SOMATIC THERAPY
by Dr. Lawrence Wilson
© October 2025, LD Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.
I. INTRODUCTION
DEFINITION
The word soma means the body, as compared to the mind. Somatic therapy is a healing method used in the field of counseling. One works to resolve psychological symptoms and traumas not with cognitive or talk therapy. Instead, one works with bodily sensations and body therapies.
Somatic therapy is based on the idea that traumas and other mental and emotional imbalances lodge in the body, where they cause stress and symptoms. Therefore, one should work with the body to resolve these traumas and certain mental and emotional symptoms.
SOMATIC THERAPIES
In the counseling profession, a number of therapies are considered somatic therapies. They tend to involve body awareness, position and/or movement.
They include pendulation, Somatic Experiencing (SE), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Hakomi, and breathwork.
WHY THIS ARTICLE?
The development program as presented on this website focuses heavily upon correcting imbalances in the body in order to heal the entire body/mind system. In this regard, the development program is very much a somatic therapy approach.
In fact, we use about 75 body therapies that we call the healing procedures. These have become a central part of the development program. They are listed in the article called The Accelerators.
OTHER ASPECTS OF THE PROGRAM
The development program is not just somatic because we pay attention to many levels of human existence. We classify these levels as 1-7 – physical, emotional/sexual, ego or simple mental, social, creative, mental and spiritual. We find this works best.
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