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Somatic Therapy & Somatic Experiencing® in San Diego

Somatic therapy helps clients understand how stress, trauma, and emotion can live in the body, not just the mind. At Mindful Guides Therapy Center in La Jolla, many of our therapists are formally trained in Somatic Experiencing® and other body-based approaches to support nervous system awareness, emotional regulation, and healing at a pace that feels safe and respectful.

For clients navigating trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, grief, overwhelm, or a sense of disconnection, somatic therapy can offer a grounded way to begin noticing what is happening inside and gradually build more capacity, resilience, and choice.

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Somatic Therapy Can Help With

Somatic therapy may be helpful for people who feel stuck in patterns of fear, tension, shutdown, or emotional overwhelm. It can also support clients who have tried talk therapy but still feel the effects of stress or trauma in the body.

  • Trauma and post-traumatic stress symptoms
  • Anxiety, panic, or chronic stress
  • Nervous system dysregulation
  • Emotional numbness, shutdown, or disconnection
  • Grief, loss, or unresolved painful experiences
  • Difficulty feeling safe, grounded, or present
  • Relationship patterns shaped by fear, protection, or survival responses
  • Body tension, hypervigilance, or difficulty relaxing
Woman seated calmly with one hand on her chest and one on her abdomen, practicing grounding and body awareness

Body-Based Therapy for Trauma, Stress, and Nervous-System Healing

Many people understand trauma as something that happened in the past. But the effects of trauma can continue to show up in the present through the nervous system. A person may feel constantly alert, easily overwhelmed, emotionally numb, disconnected from others, or unable to respond the way they want to in certain situations.

Somatic therapy works with the connection between the body, emotions, and nervous system. Instead of focusing only on thoughts or memories, it helps clients notice body sensations, impulses, tension, breath, posture, and internal cues that may be connected to stress or survival responses.

At Mindful Guides, somatic work is approached carefully and collaboratively. The goal is not to force someone to relive painful experiences. The goal is to help clients develop more awareness, more regulation, and more internal safety so healing can unfold gradually.

What Is Somatic Experiencing® Therapy?

Somatic Experiencing® is a body-based therapeutic approach developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D. It is designed to help people work with the body’s natural responses to stress, threat, and trauma. When a person experiences something overwhelming, the nervous system may move into fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown. Sometimes those survival responses do not fully resolve, and the body continues to carry patterns of activation or protection long after the original event has passed.

Somatic Experiencing® helps clients gently notice and work with those patterns. Through guided awareness of sensation, movement, emotion, imagery, and internal experience, clients may begin to build more tolerance for what they feel and more ability to return to a sense of groundedness.

This approach can be especially meaningful for people whose experiences feel difficult to explain only through words, or for those who know something feels “stuck” but are not sure how to access it through traditional talk therapy alone.

How Somatic Therapy Differs From Talk Therapy

Traditional talk therapy can be very helpful for understanding thoughts, emotions, relationships, and personal history. Somatic therapy adds another layer by including the body as part of the therapeutic process.

In somatic therapy, the therapist may invite you to notice sensations, changes in breathing, areas of tension, shifts in emotion, or impulses toward movement or stillness. These observations are not treated as random symptoms. They may be useful information about how your nervous system is responding and what it may need in order to feel safer, more regulated, or more connected.

For some clients, this approach helps bridge the gap between insight and lived experience. You may understand something intellectually but still feel anxious, shut down, reactive, or disconnected in your body. Somatic work can help bring therapy into that deeper body-based level of awareness.

Therapist listening attentively to a client during a calm somatic therapy session

What to Expect in a Somatic Therapy Session

A somatic therapy session usually begins with conversation, but the focus may gradually include what you notice in your body as you speak, reflect, or sit with certain emotions. Your therapist may ask gentle questions such as what sensations are present, whether something feels tight or open, whether your breath changes, or whether you notice an impulse to move, pause, or orient toward something in the room.

Sessions move at a pace that is intended to support safety and choice. You do not have to share every detail of a painful experience in order for the work to be meaningful. In many cases, the focus is on building awareness and capacity before going deeper into difficult material.

Depending on your needs, therapy may include grounding, tracking body sensations, noticing emotional shifts, working with images or memories, exploring protective responses, and learning how to recognize signs of activation or shutdown. The therapist’s role is to support you in staying connected to the present while gently working with what your body and nervous system are communicating.

