Mind-Body & Relational Healing

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Common Questions About Somatic and Trauma Therapy

Beginning therapy can be a meaningful step toward healing, trauma recovery, and living the life you desire, while there may be some uncertainty around what to expect. The following questions can help you understand more about the process, to help you feel more informed as you consider getting started.The approaches described can stand alone or work together to support your healing at a pace and depth that feels safe and right for you.

Can we still talk in somatic therapy?

Yes! My somatic approach is informed by Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, which is a holistic, body-oriented talk therapy. While we often talk about what is present for you, we also offer space to be with your full physical and emotional experience.This can allow for understanding, healing, and change to gradually emerge from your experience. Throughout this process, you hold choice and consent. I understand that on some days, you may need to talk, feel seen, be heard, and receive support—and that's okay, too. All of this is important.

Do I have to talk about my trauma?

No. Outside of safety precautions, you don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do during our therapy together. I have a variety of ways to support healing and depending on your experiences, each path might look different.For specific memories or events:
You may choose to work toward processing a specific experience that is impacting you. In these instances, you may speak briefly about the occurrence in order to stimulate the memory in your body. From there, we can shift our focus towards the body’s response rather than any thoughts or feelings that may arise.This is done when you feel ready and comfortable, using a state of mindfulness. This allows you to return to the past while maintaining focus on your present-moment experience to anchor you in the here-and-now.For complex trauma:
If you’ve experienced repetitive or ongoing adversity, such as developmental or relational trauma, Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) was designed to help you heal the impact of these wounds within yourself, without having to deeply reprocess the past.

Who benefits from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy?

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy combines two treatment pathways: one focuses on traumatic-stress reactions and the other on healing childhood and relational injuries. Often, there is overlap, and this approach allows us to address both.Trauma Processing:
Here, we focus on developing resources for your symptoms and can work towards processing specific memories or events through the body.Healing Emotional and Relational Wounds:
This path works toward healing deep emotional pain, such as relational or sociocultural injuries. These unresolved wounds are often held outside of our awareness, yet deeply impact how we experience ourselves, others, and the world.Here are some reasons why people may seek therapy with this approach:✦ Resolving traumatic-stress reactions
✦ Exploration of physical symptoms, such as chronic tension
✦ Navigating feelings of anxiety or depression
✦ Understanding relationship patterns
✦ Developing self-awareness and understanding

Who benefits from Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST)?

TIST is a parts work approach that was developed for people who experienced early and often complex trauma.Here are some reasons why people may seek healing through TIST:✦ Complex or overwhelming emotional experiences
✦ Frequent internal conflicts, feeling like you want or need different things
✦ Behavior patterns you seek to understand or changeIt is important to note that even if you do not identify with a significant trauma history or life adversity, you may still find value and healing through a parts work approach. Many of us recognize various aspects of ourselves that may need or want different things, and we can learn how to show up for ourselves and these parts in a different, and often more compassionate, way.

How can somatic therapy help me with my relationship issues?

Relationship issues are often deeply rooted. As human beings, we are wired for connection, and develop within a relational context. Therefore, a present-day relationship issue is often linked to past experiences and can tap into deep emotional pain.Using Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, we can explore what comes up for you in relationships, including how your body may react. This brings greater awareness to your experience and can move you towards healing the root cause of your difficulties.If you find that your emotions or reactions interfere with your relationship goals, TIST can help bring awareness and understanding to your experience. This, in turn, can allow you to respond with more clarity and intention.

Have More Questions?

If you're wondering whether these approaches may be right for you, I invite you to reach out via email. We can schedule a free 15-minute consultation to talk through what you're looking for and help you decide if these approaches feel like a good it.

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Mindfulness in Trauma Therapy: TIST and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

Mindfulness has roots in Buddhist meditation practices and has been adapted into contemporary psychotherapy. Here, we define mindfulness as a non-judgmental awareness of, and presence in, our here-and-now experience.Mindfulness can play a significant role in somatic and trauma-focused therapies by bringing a witnessing capacity to one’s experience. In approaches like Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, mindfulness is foundational. Developing an ability to notice one’s present-moment experience can support nervous system regulation, deepen self-understanding, and reveal the wisdom beneath survival adaptations.For trauma recovery, cultivating curiosity and mindful awareness supports a path away from the traumatic past and toward the here-and-now. This is where healing can begin. In therapy, we offer a gentle, paced, and collaborative approach to support this journey.

