Relational Somatic Therapy
Start your journey…
In my therapy office you will find a warm, inviting, relaxed atmosphere. Together we create safety, spaciousness and grounding. A little bit at a time, we invite in what needs healing. We do this through talking, by being aware of body sensations, and by becoming present to emotions that arise - and allowing them to be digested. At times we could also bring in movement, body posture and breath awareness, expression through art, and personal declarations of intent.
Healing Trauma
Trauma - until it is integrated - can be thought of as ‘the ever-present past.’ Trauma is held in our nervous systems, in our bodies. When we gently tend to the hurt and overwhelm of trauma, allowing the charge to be metabolized, integrated and digested, we become free of the prison of the past. This allows us to meet the present moment in an open way, with all of our life force and creativity available to us.
Healing trauma doesn’t change what happened to us, but it does change how it is held in our bodies and nervous systems. It changes our relationship to what happened to us. Through trauma healing we are able to make sense of our past. The past no longer intrudes on the present, and so we are able to meet the present as it is and perceive reality more accurately.
Developmental Trauma
I specialize in supporting people in healing from developmental trauma. Ideally as we develop in utero and in our first years of life and beyond we are cared for by an attuned and empathic caregiver. This creates the conditions for optimal brain development and nervous system regulation. Co-regulation builds the neural platform for self-regulation. Although the ideal is to be met with sensitive and responsive attunement when we are young, the great news is that it is never too late to re-wire our brains!
Attachment Styles
If a parent is distracted or unavailable to emotionally nurture their children, or if a parent is scary and the cause of overwhelm - the child will develop a strategy to minimize the hurt of not being met optimally.
These strategies, also known as insecure attachment styles, are intelligent and adaptive responses to a sub-optimal environment. But what helped us survive our home environments is not what will help us thrive as adults! Human beings are highly relational and designed to thrive through connection. I will support you in moving into a more secure attachment style so that you can meet the world feeling more safe, secure, and connected.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is any stressful experience that overwhelms our capacity to respond. Our bodies physiology responds by going into a fight/flight response, or freezing and shutting down. Trauma creates an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.
Trauma symptoms include:
PTSD symptoms
Anger
Reactivity
Numbness
Addictions
Insomnia
Difficulty with relationships
Depression
Anxiety
Disconnection
Loneliness
Grief
Stress
Somatic Symptoms
There is more that shapes us besides our personally remembered biographies: collective and societal traumas (such as war and pandemic), ancestral and genetic transmissions of trauma, our in-utero & birth experience, the years of our lives before our brains store conscious memories - all of these can have a profound impact on our adult lives. Even if you don’t have a vivid recollection of traumatic events, your body holds this implicit, unconscious memory. By exploring what your body is holding, and working with your nervous system, emotions, and mind, I support you in making sense of the past and coming into full presence and aliveness.
The Reward!
Benefits of going to therapy include:
Feeling more connected to yourself
Having a more loving relationship with yourself
Feeling more comfortable in your own skin
Finding greater ease in life
Being more connected to your creativity
Finding more spaciousness and grounding in your body
Feeling more alive and energized
Discovering you have more choices in life
Experiencing improved physical health
Cultivating deeper presence in all areas of life
Becoming more comfortable with intimacy with others
Feeling more connected with others
Having better relationships with others
Feeling more joy!
Experiencing a deeper sense of meaning and connection with life itself!
What is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic Therapy is body-centered psychotherapy. The word somatic comes from the ancient Greek word soma, and refers to the body - as distinct from the mind or spirit. So when you think Somatic think Body.
This distinction doesn’t really make sense though when we consider how our biology and nervous systems work. Our body-mind is actually one interconnected system. Somatic Therapy honors this mind-body connection and works with our biological survival responses.
For example, if you have experienced overwhelming threat - your body would have moved into fight, flight, or freeze. This is what can cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. You can’t talk your way out of PTSD. We need to work with your body and nervous system to discharge the excess energy that became frozen in time when the trauma occurred.
Learn more about your nervous system & the polyvagal theory.
Health Insurance
Does your health insurance plan cover the services of Registered Therapeutic Counsellors?
Sun Life - policies that cover Counselling or Psychotherapy
Pacific Blue Cross - plans that cover the services of Clinical Counsellors
Green Shield - plans that cover the services of Clinical Counsellors
Equitable Life of Canada - all plans
ClaimSecure - plans covering Counsellors
ManuLife - claims reviewed on case-by-case basis
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
— Joseph Campbell