The key idea underpinning my approach is that movement is the primary instrument the human nervous system has for interacting with the outside world and organizing itself through this interaction. Impaired ability in the movements of daily life — including restricted range of motion, clumsiness, stiffness, and pain that cannot be readily explained by structural abnormalities — is indicative of disrupted neural communication lines between the brain and other parts of the body. However, even a severely disrupted nervous system may retain a considerable capacity to repair itself in response to new experience. And new experience is just what movement can reliably generate. I see my role in this reparative process as a facilitator supporting the discovery of more efficient ways of functioning through guided sensory-motor learning designed to bring attention to the parts of the self that were out of the person’s awareness.

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My somatic therapy work is guided by the following principles:

  

• The nervous system’s learning mode is “turned on” by focusing attention on sensations generated by non-stereotypical movements.

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• The discovery of more efficient ways of being and acting is only possible when people can feel what they are doing in their bodies. By reducing effort, doing movements slowly, without straining and struggling, the person can sense more delicately just what he or she is doing. Minimal stimulus differences evoke sensorimotor differentiation and thereby “tune” the person’s nervous system to enable skillful performance.

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• The nervous system will only assimilate new patterns that are somatically meaningful and coherent with the person’s current capacities.

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• Favourable neuromuscular patterns presented via their gratifying sensory effect are somatically remembered and can overcome dysfunctional habits.

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• Cultivating moment-to-moment awareness of movement without judging it (“there are no wrong or right ways to move, only better ways”) encourages us to seek out the ways of moving that are the most comfortable, efficient, and safe specifically for us. The effects of “minding” movement will carry over into other domains, enabling us to discover and let go of limiting patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and develop more skillful ways of being in the world.

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In practical terms, this work involves delicate and precise touching as the primary means of guiding people to discover themselves in movement. It is performed with the person comfortably clothed, usually lying on a low table (to reduce the influence of gravity on the nervous system) or sometimes in a sitting or standing position. The gentle manipulations are not intended to “fix” anything, and don’t involve any special techniques for pressing or stroking. They are best described as a tactile, nonverbal dialogue with the person’s nervous system, whose purpose is to guide the person to an awareness of his or her habitual patterns of neuromuscular organization, and also to suggest new, expanded possibilities for self-expression.

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While guiding through touch is central to my work, I often combine it with other modalities that utilize verbal cues to elucidate the ways in which one’s habitual patterns of thinking and feeling affect one’s physical well-being.  Typically, I rely on the synergy of tactile and verbal communication when the client is “stuck” in an unproductive mental or emotional state.

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An essential feature of my work is that it comprehensively addresses the interplay between sensing, thinking, feeling, and movement, rather than dealing with physical functioning separately from other domains of human activity.

 

Our physical (neuromuscular) patterns reflect the largely unconscious emotional and mental habits underpinning our default behaviours, that is, the ways we interact with the world without thinking. These habits can hinder and even thwart our physical recovery after an illness or injury; and we can only change our habits if we bring them into the light of our awareness and recognize those that cause dysfunction.

 

By viewing the physical body as the “gateway” to the emotional and mental domains, somatic movement therapy enables us to do so. Therefore, it opens a path to true healing, rather than just temporary relief of symptoms.