What Somatic Informed Therapy Actually Looks Like in Session
Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to trauma treatment that works directly with the nervous system rather than relying only on talking through what happened. You can understand exactly what happened to you and still feel your chest tighten every time a certain tone of voice comes up. That gap, between knowing and still reacting, is where somatic work happens. Talk therapy changes what you think about an experience. Somatic therapy changes how your body holds it.
In session, this often means slowing down and noticing what's happening physically as we talk, where you feel something, what it's doing, whether it's building or settling. I stay present and track that with you rather than having you sit with intensity alone. We work with small, manageable pieces of activation at a time, not the whole weight of it at once, so your nervous system has room to actually process rather than get overwhelmed and shut back down. That pacing, called titration, is often the difference between a body that feels safer afterward and one that just feels more flooded.
My Approach to Somatic Informed Therapy
I'm Rachel Hansen, LCSW, EMDRIA Certified Therapist. Alongside EMDR, I work somatically, informed by Somatic Experiencing and polyvagal theory, with adults whose bodies are still bracing, shutting down, or reacting long after their minds have made sense of what happened.
A lot of clients come to me after years of talk therapy that helped them understand their patterns but never quite changed how their body responds. They can explain exactly why they flinch, freeze, or go numb, and still find themselves doing it anyway. That gap between insight and actual felt safety is where somatic work does what talking alone couldn't.
I don't just teach nervous system regulation from a textbook. Learning to recognize my own states, and what actually helps me move through them, shaped how I guide clients through this work.
I stay present with you through this, tracking what's happening in your body in real time and pacing the work in small, manageable pieces rather than asking your nervous system to process everything at once. You are never left to sit with intensity alone. Having another regulated nervous system in the room changes what your body is willing to let go of.
This work often includes IFS-informed parts language, understanding the protective roles different parts of you learned to play, and breathwork, one of the most direct ways to signal safety to your body in the moment. None of it requires you to force insight or relive anything before you're ready.
Sessions are 90 minutes, giving enough room to actually settle into the work rather than just getting started before time runs out. I offer somatic informed therapy in person in Las Vegas and via telehealth throughout Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Jersey, for high-functioning adults who are ready for their body to catch up to what their mind already knows.
What Clients Experience After Somatic Informed Therapy
Somatic healing means your nervous system stops living in survival mode long after the danger has passed. You don't have to force your body to feel different than it does right now.
In my practice, clients often describe shifts like settling, release, slowing and deeper breathing, and a growing sense of safety inside their own body.
Here are a few of the words clients have used to describe those changes:
"I can finally see myself under a new lens."
"I am proud of myself."
"I didn't realize how much I was bracing until I learned how to let it go."
"I notice and am grateful for all the good things in my life now."
"I feel comfortable with myself and safe in my own skin."
Understanding Your Nervous System States: A Polyvagal-Informed View
Most people I work with have a moment where naming what their nervous system is doing changes everything. There's a state of genuine safety and connection, where you can think clearly and be present with another person. There's an activated state, fight or flight, where your body is bracing for a threat whether or not one is actually there. And there's a shutdown state, numbness, disconnection, a sense of going through the motions from somewhere far away.
None of these are malfunctions. They're your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to keep you safe. Part of the work is learning to recognize which state you're in without judgment, and building the capacity to move back toward safety and connection, sometimes on your own, sometimes because another regulated nervous system in the room helps yours find its way there.
IFS-Informed Parts Language and Breathwork
Trauma doesn't leave you as one unified self. It often leaves you with parts, the part that stays hypervigilant, the part that people-pleases to stay safe, the part that shut down a long time ago and never quite came back online. I draw on IFS-informed language to help make room for what each of those parts was protecting you from, rather than fighting to silence them. This isn't a separate, standalone modality I'm certified in, it's a way of talking about internal experience that shows up naturally within somatic and EMDR work.
Breathwork shows up throughout this process too, not as a separate technique but as one of the most direct ways to signal safety to your nervous system in real time. Breath is something you can access anywhere, which makes it one of the most practical tools you'll leave a session with.
Somatic Informed Therapy and EMDR
Somatic work and EMDR aren't separate paths, they inform each other constantly. EMDR reprocesses the impact of the memory itself. Somatic work builds the regulation and body awareness that makes that reprocessing possible and sustainable afterward. Many clients start with somatic work to build a foundation of safety before deeper EMDR reprocessing, and most continue using these tools throughout the entire course of therapy, not just at the beginning.
Somatic Therapy FAQ
1. Do I need to have a specific memory in mind for somatic therapy to help?
No. A lot of what shows up in the body doesn't come attached to a clear memory. Chronic tension, a startle response, a sense of never fully relaxing, all of that is valid material for somatic work, whether or not you can point to where it came from.
2. Is somatic therapy the same as Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing is one specific, well-researched approach within the broader field of somatic therapy, developed by Peter Levine, and it directly informs how I work. In practice, that looks like tracking body sensation, working in small titrated pieces, and helping your nervous system complete responses that got stuck. I'm not certified in Somatic Experiencing as a standalone modality, it's informed how I work rather than a separate credentialed offering.
3. What if I feel disconnected from my body?
That's common, especially for people who learned early on that it wasn't safe to be present in their body. We start wherever you actually are, even if that's numbness or not much sensation at all. That itself is useful information, not a failure to do the work correctly.
4. Will I have to tell you everything that happened?
No, and you're welcome to not want to. Retelling every detail isn't necessary for somatic work to help, and for some people, going over the story in full detail actually keeps the body re-living it rather than moving through it. We can work with what your body is holding without you narrating the whole history behind it.
5. How many sessions before I notice a difference?
This varies person to person, but many clients notice something shifting, more ease in their breath, less bracing, a felt sense of settling, within the first several sessions. Longer-standing patterns, especially ones rooted in childhood, tend to take more time to fully shift, since your nervous system learned those patterns over years, not weeks.
6. Can somatic therapy help with anxiety or panic attacks, not just trauma?
Yes. Anxiety and panic often live in the body as much as the mind, a racing heart, shallow breath, a sense of urgency that doesn't match what's actually happening. Somatic work addresses those physical patterns directly, which can ease anxiety even when there isn't a specific traumatic event behind it.
7. Will somatic therapy help if I've already done years of talk therapy and still feel stuck?
Often, yes. Talk therapy is genuinely valuable for understanding your patterns, but understanding and actually feeling different in your body are two separate things. If you know exactly why you react the way you do and still can't stop reacting that way, that gap is precisely what somatic work is built to close.
8. Do you offer somatic informed therapy for burnout or chronic stress, not just trauma history?
Yes. You don't need a defined traumatic event to benefit from this work. Chronic burnout, a nervous system that never fully powers down, and the exhaustion of constantly managing everyone and everything, these are somatic patterns too, and they respond to the same kind of body-based work.
Somatic Therapy in Las Vegas, Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, and Utah.
If you're in Las Vegas, Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, or Utah and you're ready to work with what your body has been carrying, not just what you can articulate about it, I'd be glad to connect. Sessions are 90 minutes and available in person in Las Vegas and via telehealth throughout Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, and Utah. You can reach out through the contact form if you have questions and aren't quite ready to book, or schedule a free 20-minute consultation here.