What the heck is somatic EMDR? Short answer: the body and mind working together to help heal.
Long answer: Trauma and stress reside in our nervous system, which runs throughout our mind and body. It is an important system! We literally need it to survive. When we have experienced stress, trauma, fears, heartbreak, etc. then we have the residual beliefs and pain of those experiences living in our nervous system.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) uses any kind of bilateral stimulation to access the parts of your brain that hold on to those memories. It is difficult to access this part of your brain to make changes through talk therapy alone.
Somatics, from the Greek word for body 'Soma', incorporates the body to help move trauma, stress, or emotions through the nervous system so they are not stuck. This idea is based in polyvagel theory, among others.
Somatic EMDR means incorporating the body in our EMDR work, not just the mind. This may take the form of moving our body bilaterally through tapping, walking, swaying, or whatever comes naturally to you. We will recognize where certain emotions and sensations connected with a memory are located in our body. We may incorporate somatic releases in our calming/grounding work after completing EMDR in a session.
Somatic EMDR work means we are able to listen to the wisdom of our mind, body, and soul when we are working towards healing.
To do this work, I have a certificate from The Embody Lab, which you can read more about here: Somatic EMDR Therapy Certificate
Comments