Who Somatic Therapy May Be Right For

Somatic therapy may be a good fit if you feel that stress, anxiety, trauma, or emotional pain shows up strongly in your body. It may also be helpful if you often feel overwhelmed, frozen, disconnected, tense, guarded, reactive, or unable to relax even when you know you are safe.

Some clients come to somatic therapy because they want support after trauma. Others come because they are experiencing chronic stress, grief, relationship patterns, nervous system dysregulation, or a sense that they are disconnected from themselves. Somatic therapy can also be used alongside other approaches, including psychodynamic therapy, mindfulness-based therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and individual therapy.

During a free 15-minute phone consultation, we can talk with you about what you are looking for and help determine whether somatic therapy or another approach at Mindful Guides may be the best fit.

Book a Free 15-Minute Consultation

Meet Our Somatic Therapy Team

Mindful Guides Therapy Center includes therapists who are trained in, informed by, or experienced with body-based and somatic approaches. Many of our clinicians understand that effective therapy often requires attention to the body, nervous system, and felt sense of safety.

Nicole Kahn, Lisa Marks, Drisana Davis, and Crystal Carson all provide somatic therapy support at Mindful Guides. Nicole also helps match new inquiries with therapists whose experience and style may fit the client’s needs.

Nicole Kahn, Somatic Therapy and Somatic Experiencing® therapist in San Diego

Nicole Kahn, M.A., Ed.M.

Founder and Clinical Director with a background that includes Somatic Experiencing®, Trauma Touch, and integrative mind-body approaches.

Learn more about Nicole
Lisa Marks, somatic therapy provider at Mindful Guides Therapy Center

Lisa Marks, M.A.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Clinical Supervisor offering somatic-informed support at Mindful Guides.

Learn more about Lisa
Drisana Davis, somatic therapy provider at Mindful Guides Therapy Center

Drisana Davis, M.A.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist offering somatic-informed care and body-based therapeutic support.

Learn more about Drisana
Crystal Carson, somatic therapy provider at Mindful Guides Therapy Center

Crystal Carson, M.A.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist offering somatic-informed support for clients working with stress, trauma, emotion, and nervous system awareness.

Learn more about Crystal

Related Therapy Options

Somatic therapy is one of several approaches available at Mindful Guides. Depending on your needs, your therapist may recommend or integrate related forms of support.

Individual Therapy

Support for adults navigating anxiety, trauma, grief, stress, relationship patterns, and life transitions.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy

Build awareness of thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and patterns of reaction.

Embodied Integration

Support for the connection between emotional insight and lived, body-based awareness.

Psychodynamic Therapy

Understand deeper emotional patterns and relationship dynamics.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Identify thought patterns, emotional responses, and behaviors that may contribute to distress.

Not Sure Where to Start?

A free consultation can help determine whether somatic therapy or another approach may be the right fit.

Somatic Therapy FAQs

Somatic Experiencing® is a body-based therapeutic approach that helps clients work with nervous system responses connected to stress, threat, and trauma. It focuses on body awareness, sensation, regulation, and the gradual release or integration of survival responses that may feel stuck.
Yes. Talk therapy often focuses on thoughts, emotions, relationships, and personal history. Somatic therapy includes those areas but also pays close attention to the body and nervous system. This can be helpful when stress or trauma is experienced physically, not only mentally or emotionally.
Somatic therapy may help clients who experience trauma symptoms, anxiety, panic, chronic stress, shutdown, emotional numbness, or difficulty feeling grounded. It is not a quick fix or guaranteed outcome, but it can be a meaningful way to work with nervous system patterns in therapy.
A session may include conversation, grounding, noticing body sensations, tracking emotional shifts, exploring protective responses, and building more awareness of what happens internally. The therapist works collaboratively and at a pace intended to support safety and choice.
No. Somatic therapy does not require you to retell every detail of a traumatic experience. Some work focuses on present-moment body awareness, nervous system responses, and building capacity before exploring difficult memories more directly.
A free 15-minute phone consultation can help you ask initial questions and share what kind of support you are looking for. From there, Mindful Guides can help determine whether somatic therapy or another approach may be a good fit.

Start With a Free 15-Minute Phone Consultation

If you are curious about somatic therapy or Somatic Experiencing®, a free 15-minute phone consultation can help you take the next step. We can answer initial questions, learn more about what you are looking for, and help determine whether a therapist at Mindful Guides may be the right fit.

Book a Free 15-Minute Consultation

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