Somatic Therapy Vancouver: Holistic Trauma Recovery & Body-Centred Healing
Somatic Therapy in Vancouver: Working with the Body and the Mind Together
Some experiences live in the body as much as the mind and impact the nervous system rather just living in words alone. Somatic therapy is a body-centred approach that works directly with one of your most internal layers, helping you process stress and trauma, and feel more grounded, regulated, and at home in yourself.
Our Vancouver counsellors bring this work into sessions through body awareness and nervous system regulation, woven into the work you're doing together.
Know you want support but not sure where to start?
Come take your shoes off, curl up with some tea and let’s make a plan. You’re not broken, you’re just wonderfully human, which can be complicated (and sometimes frustrating) to navigate.
Our Find a Counsellor form can guide you in connecting with a counsellor who is the right fit for you.
What Sets Somatic Therapy & Counselling Apart?
Somatic therapy recognizes that emotional experiences are held in the body and nervous system, not just in thought. Our approach helps individuals:
Release stored trauma
Develop heightened body awareness
Regulate nervous system responses to feel less triggered
Cultivate emotional resilience and calm
Reconnect with your body and sense of self
The Science Behind Body-Centred Healing
Research increasingly backs up what many people already sense in their own bodies: emotional experiences and physical sensations are deeply connected. Somatic therapy works with that connection directly, so the changes you make in a session create long term shifts, and body centred strategies you can use in daily life, not just something you understand intellectually.
How Trauma Manifests in the Body
Trauma doesn't always stay in the past the way we'd expect it to. Traumatic experiences can often settle into the body on an ongoing basis, showing up in ways that don't always get connected back to what caused them. You might notice:
Chronic muscle tension, especially in the jaw, shoulders, or stomach
Unexplained physical pain that doesn't have a clear medical cause
Anxiety and hypervigilance, like always waiting for something to go wrong
Emotional numbness, or feeling disconnected from your body altogether
Digestive issues or a stomach that's often unsettled
A startle response that feels bigger than the moment calls for
Disrupted sleep patterns
Restlessness, or feeling like you can't quite settle, relax or enjoy life in your own skin
If any of this sounds familiar, you're not broken, and you're not imagining it. Your body has been holding onto something, and somatic work can help find ways for to feel different.
Somatic Sessions Can Include:
Every somatic healing approach works a little differently, so our Vancouver counsellors draw on a range of ways to work with the body depending on what fits you and what you're working through:
Comprehensive Treatment Approaches
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Somatic Experiencing
EMDR integrated with somatic awareness or movement
Parts Work integrated with somatic awareness
Nervous system regulation techniques
Mindfulness-based approaches & stress reduction
Breathwork techniques
Gentle movement and postural awareness
Tracking body sensations, gestures, and impulses
What to Expect During Somatic Therapy Sessions
Initial consultations focus on asking questions and getting a feel for your potential counsellor to see if you feel comfortable or click with them. Moving forward, our trauma-informed therapists create a safe, compassionate environment where somatic healing can unfold.
Somatic Therapy can be Integrated with other Modalities and Techniques, but Often Includes:
Comprehensive intake
Collaborative goal setting
Gentle body-awareness exercises
Emotional and nervous system regulation and processing techniques
Integration and reflection
Two Ways Somatic Work Shows Up in Counselling
"Somatic therapy" gets used to describe a few different types of work. It can be quite confusing and might be helpful to know what you’re actually hoping for.
For some counsellors, somatic work means bringing mindful awareness to the body throughout a session, noticing sensations, tension, or activation as part of a broader conversation. This kind of work still includes a lot of what you'd expect from talk therapy and also makes room for the body as well.
Other approaches, like Somatic Experiencing or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, are more explicit and body-focused. Sessions spend time working directly with physical sensation, movement, or nervous system activation, with less emphasis on talking through things, and often is used with single incident trauma or long standing patterns or activation where you actually move your body to complete a movement that may not have happened in the past, or stay with a body sensation for a longer amount of time.
Our team includes counsellors who work both ways. Some weave somatic awareness into a broader counselling practice, and others who focus more explicitly on body-based processing. Wherever you land on that spectrum, we can help match you with someone whose approach fits.
Meet Our Somatic Therapists, in Vancouver or Online Across BC
Finding the right counsellor matters.
The following counsellors have availability for new clients and bring different personalities, experiences and therapeutic approaches to somatic healing.
We offer free 15-minute consultations so you can connect and ask questions first. You can browse our counsellors yourself or have our intake team help you find a potential fit.
In Person Sessions in Vancouver, or Online Anywhere in BC
We're based in Kitsilano, Vancouver, and work with people across British Columbia, whether that's in person here or online wherever you are. Somatic work can happen just as effectively online as it can in the room, since so much of it is about learning to notice what's already happening in your body, although sometimes we might ask about a nervous foot tap or leg shake we can’t fully see on camera.
A Little About Who You'll Be Working With:
Registered Clinical Counsellors with training and embodied experience in somatic, mindfulness, body-based and yoga-based approaches
In-person sessions in Vancouver, or online counselling anywhere in BC
Trauma-informed practitioners who bring both training and rich personal histories related to somatic work and body-based counselling and healing
Evidence-based methods alongside holistic, mind-body and nervous-system-focused care
Inclusive and affirming culturally sensitive counselling, including attachment-focused and neurodivergent-affirming approaches
You're not broken. You're wonderfully, complexly human.
Take the first step toward feeling more at home in your own body. Reach out to connect with a mind-body focused somatic counsellor and see who feels like the right fit.
-
Somatic therapy focuses on bodily sensations and physical experiences, whereas traditional counselling primarily addresses mental and emotional narratives.
-
Individuals experiencing:
Complex trauma
PTSD
Chronic stress
Anxiety disorders
Emotional regulation challenges
-
Treatment duration varies, typically ranging from 3-12 months to long term counselling depending on individual needs and therapeutic goals.
-
Several of our counsellors specifically draw on somatic experiencing as part of their somatic work.
However, while somatic experiencing is the most popular or well known somatic approach known by clients, our Somatic Therapists are trained in a variety of somatic approaches, all of which overlap substantially with SE. This includes Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and several other integrative approaches taught by experts in the field of somatic therapy, such as Bringing the Body into Practice -
Somatic work targets how your nervous system holds and releases tension, which is often where lasting change happens. This often occurs in several stages, with your therapist guiding or facilitating somatic awareness, regulation processes and releasing or re-structuring historical activation and/or patterns in the body.
-
Yes, and no! Some somatic work is woven into a broader counselling practice, bringing body awareness into the conversation alongside everything else. Other approaches, like Somatic Experiencing or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, are more explicit and body-focused, spending most of the session working directly with physical sensation and nervous system activation. Both are somatic therapy, but used differently by different practitioners, which we know can be confusing
RCC, She/Her
Esther supports clients with self-worth, relationships, attachment, childhood experiences, neurodivergence, family dynamics and burnout, creating space for clients to better understand themselves and the patterns shaping their lives. Esther also has a background as teacher and school counsellor and loves supporting teens, other educators, caregivers and those with BIPOC experiences or who have lived outside of Canada
Main Approaches:Somatic · Mindfulness · Attachment-Focused · IFS · Narrative · DBT · Emotion-Focused · AEDP