What is Somatic Counselling?
"Including the body story along with the verbal story in therapy illuminates and awakens what has been obscured in darkness."
— Susan McConnell, Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy
The word somatic has become a buzz word as scientific studies confirm that somatic therapies are highly effective in treating symptoms and conditions such as post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, grief, chronic pain and others.
But what does somatic counselling refer to and how can it support you?
Soma, comes from the Greek word, meaning body. Somatic styles of counselling honour the body as a source of guidance and wisdom. Somatic counselling is more right-brained than talk therapy, often more relational, body-centered, and creative. A somatic counsellor connects what clients say with how they say it. Gestures, posture, body movements, and facial expressions are all part of the client's story and can give clues about how they navigate challenges or make meaning out of the world around them.
Somatic counselling can help us in the places where we get stuck, with the experiences, relationships and the beliefs that we can't change simply by being clever and well-intentioned. This style of therapy can help process difficult emotions, to remember the body as a place of safety and resourcefulness, and to restore our deep connection to self, others and the world around us.
Vanya Laporte, a local Registered Clinical Counsellor, uses a body-centered, trauma-informed approach and has extensively studied two forms of somatic therapy: The Hakomi Method and Internal Family Systems. Vanya uses gentleness, compassion, and mindfulness to help clients to develop more awareness of their body and present experience so they can learn to turn inward with self-compassion to restore wellbeing from "the inside out".
If you are curious to learn new somatic skills that could help alleviate unnecessary suffering, that is holding you back from fully engaging in your life, reach out to Vanya to book a complementary Meet and Greet to see if she is the right fit to support you.
About the Author
Vanya Laporte is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), Certified Hakomi Practitioner, and Internal Family Systems therapist based in Victoria, BC. She weaves together mindfulness, somatic therapy, and deep nature connection to help clients find their way back to themselves.
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