What Is Somatic Therapy?
“Soma” is the Greek word for body, and somatic therapy importantly integrates the body into the therapy conversation. Even if you aren’t someone who is used to paying attention to your body, you know that it’s present in all you do. Your shoulders climb toward your ears in a hard meeting. Your stomach drops before bad news. Your jaw clenches shut around things you're not saying. The body isn’t separate from mental health, it’s constantly communicating essential information and most therapy leaves it unnoticed and unacknowledged.
A somatic therapist asks a second question, alongside the usual one. Not just "why do you feel this way," but "what is happening in your body, right now, while you're telling me?" You don't need to believe in anything first, all that’s required is curiosity to learn from all possible sources of information telling us what it is like to be you. Somatic therapy allows us to pay attention to the parts of you that have been trying to talk the whole time. They were just waiting to be asked in a different language.
How It Works
For over a century, Western psychology operated under a neat delusion: it believed the human mind lived entirely above the neck.
If you were anxious, depressed, or carrying old trauma, the standard prescription was simple: sit in a chair, use words, and think your way out of it. Therapy was an intellectual exercise. The body was treated as little more than a taxi cab tasked with hauling the brain from one room to another.
Meanwhile, a small group of practitioners argued that the body communicates. They said that grief tightens in the throat, fear locks in the gut, and stress alters the rhythm of the heart. The medical establishment dismissed this as nonsense because practitioners couldn't prove it on an X-ray.
Then came the technology to look inside a living brain.
Modern neuroscience uncovered three simple truths…
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When a person enters panic or shock, fMRI scans show that Broca’s area (the part of the brain responsible for speech and language) literally turns off. The brain's fire alarm (the amygdala) takes over, cutting off the power to spoken logic. What this means is that you can’t talk a person out of a state that words can’t reach.
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Neuroscientists mapped the vagus nerve, a thick cable of neural fibers running from the brainstem down into the heart, lungs, and stomach. Crucially, they discovered that 80 percent of its signals travel upward from the body to the brain. Your gut and heart send far more messages to your brain than your brain sends back down. Your physical state creates your thoughts, not the other way around.
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Through Polyvagal Theory, researchers showed that our nervous system constantly scans the environment for safety or danger below conscious awareness. If your nervous system feels unsafe, your muscles stay tense and your breathing stays shallow no matter how many times you tell yourself, "I'm okay."
Modern neuroscience has proved that mind and body aren’t two separate entities trying to talk to each other across a room.
They are one continuous circuit. This understanding allows us to stop trying to argue with our thoughts and start listening to our biology. When we
learn to respect what the nervous system is telling us, and offer it the safety, repair, or experience it needs, the mind often follows and true change can happen.
“Physical sensations are the baseline of human experience. Long before we have words, we have feelings in our bodies that tell us whether we are safe or in danger.”
— Louis Cozolino, The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy
Who Is Somatic Therapy Good For?
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Clients who can articulate their patterns with real insight — they know why they react the way they do — but the reaction keeps happening anyway. Insight alone hasn't produced change. That's often a sign the material is stored somewhere talk doesn't fully reach.
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Attachment wounds, childhood trauma, and single-incident trauma (accidents, medical events, assault) tend to live in the nervous system as much as in narrative memory. Somatic approaches, along with EMDR, are often more effective here than talk alone because they work with implicit/procedural memory rather than only the story.
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High-functioning, cognitively dominant clients — the ones who can analyze a problem from six angles — often benefit specifically because somatic work interrupts the analyzing and asks them to notice instead. That's usually uncomfortable at first and often where the real movement happens.
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Chronic stress, panic, freeze/shutdown patterns, and dissociation are literally nervous-system states — approaches that work with the body directly (grounding, titration, tracking sensation) tend to shift these more durably than cognitive reframing alone.
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Chronic tension, GI issues, headaches, or fatigue that flares with emotional stress often responds well when the body is brought explicitly into the work.
Ready to Get Started?
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Schedule a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation.
If it feels like a fit, we will schedule your first appointment.
Sessions are 50 minutes long.
Where We’ll Meet
I offer both in person and virtual sessions.
In person sessions are offered at The Marina Counseling Center in San Francisco. Virtual sessions are available to all California residents.
The Marina Counseling Center
1781 Union St
San Francisco, CA 94123
Phone
(415) 212-9042
Adolescent Therapy FAQs
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Maybe you’re feeling trapped in the same fight, talking past each other, or missing the closeness you once had. When trust is broken or resentment lingers, these are gentle signs your relationship needs care. Counseling offers a safe place to mend and reconnect.
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It’s part research, part gut feel. Make sure that the logistics work (fee, insurance, location, and scheduling). Beyond that, you want to make sure it feels like a good fit. Think of questions ahead of time that you’d like to ask a prospective therapist. I recommend speaking to a few therapists to get a feel for who you’d connect with.
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It’s likely there was a mismatch in approach or timing. I’ll work with you and your child to identify what wasn’t helpful before and tailor the process to fit your goals, communication style, and readiness.
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All teen sessions are 50 minutes long. I will support your teen in mapping out their challenges, and through a combination of talk therapy and somatic techniques we will work to slow down what is happening and discover different ways of being and relating to others.
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Many teens report feeling better after 3-6 months, but it can sometimes take longer than that. While I can’t promise a timeline, I can work with you to clarify goals and ensure everyone feels good about the progress that’s being made toward achieving that goal.
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I offer rates on a sliding scale. We will go over fees in your first consultation call.
I don’t take insurance, but I can provide you a superbills for our sessions and you may be able to get out-of-network reimbursements. Please reach out to your insurance company to check your benefits.
Hi, I’m Mikayla.
After nearly a decade working as an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist at large tech companies, I quit my job to pursue my Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy.
I specialize in Somatic Psychotherapy, but each session will look different depending on a client's unique needs. I offer virtual and in-person sessions for individuals and couples at The Marina Counseling Center in San Francisco.
Additional Services
I offer individual therapy and marriage and couples therapy. I also offer dating and relationship counseling and career counseling.