own aliveness.
Questions You Might Have
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Sadness comes and goes. Depression tends to linger and affects sleep, motivation, focus, and connection. We'll look at your whole picture and tailor support accordingly.
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Long-running low mood can blend into how you see yourself, especially when it started early or developed alongside difficult relationships. In therapy, we separate you from the symptom, build regulation and support, and make space for parts of you that felt out of reach.
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We include your history where it's useful and also focus on what's happening now. The work is grounded in present-moment patterns and practices that help today.
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Yes. I see clients in person in Santa Monica and online throughout California.
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No. The goal is to help you build steadiness and capacity so you increasingly feel solid on your own. Therapy strengthens your autonomy, it does not replace it.
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Somatic Experiencing is the foundation, and attachment-informed work is woven throughout. I'll bring in other tools when they're useful, but the core of this work is somatic: helping your nervous system find a steadier baseline.
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Timelines vary by person and goals. Most of my clients work with me for one to three years, and some stay longer. This work isn't quick, but it's meant to last.
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Many clients come in unsure whether what they're feeling "counts." They're functioning, meeting responsibilities, but something feels off. We don't need a label to begin. We start with what you're actually experiencing and work from there.
Location & Access
In person in Santa Monica and online for California residents.
Contact
Phone: (310) 377-8798
Ready to Begin?
If something here resonates, I'd be glad to hear from you.