Somatic Therapy
Somatic Therapy: Healing Through the Wisdom of the Body
At Anne Giles Counseling, we work with individuals who feel “stuck” in cycles of stress, anxiety, or emotional overwhelm—patterns that no amount of thinking seems to fix. You may understand your struggles on a logical level yet still feel tension, restlessness, or emotional shutdown in your body. That’s because your body remembers what your mind tries to move past.
Somatic therapy offers a different path—one that invites your body into the healing process. Rather than focusing only on thoughts and analysis, somatic work helps you tune into physical sensations, movement, and breath to access the emotions and memories stored beneath the surface.
By restoring connection between mind and body, somatic therapy helps you regulate your nervous system, release stored stress, and find a grounded sense of safety, calm, and self-trust.
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy is a body-centered approach to healing that helps you reconnect with your physical and emotional experience. It’s based on the understanding that the body holds onto stress, trauma, and unprocessed emotions—often long after the mind has tried to move on. When these sensations are ignored or suppressed, they can manifest as tension, fatigue, anxiety, or emotional numbness.
Rather than focusing solely on thoughts or analysis, somatic therapy invites you to listen to your body’s cues through gentle awareness, movement, breathwork, and grounding techniques. This process helps regulate your nervous system, release stored tension, and restore a sense of balance and safety.
Somatic therapy can be especially supportive for those experiencing:
Anxiety and chronic stress
Trauma and PTSD
Burnout or emotional exhaustion
Dissociation or disconnection from the body
Grief and loss
Difficulty relaxing or feeling safe in stillness
By integrating mind and body, somatic therapy helps you move from simply surviving to feeling grounded, calm, and deeply present in your own skin.
How Does Somatic Therapy Work?
Somatic therapy begins with an awareness of what your body is already trying to tell you. When emotions, stress, or trauma aren’t fully processed, they often show up as tightness, shallow breathing, fatigue, or a lingering sense of unease. Rather than simply talking about these experiences, somatic therapy helps you tune into your body’s sensations as a guide to understanding what needs release, regulation, or care.
During sessions, we may use grounding exercises, mindful movement, gentle breathwork, or guided awareness to help you reconnect with your physical experience in a safe, supportive way. The goal isn’t to analyze or control your sensations, but to create space for your body to complete the healing responses it once had to suppress.
Somatic Therapy in Comparison With Other Approaches
Unlike traditional talk therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—which focus on reframing thoughts—somatic therapy works from the bottom up, starting with the body. It acknowledges that healing isn’t only intellectual; it’s also physiological.
Whereas CBT helps challenge thinking patterns, somatic therapy helps you release the stored energy behind those thoughts.
Whereas exposure-based therapies emphasize desensitization, somatic therapy restores a sense of safety and regulation first.
And unlike problem-solving models that prioritize insight, somatic work helps you feel that insight—grounding change in your nervous system, not just your mind.
At Anne Giles Counseling, somatic therapy is often integrated with EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to create a holistic, embodied path to healing. It’s not about forcing change—it’s about helping your body remember how to rest, regulate, and return home to itself.
Somatic Therapy Is One of the Core Approaches We Use at Anne Giles Counseling
At Anne Giles Counseling, we believe healing happens not just through insight, but through connection—to your body, your emotions, and your inner sense of safety. Many clients come to therapy feeling “stuck” in their heads, trying to think their way out of stress or pain. Somatic therapy helps shift that pattern by bringing awareness back to the body, where healing naturally begins.
Through somatic therapy, you’ll learn to notice and release physical tension, understand your body’s cues, and regulate your nervous system in moments of stress. This approach helps you move beyond simply managing symptoms into deeper, embodied healing.
It’s not about fixing yourself—it’s about listening inward, rebuilding trust with your body, and creating the space to feel grounded, calm, and whole again.
Reconnect, Release, and Return to Yourself
At Anne Giles Counseling, we specialize in somatic therapy to help you move beyond stress, anxiety, and the lingering effects of trauma held in the body. This approach helps you tune into physical sensations and signals, allowing your body to release tension, regulate your nervous system, and restore a natural sense of calm and safety.
You can schedule a free 15-minute consultation or reach out directly to learn more about how somatic therapy can help you feel grounded, balanced, and deeply connected to yourself again.
Somatic Therapy Boulder, CO
1650 38th Street, Suite 100, Boulder, CO 80301