Where awareness begins

Uses words, felt sense, and reflection to explore what's happening in the body.
Ideal if you want to make sense of experiences or notice how thoughts and emotions live in the body.

Works with slower, internal process guided by awareness and dialogue. Helps build emotional literacy and deepen mind-body awareness.

Primarily engages the cognitive and emotional processing centres of the brain.

Bridging the body and mind

Somatic counselling bridges body and mind. It’s not just about what we think. It’s about how we feel, deep in the body.

It’s especially helpful for people experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, grief, relationship struggles, trauma, or addiction. Many of these challenges don’t just live in the mind, they’re felt in the body too.

Much of our stress and survival responses are governed by the hindbrain, the most primitive part of the nervous system. It doesn’t speak in words: it speaks in sensation, reflex, and pattern. By slowing down and tuning in to the body’s signals, we begin to work with the nervous system, not against it. This supports regulation, emotional clarity, and a more present, connected way of being.

Here, we are articulating internal experience and putting feelings, body sensations, and emotional patterns into words. This can help bring what's unconscious or automatic into conscious awareness, allowing for integration, reflection, and meaning-making. It often bridges the top-down approach (mind to body).

What happens in a session?

Somatic counselling doesn’t aim to fix symptoms directly, but instead supports the nervous system in regulating from the inside out. It can also work alongside traditional talk therapy, helping people stay connected to their body while exploring their story..

In a session, we’ll gently pay attention to how your body responds when certain emotions or memories surface. If something uncomfortable comes up, we won’t just analyse it, we’ll notice where and how it’s felt in the body. We might use simple tools like breathwork, body awareness, visualisation, or grounding techniques to support your system in settling and creating more space.

This work is informed by the Polyvagal Theory (pioneered by psychologist and neuroscientist Stephen Porges), which explores how the nervous system moves between states of survival and safety. It reminds us that the mind, body, and emotions are constantly communicating: what we think affects how we feel, and what we feel shapes how we think.

The goal of somatic counselling isn’t to “fix” you. It’s to support you in feeling more safe, regulated, and at home in your body, even in the midst of discomfort. From that place, deeper healing becomes possible.