You have understood your patterns for years. Understanding them has not changed what happens in your body when something triggers.
Somatic Therapy
In person (Miami) and online (Florida + PSYPACT states)
When Insight Stops Being Enough
Many people who come to us for somatic work have already done therapy, often a lot of it. They can explain their history accurately. They know which situations activate them and why. What has not changed is the response itself, which arrives faster than thought and does not wait for the explanation to catch up.
That gap is not a failure of effort or of the previous work. Some things are held in the body rather than in memory, and they operate below the level where reasoning has any access. A racing heart during a difficult conversation, a stomach that drops before you consciously register the reason, the specific tension that appears in a doctor's waiting room, the flatness that arrives when you finally have unstructured time. These are physiological events, and they respond to physiological work.
What Somatic Therapy Involves
Somatic therapy works with sensation, which means the pace is slower and the attention is narrower than in conversational therapy. Instead of moving toward the story, we move toward what is happening in your body while the story is present. Where the tension sits. What the breath does. What shifts when you say a particular sentence out loud.
The work happens in small increments deliberately. Going faster than your nervous system can tolerate produces flooding rather than progress, so a well-run somatic session often covers less ground than you expect and leaves more behind. Over time the range of what your body can hold without escalating widens, and the responses that used to take a day to recover from start resolving in minutes.
Sessions include talking. Somatic work is not silent or wordless, and it does not require touch. What distinguishes it is that the body stays in the room as a source of information rather than being treated as scenery.
Who This Helps
Somatic therapy is a strong fit when the difficulty shows up physically, or when it persists in spite of insight. Common reasons people come to us for this work:
Trauma responses that activate faster than thought, including complex PTSD and medical trauma
Chronic illness, chronic pain, and conditions where the body has become a source of threat rather than a place to live
Gut-brain conditions including IBS, where fear of sensation feeds directly back into symptom intensity
Burnout and chronic stress, particularly when rest produces restlessness instead of relief
Anxiety and panic, where the physical sensations have become the thing being feared
Dissociation, numbness, and the sense of watching yourself from a distance
Chronic tension, guarding, and hypervigilance with no current threat attached
An Integrative Approach
Somatic therapy can be a powerful part of treatment, but it is rarely the whole picture. We take an integrative approach, bringing together different forms of therapy based on what you need rather than treating each concern in isolation.
Somatic work often pairs naturally with Internal Family Systems. While somatic therapy helps us notice and work with what is happening in the body, IFS helps us understand the protective parts of you that developed around difficult experiences. We may also use emotion-focused and relational approaches to explore how past experiences continue to shape the way you feel, relate, and respond today.
At other times, the work may be more practical, focused on changing patterns of avoidance or behaviors that once helped you cope but are no longer serving you.
There is no set formula for how much of therapy will be somatic. The approach can shift throughout treatment depending on what you are working through, what feels accessible, and what will be most helpful at that point in the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does somatic therapy involve touch?
No. Our clinicians do not use touch. The work happens through attention to your own sensation, described in your own words, at a pace you set.
How is this different from regular talk therapy?
Conversational therapy works primarily through narrative and understanding. Somatic therapy adds what is happening in your body as a source of information, which reaches responses that operate faster than thought and do not resolve through insight alone. Most of our clients receive both within the same course of treatment.
Can somatic therapy be done over telehealth?
Yes. The work is built on your attention to your own body, which travels well over video. Some people prefer in-person or extended intensive sessions for this work, and both are available in Miami, FL.
Integrative Care, Rooted in Empathy
You have done the understanding. What has not shifted is what your body does when something touches the old material, and that is workable. People who do this work describe a shorter recovery time after activation, more room before the response takes over, and the experience of being in their body rather than negotiating with it. Our clinicians combine somatic work with depth and parts work in one course of treatment, at a pace your nervous system can actually absorb.
Sessions are available in person in Miami and by telehealth throughout Florida and PSYPACT-participating states.
Contact us or request a free consultation to talk about where to start.