What Does “Trauma” Mean?

Trauma is an experience that often threatens a person’s safety and overwhelms their ability to cope. As a result, the brain may not fully integrate the occurrence, and the memory can be left fragmented. Sensory elements from the original event may remain intact and then be re-experienced through intrusion symptoms. This can happen when we encounter a “trigger,” or something that reactivates the past in the present. We may find ourselves reliving associated feelings or body sensations, with or without a clear memory to understand what is happening.When certain criteria are met, a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be considered. If the trauma exposure was repetitive or prolonged, as is often the case in developmental or relational trauma, an expanded symptom presentation of complex PTSD (C-PTSD) can occur, further impacting one’s identity, relationships, and emotions.While a trauma-related stress response can be defined by a specific set of symptoms, what makes an event traumatic is unique to the individual. Two people can experience the same event and be impacted in different ways. One person may develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress while the other may not. Factors that influence this can include the availability and quality of resources and support.Because trauma may impact our present-moment experience and sense of safety, mindfulness can be a valuable tool for the recovery process.

How Can Mindfulness Help After Trauma?

When reminders surface, intrusion symptoms can make us feel like we are reliving the past. Here is where we can find a potential benefit in cultivating mindful awareness. If we develop an ability to shift our attention from the past toward curiosity about what is happening in our present-moment experience, there may be an opportunity to down-regulate the stress response within ourselves.TIST is one therapeutic approach that can help with this.

Understanding TIST Therapy and Parts Work

TIST is a model of psychotherapy developed by Janina Fisher, PhD, a clinical psychologist, international trauma expert, and former instructor at Harvard Medical School. The approach was designed to help survivors heal the impact of trauma without having to deeply reprocess the past.Parts work is a therapeutic approach in which aspects of a person’s experience are engaged as “parts.” A therapist will often guide clients toward increasing their awareness of, and internal communication with, parts. Internal Family Systems, referred to as IFS, and TIST are two such models growing in popularity.TIST is a trauma-informed approach. In TIST, we compassionately welcome, recognize, and support all aspects of one’s experience. Through mindful curiosity, we explore and recognize the positive intentions of protective parts, such as their efforts to safeguard more vulnerable parts of ourselves. With compassionate understanding, all parts can be heard and attended to.

"...When we learn how to offer them and ourselves an unconditionally ‘loving presence,’ wounds can heal and hope is renewed.”

— Janina Fisher, PhD, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors

Who Is TIST For?

TIST may be helpful for people who have experienced early trauma or adversity during their life and are struggling with difficult, complex, or overwhelming emotions or behaviors they seek to change. In addition, people who see themselves in a parts work model or who have not found benefit from other therapies may find healing through TIST.

How Does TIST Use Mindfulness?

In TIST, distressing thoughts, feelings, and reactions are recognized as communications from parts of our experience that have been triggered. TIST relies on a mindful noticing of these parts because of the way mindfulness impacts the brain.When we “notice” our experience, we often engage our prefrontal cortex—what some call our “thinking brain.” When the thinking brain is online, it can help calm our “survival brain.” The thinking brain offers a wide lens to view a situation through and increases our ability to reflect on a situation.When the nervous system detects a threat, our focus can rapidly narrow, and the thinking brain may go offline. The body may respond instinctively from a survival state. This is because when we are in danger, we don’t need to think—we need to survive! The challenge for trauma survivors is that the nervous system may perceive a threat based on past learning when there is no active threat in the current environment. However, the body will receive the signal and can respond as if danger is imminent, activating a survival response—often a fight, flight, or shut-down reaction.By becoming curious and mindfully noticing what is happening in our thoughts, feelings, and reactions, we can support access to the thinking brain and our ability to reflect on a situation. When we notice our parts, we can begin to learn what they need and offer support. This can be healing for both clients and parts.This approach can offer and guide a new way of being in relationship with oneself in one’s here-and-now experience. If memory work or deeper reprocessing of past experiences would be beneficial and desired, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy shares a similar foundation and could support this path.

