Now Accepting Sliding Scale & In-Network Appointments for select AETNA & United Healthcare plans *Limited Space Available.
Have you ever been in a situation where—for reasons you can’t necessarily explain—you just feel… bad? Where you suddenly feel shame, fear, guilt, or something else, without any specific trigger? Or your body just feels uneasy- like somethings not right, maybe your breathing changes or you go numb. If this sounds familiar, a somatic therapist may be exactly what you need.
You see, moments like the one described above are caused by your brain. Your neural pathways, to be exact. They’re reacting to something that reminds your body of a previous trauma but on the surface it might appear like there’s no apparent threat or danger.
Basically, when you go through a traumatic event, your brain tries to protect you from ever having this experience again. This is why alarm bells start ringing in your head in certain situations, even though you can’t pinpoint a cause.
Most importantly, talk therapy alone (like CBT) just isn’t very effective for resolving this. But somatic therapy, also called somatic psychotherapy or somatic experiencing therapy, could make all the difference.
Somatic therapy is a modality of psychotherapy that focuses on the connection between your brain and your body.
It combines established aspects of talk therapy with techniques that use the sensations in your body as a road map, creating a body-focused approach to healing.
Somatic psychotherapy is centered around the proven mind-body connection. When you go through a traumatic event, you don’t just carry it with you mentally—you physically carry that tension and stress in your body, too.
Somatic experiencing therapy helps you release both the mental and physical weight of these burdens so you can truly heal yourself.
Your therapist will help you become more aware of your body, learn to calm physical feelings of distress, and become skilled at releasing stuck emotions.
Somatic therapy is an umbrella term that includes different somatic modalities used in psychotherapy to release stored memories and physiological responses from the body and mind. Here are some of the modalities that work really well for people wishing to overcome anxiety and trauma:
AEDP psychotherapy is an approach that seeks to alleviate patients’ psychological suffering by helping them process the overwhelming emotions associated with trauma in a way that facilitates corrective emotional and relational experiences that mobilize positive changes in our neuroplastic brains.
Looking through the lens of IFS, we learn that throughout our development many “parts” or subpersonalities form in order to protect us from pain and uncomfortable emotions. When we take the time to get to know our parts and give them compassion and a space to voice their concerns, fears, and plans we can begin to integrate them with our core self (who we really are) and stop self sabotaging behaviors.
Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional pain, trauma, anxiety and a variety of other challenging symptoms trapped inside our body.
Much like EMDR, it is based on the profound attunement of the therapist with the patient. It uses that attunement to find somatic cues and extinguish them by down-regulating the amygdala and creating homeostasis.
In lamens terms, it rewires your brain to stop producing stress chemicals and anxiety when presented with situations that remind your brain of past stressors. This treatment evolved out of the widely known EMDR and is reported to work more effectively and precisely.
Some of the techniques you can expect during somatic experiencing therapy include:
Somatic therapy differs from traditional therapy in that it targets the root cause of your symptoms. In talk therapy you can try to gain an understanding of your symptoms but in somatic therapy you target the places in your brain and body that are holding onto the old trauma and causing the symptoms to keep occuring. The goal of somatic therapy is to have no elevated or unwanted symptoms related to a previous trauma, such as dissociation, panic, shaking, racing heart, etc.
We have witnessed many clients get free from the limitations of trauma and anxiety in many areas of their lives by consistently engaging in somatic therapy.
Somatic psychotherapy may benefit you if you’re dealing with:
Alternatively, you might be struggling with heavy feelings of anxiety or guilt? Maybe you’ve even tried talk therapy before, but it felt like trying to “think your way out” of your emotions.
If this sounds familiar, somatic experiencing therapy may be what you’ve been missing all this time. Your life can get better—you don’t have to feel like this all the time.
If you’re ready to learn more about working with a somatic therapist, contact us today and schedule a Free Consultation.
Whether you’ve already tried out talk therapy or you’ve never tried any kind of therapy before, it’s normal to feel a bit unsure about getting started with a somatic therapist.
And frankly, somatic psychotherapy is a newer modality compared to, say, CBT, which has been utilized for over a century.
But over the past few decades, many studies have been done into the effectiveness of somatic therapy, with new data being compiled almost daily:
One recent survey even found that over the past year, 42% of adults didn’t receive necessary mental health services due to cost. Unfortunately, many therapists are unable to accept insurance as a result of low payments from insurance companies. Many people settle for in-network care with providers that don’t truly specialize in what they need — they end up wasting time AND worse they don’t seem to get results !!
That’s why at Holistic Mental Health Counseling, we’re dedicated to working with you however we can. We have put a lot of thought and effort into partnering with different insurance companies in a variety of ways. Our goal was to help you use your benefits and also make sure our therapists are getting fairly compensated for all of their training, care, and expertise. Wellness is your birthright, and our team is here to support you in reclaiming what’s rightfully yours.
We are now accepting In-Network Plans with United Healthcare through Oxford, UMR, and UHC Resource Plans. If you have one of these plans, you’ll just pay your assigned co-pay via your insurance carrier.
If your carrier offers out-of-network benefits, there’s a very good chance we’re an accepted out-of-network provider with them. If you utilize these benefits, you’ll typically pay 30 – 60% of each session’s cost.
Paying out-of-pocket? Just let us know when you get in touch. We’ll work with you privately to offer your multiple options to help find something you can afford.
But the key point to focus on here isn’t necessarily the price tag. As certified counselors who specialize in somatic psychotherapy, we 100% stand by the impact and benefits of our work with you. We want you to get the best care possible, and if we are the best fit for you, we will do what we can to work with you.
We know from personal experience that talk therapy alone just isn’t enough sometimes. We want you to have a new experience in therapy and walk away feeling confident and grateful that you invested in yourself!
The thing we do differently is we help you get results by releasing trauma from the body, if that’s important to you call us and schedule a free consultation 917-781-0041 You don’t need to Google “somatic therapy near me”. Our team of dedicated, compassionate somatic therapists is here to help whether you’re seeking therapy in New York or New Jersey.
During a somatic therapy session, you can choose an event that recently made you feel triggered and experience unwanted symptoms.
This is a very broad, general wireframe for a somatic psychotherapy session. Because there are various techniques best suited to specific issues, each session can look a bit different than this.
You can find a qualified somatic therapist by searching online for “somatic therapy near me” and looking for someone who:
Ultimately, a qualified somatic therapist knows that you just can’t talk your way through trauma. True recovery requires an intervention into your body-mind connection.
At Holistic Mental Health Counseling, this is our specialty—we truly take a holistic, whole-self approach to help you reclaim wellness.
If you’re ready to create and step into the life that’s rightfully yours with the help of one of our amazing somatic therapists or team members, call us today at (917) 781-0041 (New York patients) or (732) 242-3313 (New Jersey patients).
