What is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy supports change by working with how experience shows up in the nervous system. In session, we talk and also pay close attention to signals like breath, pacing, tension, restlessness, and moments of ease. Like any skill, this takes practice. You learn to recognize activation and settling so your system can shift toward more safety and choice.
If you tend to push through, stay productive, and hold it together on the outside, somatic therapy helps you work with what your body has been carrying underneath.
The aim is not to "think away" symptoms but to help your system learn new, workable responses.
Why Somatic Therapy?
Most therapy focuses on thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors. That work has value. But when stress, anxiety, or old reactions live in the body, insight alone often isn't enough.
You may have noticed this yourself: you understand why you react a certain way, but the reaction keeps happening anyway. That's because the nervous system operates faster than conscious thought. It responds to cues of safety and threat before the thinking mind catches up.
There's another layer, too. Some of what shapes you was encoded before you had words for it. The brain centers that mediate language aren't fully online until age two or three. Experiences from those years, and later experiences that were overwhelming, get stored differently. They live in the body as sensation, posture, reflex. You can't talk your way out of something that was never stored in words.
Somatic therapy works directly with that system. Instead of trying to think your way out of a pattern, you learn to shift it from the inside. Your baseline steadies gradually, and you have more choice in how you respond.
How It Works
We create consistent time to slow down and listen inward. I'll guide you through practices that translate well to daily life: orienting to the room, small adjustments to breath and posture, simple micro-movements, pacing that respects capacity, and pauses that let the nervous system complete stress responses.
This work happens in relationship. Not because I have answers you don't, but because your nervous system learns safety through contact with another regulated system. Patterns that formed in relationship can shift in relationship. That includes the moments I get it wrong. Repair is a skill we practice too. What we build together becomes available to you elsewhere.
We notice what brings a notch more ease and repeat it until it becomes more available under pressure. The therapy room is where you build it. Life is where it starts to hold.
What You Can Expect
Clients often notice a steadier baseline with fewer spikes or shutdowns, better sleep, and a calmer mind. Boundaries and communication tend to get clearer. The body holds less tension. Most people leave with practical skills they use between sessions and a growing ability to catch stress signals early. The shift is from reacting to responding, with more choice in between.
Who This Helps
This work often resonates with professionals, creatives, and caregivers whose drive takes a toll on their health and relationships. Somatic therapy can be especially supportive if talk-only approaches haven't fully held or if stress lands strongly in your body.
Most people who find their way here have already tried therapy. They understand their old ways of coping. They're looking for something that goes deeper than insight.
Change Is Possible
Here's what research shows: your early experiences shaped you, but they don't have to define you. People who had difficult early histories can develop what researchers call "earned security." New relationships can update old patterns. Therapy, at its best, is one of those relationships. Not because of techniques or insights, but because of what happens when someone consistently pays attention to what's actually happening beneath your carefully managed surface.
My Training
My work draws on Somatic Experiencing®, developed by Dr. Peter Levine. I've completed the full three-year certificate program and continue to study with Dr. Levine. My ongoing study integrates contemporary neuroscience, trauma research, and attachment theory.
Sessions are collaborative and paced so your system can integrate change. We keep the work focused and usable between sessions while building the steadiness that helps change hold.
Questions You Might Have
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Somatic Experiencing (SE) isn't a protocol you complete. It's a way of being with your experience, moment to moment. Over time, the skills we practice in session start to infuse daily life: how you notice tension before it builds, how you come back to yourself after something throws you, how you stay present in difficult conversations. It becomes less about "doing SE" and more about living with a steadier nervous system. The changes aren't temporary. They're new wiring. Life starts to feel workable again.
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"Somatic therapy" is a broad term. Many therapists incorporate somatic techniques after completing introductory trainings.
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) is a specific three-year certificate program developed by Dr. Peter Levine. The training focuses on nervous system regulation, trauma resolution, and working with the body's capacity for change.
SEPs come from diverse professional backgrounds: mental health clinicians, medical professionals, bodyworkers, clergy, first responders, and others. All bring valuable skills to their work with clients.
If you're looking for somatic depth work with developmental trauma, attachment patterns, or complex relational issues, you need a mental health clinician who is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. The clinical training means the practitioner is equipped to work with psychotherapy, assessment, and the relational complexity that surfaces when addressing early trauma and attachment wounds.
I'm both. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP).
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We usually start by checking in on what's present for you. From there, we might talk through something that happened during the week, notice how it's landing in your body, or work with a pattern that's been showing up. I bring in simple regulation practices when they're useful. Sessions are conversational but not just talk. We're paying attention to your nervous system throughout.
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No. We start by building steadiness and choice. You decide what to share and when. We work in the present with skills that increase safety and capacity.
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Yes. Somatic work translates well to secure video. You set up a quiet, private space, and we practice settling, orienting, noticing sensation, and small movements within your environment.
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That’s common. We begin with simple noticing and build capacity gradually. There’s no right or wrong way to experience this work.
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Somatic therapy is grounded in neuroscience, trauma research, and decades of clinical practice. Many clients experience meaningful improvements in regulation, sleep, mood, and relationships as they build capacity in their nervous systems.
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Talk therapy focuses primarily on thoughts, feelings, and narrative. Somatic therapy includes those but also pays attention to what's happening in your body and nervous system. This often helps when insight alone hasn't been enough to affect change.
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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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No. Somatic therapy here does not involve physical touch. It is not massage, bodywork, or table work. We work with awareness, pacing, and sometimes gentle movement, all guided by you.
Location & Access
In person in Santa Monica, and online for California residents. Private-pay practice. By appointment only.
Contact
Phone: (310) 377-8798
Ready to Begin?
If something here resonates, I'd be glad to hear from you.