MichelleSomatic therapy | trauma-informed therapy | body-based healing | nervous system regulation | emotional trauma
In a world where talking often isn’t enough, the body quietly carries the weight of what has been unsaid. Somatic therapy is a path of returning to the body’s language of sensation, movement, and breath. Bessel Van der Kolk’s seminal work The Body Keeps the Score has brought the message to the mainstream: the body itself is a repository of trauma, and so trauma-informed therapy needs to work at the level of the body.
Soma refers to the body as distinct from the pschye or the soul, which are often where traditional psychotherapy focuses. Unlike traditional talk therapy, somatic therapy recognizes that trauma doesn’t just live in the mind: it’s etched into posture, breath patterns, tension, numbness. The body doesn’t forget. Peter Levine, the founder of somatic experiencing, often points out that trauma is a form of dismemberment, creating disconnect between parts. Numbness or contraction can hold tension patterns that contain memories we cordon off, leaving a feeling of disconnection to self, partial memory, or even the sense that we are ‘not in our bodies at all.’
Healing, then, is a process of re-weaving the body back together as a whole, a re-membering.
This means that healing must move through the body in order that we feel Whole again.
How Somatic Therapy Works
In somatic therapy, the session is not just about analyzing your story—it’s about slowly, safely, and compassionately unwinding the layers of stored experience in the body. Through gentle attunement, we follow the body’s cues. A subtle movement, a tremor, a held breath. All are honored, and all are like breadcrumbs leading back to how the truth of trauma sits beneath the story, taking up space in your body.
The aim is not to relive trauma, but through understanding how the body holds it, learn to release and repattern the body’s containment in order to re-establish safety and coherence at a cellular and energetic level.
How My Approach Is Different
My work integrates somatic psychotherapy, bilateral integration (like EMDR), parts work (I use a trauma-informed version of Internal Family Systems), and field-based coherence practices. I meet you in the nervous system, in the subtle body, and in the field of relationship.
My work is informed by the principles of sensorimotor psychotherapy, a type of body-centered talk therapy created to treat trauma and trauma-related disorders. Sensorimotor therapy combines movement and talk therapy to help heal and address deeper emotional issues.
My sessions unfolds intuitively and uniquely, meeting you in your here and now. Whilst we take on board any diagnoses or history, we do not hold them as central. I am much more about a sacred attunement to who you are at a deeper level, and how we can build a trusting and authentic therapeutic alliance. There’s space for silence, for movement, for emotion, for stillness.
You can also opt for Integrative Sessions, which blend somatic talk therapy with bodywork. These are especially helpful when trauma is lodged deeply in the fascia, or when words feel inaccessible.
Who Is Somatic Therapy For?
If you’ve felt stuck in talk therapy…
If you sense that your body holds memories you can’t name…
If your emotions feel overwhelming—or strangely absent…
If you crave a deeper kind of safety…
Then somatic therapy may be the next chapter in your healing.
Let’s Begin
You don’t have to do this alone—and you don’t have to explain everything in order to heal. If something in your body feels ready to be met, I invite you to reach out.
>>Book a session here or explore more about how I work.
Hi I’m Michelle Dixon. I’m an integrative and holistic therapist based in Freshwater, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. I combine psychotherapy with integrative bodywork. Learn more about my personal journey here.
