How Somatic Therapy for Women Supports Healing After Trauma
The trauma that we experience not only lives in our memories but in our bodies as well. For many women, this can make healing a confusing and frustrating process because they don’t realize how their tension and emotional overwhelm are rooted in past experiences. Without understanding the body’s role in trauma, it is very easy to feel like something is wrong with you. With somatic therapy, women can not only gain insight into their lived bodily experiences but also regain a sense of presence and trust that makes them feel whole again.
What Is Somatic Therapy for Women?
Somatic therapy for women is a body-centered approach to healing from trauma. It recognizes the effects of our lived experiences and how they shape our nervous system. Rather than just focusing on thoughts and memories like conventional therapy, it widens its focus to also bring awareness to physical sensations, breath, posture, and movement. This allows the body to heal from the trauma that it has stored over the years and rewires the body’s survival response.
For many women, trauma teaches the body to stay guarded and alert long after the event or the threat has passed. It’s almost as if your body catches a trauma and stores your reaction as a blueprint. So anytime your body senses a threat, your nervous system brings about the same physical sensation as you would have experienced before. Somatic therapy tunes into these sensations in a safe and supportive way by helping you recognise these patterns so that you can work on them.
Why Somatic Therapy for Women is Especially Supportive
Somatic therapy for women is particularly helpful because much of the trauma experienced by them is often directly through the body. This foremost includes medical trauma, such as invasive procedures, chronic illness, or pain during birthing, that can leave the body bracing for threat even after the event has passed.
Sexual trauma can have a profound impact on how safe a woman feels in her body. It frequently disrupts their natural sense of boundaries, both physical and emotional. Research claims that women who have experienced sexual abuse report increased somatic symptoms such as bodily pain and distress.
Moreover, relational trauma may include the emotional stress of being in an unsafe relationship or the ongoing caregiver stress, which keeps the nervous system in a constant state of vigilance. Thus, due to these particular challenges that women face, somatic therapy can prove to be a life-changing experience.
What Makes Somatic Therapy for Women Different from Talk Therapy?
Talk therapy is a conventional approach to therapy that helps people explore their thoughts and emotions through conversation. Here’s how somatic therapy differs from talk therapy:
Focus On the Body:
Somatic therapy primarily focuses on the body and what it’s holding. Such as, tension to numbness and physiologic responses, which help one process the trauma on a physical level, as opposed to talk therapy that explores past experiences through conversation.
Nervous System Regulation:
Trauma often builds physiologic responses that the body may re-experience in times of stress, such as palpitations and sweating. Somatic therapy teaches women to recognize and address these autonomic survival responses, which are not catered to in talk therapy alone.
Healing Beyond Memory:
Talk therapy relies on recalling experiences through which emotions are dissected and discussed. This becomes tricky when people cannot recall their lived experiences. Thus, somatic therapy can support healing even when specific memories are incomplete or difficult to assess because the body retains its own memory of trauma.
5 Signs that Somatic Therapy is Right For You
Feeling Disconnected from Your Body:
You may feel as if your body and mind aren’t fully connected. There may be tension, numbness, or a vague sensation of something not being the way it should be.
Emotional Overwhelm:
A strong sense of emotional and physical sensations often results in overwhelm, which leads your body into shutting down or disassociation from the surroundings.
Chronic Stress or Tension:
You may feel constantly tired or stressed despite committing to relaxation techniques or talk-based approaches.
Difficulty Processing Trauma:
If you find yourself in a position where you’re unable to find the right words to process your trauma or if talking about it isn’t helping, then you might need somatic therapy.
Struggling with Trust:
Since trauma breaches your physical boundaries, you might feel uneasy and unsafe even within secure surroundings.
Somatic Therapy for Women: What To Expect in a Session
A somatic therapy session for women is designed to create a safe space where you can find the right guidance and tools to reconnect with your body at your own pace. Sessions usually begin with grounding exercises, which may include small movements like rolling your shoulders, breathing mindfully, or noticing the sounds and textures in the environment.
Then, the therapist may ask you to tune into your bodily sensations. You are encouraged to notice the tightness, tension, or warmth that your body feels. This allows you to identify where the trauma is physically stored. At this point, based on your bodily sensations, small movements or exercises may be introduced, which help release the tension from your body and support your nervous system.
During the session, you will be assured that your safety is prioritized. You are encouraged to communicate your boundaries and feelings at any moment. At the end of the session, your therapist may help you integrate the body-mind experience through reflective conversations.
Over time, these sessions will equip you with the right tools that you may use in your daily life as well to keep your nervous system regulated.
Common Somatic Therapy Modalities
Somatic therapy for women can make use of various approaches. Here is an overview of the most common ones to give you a rough idea:
Somatic Experiencing:
This modality primarily focuses on noticing the bodily responses that are stored in response to trauma. Then, by tuning into the nervous system, these patterns can be regulated over time.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy:
This approach combines body-based interventions with talk therapy. It gives women the opportunity to explore how trauma affects movement and posture, and then integrates mindful exercises to combine emotional and physical experiences.
EMDR with a Somatic Focus:
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is used to process traumatic memories. The therapist guides the eyes through specific movements while you think of a memory or emotion. This helps the brain reprocess the experience and reduce the intensity of physical stress responses.
Other Techniques:
The scope of somatic therapy is wide and caters to the needs of the clients. Some people may want to include breathwork, yoga, meditation, or gentle touch to further support release and reconnection. You get to choose what works for you!
Why Choose Somatic Therapy for Women
When you’re ready for deeper, more integrated healing, somatic therapy might be ideal for you. It offers a space for healing that goes beyond words and processes the trauma that is often stored in your body.
Many women choose somatic therapy when they feel ‘stuck’ or disconnected from their bodies, which indicates that the trauma is stored deeper than they think! This is where somatic therapy restores a sense of safety and trust within their own bodies.
At Rooted Rhythm, we provide trauma-informed somatic therapy for women, and we help women reconnect with their bodies and emotions in a compassionate, non-judgmental way!
FAQ: Somatic Therapy for Women:
Q1. What is somatic therapy for women?
Somatic therapy for women is a body-centered approach that helps women deal with trauma by regulating their nervous system, emotions, and physical sensations.
Q2. How is somatic therapy for women different from traditional talk therapy?
Traditional talk therapy relies on memories of trauma, whereas somatic therapy focuses on the trauma that the body is holding. Such as tension, tightness, and numbness
Q3. Who can benefit from somatic therapy for women?
Somatic therapy for women is very beneficial for anyone dealing with chronic stress, dissociation, chronic stress or emotional overwhelm.
Q4. Can somatic therapy for women help with past trauma, even if I don’t remember everything?
Of course! Because somatic therapy is not dependent on the memory but rather your bodily sensations, there is no need to worry even if you can’t recall past experiences.
Written by the Rooted Rhythm team. A therapy practice that offers somatic support for women healing from trauma. We help women reconnect with their bodies and feel safe again.
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