Understanding Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy is a body-oriented talk therapy, developed by Pat Ogden, PhD, somatic psychology expert and founder of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. The approach is holistic, attending to a person's mind-body experience through mindful self-study of their thoughts, feelings, and somatic wisdom.Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, like TIST, aims to support healing through present-moment experiences. The approach was designed for the treatment of trauma and deep emotional wounds, such as early relational and sociocultural injuries. These occurrences can be held outside of our awareness and reflected in our thoughts, feelings, posture, and patterned responses.

"To harness the innate wisdom of the body to liberate human potential."

—Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute Vision Statement

Who Is Sensorimotor Psychotherapy For?

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy may help people who are seeking a deeper understanding of themselves, experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety, or depression, or struggling with relationship issues.

How Does Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Use Mindfulness?

In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, mindfulness is not just a technique—it is a state of being and a foundational principle. In this model, we often guide clients toward becoming mindful observers of their thoughts, feelings, and somatic experience. Together, we study what is occurring in the here-and-now, where deeper insight and possibilities for healing and change may emerge.Mindful awareness in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy also serves to support safety when moving toward deeper processing. When a person can witness their experience while also being present in it, the nervous system can receive support from the here-and-now focus.

Insight and Change in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy

In every moment, our experience includes different thoughts, feelings, body sensations, sensory perceptions, and movements. Sensorimotor Psychotherapy refers to these connections as our organization of experience. The way we organize—or the types of thoughts, feelings, and sensations we have at any given moment—is often based on early and past learning experiences. This can explain our behavior and relationship patterns, demonstrating how the past can become the lens through which we experience ourselves, others, and the world. By being with and witnessing what is present, a path toward deeper change can begin to emerge.

How Does Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Work With Relationship Patterns?

To understand healing through the mind-body connection when working with a relationship issue, let’s consider an example of a fictional client named Mary. Mary is in her thirties and feels a deep sense of loneliness. When her coworkers invite her out, she contemplates going, feels uncomfortable, has the thought that she doesn’t belong, and declines.One day, Mary became curious about this pattern and discussed it with her therapist. The therapist, practicing Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, invited Mary to notice the thought that she doesn’t belong in response to her coworkers’ invitation. Mary agreed since this was of interest to her. As she stayed with the thought, a feeling of shame began to arise, followed by an impulse to hide, and an urge to collapse in her core.While studying Mary’s organization of experience, an early memory came to mind. She expressed curiosity toward this and consented to further exploration. When witnessing the scene, Mary described herself during a painful social interaction with peers when she did not feel welcome. She saw how her young mind made sense of that situation by forming the belief: “There’s something wrong with me. I don’t belong.”The belief Mary identified existed outside of her awareness, yet was carried forward in her thoughts, feelings, posture, and behaviors for decades. In session, Mary began to feel the painful loneliness that belief caused her over the years.Afterward, Mary became aware of a desire to let that child inside of her know how untrue that belief was. She noticed an impulse to comfort the child with a hug, and when she imagined that in her mind, she placed her hand over her heart. Mary then used that gesture to anchor the healing experience in her body so she could revisit it in the days to come.By creating space to study Mary’s organization of experience, Mary gained insight and understanding. She began to bring attention and healing to the root of her shame and loneliness.The next time Mary’s coworkers invite her out, it is possible that she will notice new thoughts and feelings arise. Alternatively, Mary may recognize her automatic pattern, place her hand over her heart, recall the healing experience from her session, and then decide to take intentional action aligned with her current circumstances and desires.Mary’s example illustrates how creating space to notice one’s experience can lead to new understanding and the beginnings of healing and change.

TIST Versus Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Which Approach Is Right for You?

TIST is an approach that supports healing the impact of trauma within oneself, through parts work and the relationship a person has with their thoughts, feelings, and reactions.Sensorimotor Psychotherapy works within a relational context to support mindful self-study, memory reprocessing, and healing of deep emotional wounds.The approaches share a similar foundation in mindful awareness yet are unique and separate. Depending on your goals and a therapist’s training, the two may complement each other or be integrated with other types of therapy.

How to Begin a Mindfulness-Based Approach to Healing

If you enjoyed these topics and are curious about incorporating mindfulness into your healing, NYC Somatic Psychotherapy has a team of compassionate therapists available to guide you. With training in TIST and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, the team can welcome and support you in exploring mindfulness-based healing at a pace and depth that feels safe and right for you.I invite you to reach out via email if you’d like to schedule a free 15-minute consultation.

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