Somatic Therapy in NYC and across New York & Florida

What is somatic therapy?

Somatic therapy is an approach that pays attention to how experience lives in the body, not only in thoughts and memories. Trauma and chronic stress are not only psychological experiences, they're physiological ones. The nervous system often keeps responding as if a past danger is still present: the chest tightens before a difficult conversation, a heaviness arrives without explanation, the body goes quiet when what's needed is to speak.

These responses are often learned early, before there were words to make sense of them, and they move faster than conscious thought. That's why insight alone doesn't always change them. You can understand a pattern completely and still feel it take over.

Somatic therapy isn't a technique so much as a way of paying attention. Rather than trying to fix or override what the body is doing, we get curious about it: what it's responding to, what it's protecting, and what it might be trying to communicate.

How I use somatic therapy

In my practice, somatic work is integrated within a relational, psychodynamic approach rather than practiced on its own. Alongside exploring your history, patterns, and relationships, we pay attention to what happens in your body as you talk. That might be a tightening, a shift in breath, a sudden numbness, or an urge to move or pull away.

Often we'll pause and notice that sensation instead of moving past it. Sometimes that's enough to let something settle. Other times it opens up feelings that words alone had been circling for a long time: grief, anger, or something the body knew before the mind could name it.

This work moves at a pace your nervous system can tolerate. It isn't about forcing sensation or reliving experiences before you're ready. For people with trauma histories, especially those who feel disconnected from their bodies or easily overwhelmed, we build a sense of steadiness first. Somatic awareness also often does the groundwork that makes other approaches, like EMDR and IFS, safer and more effective.

As a somatic therapist in NYC, I work with people navigating complex trauma, burnout and chronic stress, anxiety, dissociation, and relationship patterns that feel impossible to shift through understanding alone.

This work may be a good fit if you:

  • Have a lot of insight into your patterns but still feel stuck in them

  • Feel disconnected from your body, numb, or like you're watching life from a distance

  • Live with chronic tension, a sense of being on high alert, or exhaustion that rest doesn't fix

  • Have reactions, like anger, shutdown, or panic, that arrive before you can think

  • Are a survivor of childhood trauma or abuse

  • Want somatic work held within a relational, depth-oriented approach rather than as a set of exercises

I offer somatic therapy in NYC, both in person and via telehealth, and across New York and Florida via telehealth. If you're curious whether this approach might be a good fit, I offer a free consultation.

  • Much of it looks like ordinary therapy: we talk. The difference is that we also pay attention to what's happening in your body as you talk, and sometimes we slow down to stay with a sensation instead of moving past it. There's no touch involved, and nothing is required of you that doesn't feel manageable. For a closer look, I've written about somatic therapy vs. talk therapy with examples from the therapy room.

  • It's less a replacement than an addition. Talk therapy helps you understand what happened and why. Somatic work reaches the places where experience is stored in the body and nervous system, which understanding alone doesn't always touch. In my practice, the two happen together

  • Yes. Paying attention to sensation, breath, and posture works well over video, and some people find it easier to notice their body from their own space. We can decide together whether in person or telehealth suits you better.

  • Often, yes, particularly for trauma that doesn't feel tied to one clear memory, or that shows up as tension, numbness, hypervigilance, or dissociation. We move carefully, building enough safety that you can notice what's happening in your body without being flooded by it.

  • Exercises can help in the moment, but they tend to manage symptoms rather than change the patterns underneath. In therapy, somatic awareness happens within a relationship, where what your body is holding can be understood and not just calmed down.

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