Why Choose a Somatic Therapist? What Body-Based Therapy Offers That Talking Alone Sometimes Can't
I want to be upfront about something before I make any case for somatic therapy: talk therapy genuinely works, and I say that as someone who uses it every day. Cognitive approaches, insight-oriented work, relational therapy, all of it has real value, and most of what happens in my sessions is still conversation. We're talking, making connections, figuring out what's going on.
That said, there's a particular kind of stuck that comes up with some clients that more talking doesn't really touch. They've done real work. They understand their patterns pretty well, can explain with some clarity why they do the things they do, and have made genuine progress. But something in the body hasn't caught up. Their heart still races in certain situations, their stomach still tightens before hard conversations, they wake up at 3am even when life is technically fine. When that's what's happening, I think it's worth considering whether a more body-based approach might reach something that the cognitive work hasn't quite gotten to yet.
What's Actually Different About Working with a Somatic Therapist
In a lot of ways, somatic therapy doesn't look that different from regular therapy. You're still sitting down with someone, still talking about what's going on, still doing the reflective work. The difference is that a somatic therapist also treats your body as part of the conversation rather than just a place your head is attached to.
In practice, that might mean I notice your breath getting shallower while we're talking about something and ask you about it. It might mean pausing the narrative for a few minutes to check in with what's happening physically rather than just cognitively. We might do some breathwork or a grounding exercise, not as homework or a break, but as part of the actual session. The idea is that unresolved emotional experiences often get stored in the body and show up as physical symptoms like chronic tension, digestive issues, or sleep disruption, and working with the body directly can reach those patterns in a way that talking around them sometimes can't.
When It Tends to Be a Good Fit
Somatic therapy isn't the right approach for every person or situation, but there are a few specific things that come up where I find it tends to be more useful than talk therapy on its own.
When anxiety is mostly physical
Some people's anxiety is primarily a cognitive experience: rumination, catastrophic thinking, the mental loop that won't quit. Cognitive approaches are really well suited for that. But a lot of people's anxiety lives more in the body than in their thoughts. The racing heart, the tight stomach, the shoulders that won't come down, trouble sleeping even when nothing is obviously wrong. If that sounds familiar and you've already ruled out a medical cause, what you're often dealing with is a nervous system that's learned to stay in alert mode, and working with the body is usually a more direct route to shifting that than trying to think your way out of it.
When insight hasn't translated into feeling different
Someone has spent real time in therapy, they genuinely understand their patterns, they know where things come from, and they still walk into certain situations and feel it all physically. They may have been told, “you’re so self-aware,” yet they aren’t making the progress they’d like to. That gap between understanding something and feeling differently in your body is real, and it's not a sign that the therapy didn't work. It's usually a sign that the body needs its own conversation alongside the cognitive one.
When you're a therapist, yoga teacher, or someone in a helping role
This one feels personal to name because it's true of a lot of people I know and respect. Many therapists, yoga teachers, nurses, social workers, and others who work in helping roles are fluent in these tools. They teach breathwork, they talk about nervous system regulation, they hold space for other people's experiences all day. And then they go home and don't do any of it for themselves, not because they don't believe in it, but because there's something different about being in the container versus holding it for someone else. If that resonates, somatic therapy is one of the better options for actually getting to be the client for a change, where someone else is paying attention and your expertise doesn't become a reason to intellectualize rather than feel.
A Note for Yoga Practitioners
Most people come to yoga for the physical and mental health benefits, and that's a completely valid reason to practice. But if you find yourself wanting to use yoga as a tool for deeper self-study and reflection, it’s helpful to find a good teacher who can help you see things that are not quite apparent to you yet.
What I find interesting, both as a therapist and as someone who has been practicing yoga for over 10 years, is that the patterns people bring to their mat are usually the same patterns they bring everywhere else. If you tend to push too hard in a pose and strain past what your body is ready for, it's worth asking what it would be like to intentionally do a little less. What comes up when you back off? Is there discomfort with that, a sense of not doing enough, some internal commentary that gets pretty loud? That's useful information, and it's not just about yoga. Similarly, if motivation is low and you're noticing what it's like to move your body anyway, to shake or do something physically demanding when part of you would rather not, what shows up? What do you say to yourself in those moments?
A regular yoga class is a great place to practice these things, but it's usually not a place where someone helps you look at them more closely, unless it’s a private session. Somatic therapy can hold that kind of inquiry in a more deliberate way, using what's already happening in your practice as material. The tools overlap quite a bit. The container is just different.
The Tools Do Actually Require You to Use Them
I say this with some affection, but it's worth being direct: reading about breathwork is not the same as breathing. Understanding the theory of somatic work doesn't regulate your nervous system. These practices work through doing them, not through knowing about them, and that's true whether we're talking about what happens in session or what you take home and try to practice between sessions.
In our work together, I meet people where they are with this. Some sessions have five minutes of somatic work woven in and the rest is conversation. Some sessions are almost entirely experiential. I don't have a fixed formula for it because I think the most useful thing is to pay attention to what a particular person seems to need on a particular day and respond to that rather than follow a script. You don't need to arrive knowing how to do any of this. Willingness and some curiosity are enough to start.
What to Expect If You're New to This
Sessions still involve a lot of talking, and you're not going to show up and immediately be asked to do something that feels strange. What you might notice over time is that your therapist occasionally asks what you're feeling physically, not just what you're thinking. There might be brief invitations to pause and check in with your body alongside whatever we're discussing. A grounding practice or some breathwork might get woven in when it feels relevant. None of it is mandatory and the pace is always yours. The goal is just to include the body in the conversation rather than treating it as incidental.
Working with Middle Way Wellness
I'm Caitie Fey, a licensed therapist, registered yoga teacher, and the founder of Middle Way Wellness in Ferndale, Michigan. Somatic and yoga-informed practice is central to how I work and how I understand healing. My colleague Caitlin Estep, LLPC, RYT also brings a somatic and yoga-informed orientation to her individual work with adults and teens.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a somatic therapist and a traditional therapist? A traditional therapist works primarily through language and cognitive insight. A somatic therapist includes the body in the process, paying attention to breath, sensation, movement, and physical awareness alongside conversation. Somatic therapists are licensed mental health professionals with additional training in the mind-body connection, not alternative practitioners.
Is somatic therapy better than talk therapy? Neither is better across the board. They work on different channels and are useful for different things. Somatic therapy tends to be a particularly good fit when anxiety is primarily physical, when insight hasn't translated into feeling different, or when someone wants to include the body more directly in their healing process. A lot of people benefit from a combination of both.
Can yoga practitioners benefit from somatic therapy? Often, yes. People who already have a relationship with breathwork and body awareness tend to find that somatic therapy deepens their practice in new ways, partly because having someone else hold the container allows for a level of self-inquiry that's harder to access on your own.
What does a somatic therapy session feel like? Mostly like a regular therapy session, with some additional attention to the body. You might pause to notice physical sensations, do a brief breathing or grounding practice, or move a little, woven in when it fits rather than as a separate thing. Most people find it less unfamiliar than they expected, and the pace is always guided by what feels right for you.
Where can I find a somatic therapist in Michigan? Middle Way Wellness in Ferndale, MI offers somatic and yoga-informed individual therapy for adults and teens (15+), in-person and virtually throughout Michigan. Caitie Fey, LPC, E-RYT and Caitlin Estep, LLPC, RYT both bring somatic and yoga-informed training to their clinical work.
Sources
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
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