Service

Trauma informed somatic therapy

What is Somatic Therapy?

Trauma informed somatic therapy is a nervous system and body based approach to conventional talking therapy. Sessions are designed to support you in building greater awareness and relationship with your body and the messages that it is trying to tell you.

Being trauma-informed, it does this with compassion and understanding for the wider societal conditions within which you live.

Somatic therapy works on the understanding that we cannot always put words to what we have experienced or that sometimes we cannot always remember fully what has happened to us.

But our bodies remember and often, through our bodies, we can find the deepest relief to our challenges. It also works on the premise that sometimes talking about what we’ve experienced can be re-traumatising and that focussing on gentle body-based movements and the co-regulation offered in therapy can be enough to move things.

It offers a way to work through anything we may be carrying with more nuance, trusting in the messages and wisdom that come through our bodies.

For some people, deeper processing may be needed, and so somatic therapy also includes bilateral processing and parts work amongst other processing modalities to help to work with the more deeply embedded challenges. This is usually done only after a period of creating more safety within the body.

Somatic therapy can support you in a number of different ways. My particular specialisms include the following:

Newly diagnosed neurodivergent

If you’ve been recently diagnosed with neurodivergence, somatic therapy can help you to process the diagnosis. It can also help you to peel back the masks that you have been using to survive in a neurotypical world to find who you truly are.

Attachment wounds

Lauren can support you to work with attachment wounding to bring more secure connection to your life. Lauren has supported people through relational 12 step programmes and those struggling with codependency or fear of intimacy

Chronic Stress Related Health Conditions

Having had personal experience with a chronic stress related condition (M.E. after multiple burnouts) and used somatic tools and therapy to find relief from symptoms and rebuild her life, Lauren is aware of the challenges, complexity and direction for effective support of chronic health conditions with somatic therapy.

CPTSD

Complex ptsd usually requires a multifaceted approach to untangle as it took multiple events to develop. Lauren has trained in a variety of modalities such as EMDR, parts work amongst others to approach each facet with the care and tailored support you deserve.

My Approach

Building your window of tolerance

After your initial session where we assess where you currently are and what we need to prioritise, we will first start working with your nervous system. We will look at understanding your nervous system, develop nervous system regulation tools and begin adding them to your life. We will also look at your wider environment to see if changes can be made to help you to feel more grounded. We will start gently exploring the topics you are coming to therapy with. This stage is crucial for lasting change and preparing the nervous system for any deeper processing that you might need.

Deeper processing

If needed, you feel comfortable and when your nervous system is prepared, we will use somatic processing tools to go deeper into anything your body might be holding onto. This may be a few sessions of EMDR related processing or using parts work or a combination of. The work will be body led and it may be that we move back and forth between this stage and the previous stage to support your body to process old trauma.

Looking forward

After we have cleared some deep blocks we start looking at how you would like to shape your life moving forwards, creating a scaffolding to support you as you move away from therapy so that you can continue the positive momentum. I will be available after our time together for one off sessions if you feel you need it.

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Want to know if somatic therapy is right for you?

Feel free to email your questions. I aim to respond to general enquiries within 3 business days. If you are a client and it is urgent, please WhatsApp me.