Doctors and talk therapists are recommending somatic therapy

“So many of us are tired of being stuck in our heads overthinking and over-analysing what we feel, rather than, well...actually feeling it. “

There’s something very encouraging happening in health and wellbeing, which I keep hearing more and more. I’ve been made aware by an increasing number of my clients, that they’re being advised to try out somatic therapy and breathwork by talk therapists and doctors.

It’s such a good sign of more coordinated care for people needing further support. So I love that the healthcare industry is starting to work in a more integrated way, in collaboration across therapeutic disciplines. A few of those professionals have apparently even recommended me personally, which is always lovely to hear.

I was aware of this happening, from when I was training to be a person-centred counsellor last year (before I pivoted after qualifying at level 3, to focus solely on my somatic practitioner training). Our college tutor had told us she often recommends somatic work to her clients; I kind of just thought she must be a great example of an exception to the rule.

Now I see that people really do champion a cross-disciplinary approach for their clients when they deem it necessary. It's great that there's now this wider awareness and advocating for body-based emotional processing practices. Because god knows so many of us are tired of being stuck in our heads overthinking and over-analysing what we feel, rather than, well...actually feeling it.

Doctors, psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors often come to work with me themselves, too. Those who support others, of course need their own support. In doing that, they model responsibility, presence, and emotional awareness in the often highly challenging, pressured work they do.

It’s so admirable and vital. I always love to see people show up for themselves like this, in any industry, but in their fields, it feels particularly needed. I know it makes them great at what they do when they prioritise their own healing.

These professionals describe wanting to connect with emotions and understand their patterns; the habitual responses, emotional triggers, and unresolved experiences that influence their work and personal life. They want to regulate their understandably overloaded nervous systems, releasing the stress and tension that can otherwise show up as anxiety, pain, or burnout.

By their admission, the medical and traditional therapeutic fields lack somatic approaches - around how the body stores emotions, stress, and the impact of trauma. Traditional treatment often focuses either only on the mind, or only on medicating physical symptoms. While this can be helpful, it isn’t the whole picture and neglects deeper healing, which falls somewhere in between.

Medicalised approaches largely overlook the body as a site where emotions and trauma are held. Ignoring this can leave the underlying causes of our challenges unaddressed, so somatic therapy helps fill this gap, by guiding us to gently connect with the body. By bringing awareness to physical sensations and emotions without analysing and overthinking them, and creating space for those feelings to surface and be safely experienced.

Read more about how to work with me 1:1 in somatic therapy.