Somatic Therapy OnlineBody-Centered Trauma Healing
Reconnect Center delivers somatic therapy online, 1:1 by telehealth across California. Body-centered work addresses trauma held in the nervous system, inside RITTM, our integrative trauma model.
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy starts with what your body is still holding. Reconnect Center combines Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy so you can work with survival responses talk therapy alone rarely reaches.
The core insight is that trauma is not only a psychological experience. It is held in the body. When you live through something overwhelming, the energy your system mobilized for survival, whether fight, flight, or freeze, can stay trapped in the nervous system and keep producing symptoms long after the event has passed.
By working directly with body sensations, movement, and the nervous system’s own rhythms, somatic therapy helps release that held energy and supports your capacity for self-regulation.
How Somatic Therapy Works
Pendulation
Gently moving attention between areas of discomfort and areas of comfort or neutrality in the body, building the nervous system's capacity to shift between states.
Titration
Working with small, manageable amounts of traumatic material at a time, preventing overwhelm while allowing gradual processing and discharge of stored energy.
Resourcing
Identifying and strengthening internal and external resources — positive sensations, memories, and relationships — that provide a foundation of safety for trauma work.
Body Awareness
Developing mindful attention to physical sensations, tracking the body's responses to thoughts, emotions, and memories as they arise in the therapeutic process.
Movement & Gesture
Exploring and completing defensive movements that may have been thwarted during the traumatic event, allowing the body to finish its natural protective responses.
Nervous System Tracking
Learning to observe and understand your autonomic nervous system states — sympathetic activation, dorsal vagal shutdown, and ventral vagal safety and connection.
Can Somatic Therapy Be Done Online?
Yes. The protocols are the same over video. Your therapist tracks your nervous system through breath, posture, voice, and the pauses you take, and adjusts pace in real time. All Reconnect Center care is delivered by telehealth.
What changes is logistics, not method. Your therapist still works within your window of tolerance, still titrates, still watches for the moment your system starts to brace or go quiet. Over video those signals arrive through a different channel, so clinicians trained in this work learn to read them there.
Some of it works in your favor. You are already in a space your body knows. You can stay in it afterward instead of driving home ten minutes after a session that asked a lot of you. Headphones and a door that closes tend to matter more than anything technical.
There is no in-person option here, so nothing on this page is a choice between formats. Reconnect Center is virtual across every level of care.
- Body-Based Approach — Address trauma stored in the nervous system through somatic experiencing and body awareness techniques.
- Safe Home Environment — Engage in body-centered work from a space where you already feel comfortable and grounded.
- Same Clinical Depth — Sessions follow the same protocols, the same pacing, and the same clinical structure your therapist would use in any setting. All Reconnect care is delivered by telehealth.
- Reach Across California — Access specialized somatic therapists regardless of where you are in California.
Types of Somatic Therapy We Use
Somatic therapy targets what the nervous system kept rather than what the story recorded. The goal is not to retell the event more accurately. It is to help a survival response that never completed finally finish.
Somatic Experiencing (SE), developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D., draws on his observation that wild animals rarely develop PTSD despite frequent life-threatening encounters. Animals complete their survival responses naturally, while humans often override those instincts. In online Somatic Experiencing sessions, your therapist guides this work over secure video, tracking small shifts in breath, posture, and voice.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, developed by Pat Ogden, Ph.D., is another body-based method. It integrates body-centered interventions with cognitive and emotional processing, addressing the full hierarchy of information processing: sensorimotor, emotional, and cognitive.
At Reconnect Center, neither runs on its own. Both sit inside RITTM, our three-phase model of stabilization and safety, trauma processing, then integration and growth, and your clinician draws on them alongside EMDR, Brainspotting, and other approaches based on what your system can work with.
Team members trained in these methods include Somatic Experiencing Practitioners Anita Patel and Dr. Sanae Suzuki, longtime Somatic Experiencing faculty member David Grill, and Cathy Herceg, who completed Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Levels I and II.
- Somatic Experiencing — Peter Levine's method: tracking body sensation in small, manageable amounts so a survival response that never completed can settle.
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — Pat Ogden's method: working with posture, movement, and sensation together with emotion and meaning.
- Inside RITTM — Body-based work is combined with EMDR, Brainspotting, and other approaches, per client rather than by protocol.
Conditions Treated with Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy tends to help most where the body carries the impact of what happened.
Somatic Therapy Across Our Levels of Care
Somatic therapy is not a standalone service here. It is one of the modalities your clinician draws on inside RITTM, and it runs through every level of care we offer.
Virtual PHP provides the most structure, with daily individual and group sessions for people who need containment before processing begins. Virtual IOP and Evening IOP offer the same clinical intensity on a lighter schedule, with the evening track built for people holding down work or caregiving. Virtual Outpatient supports ongoing trauma work at a steadier pace. Trauma Coaching offers flexible, goal-focused support alongside or after clinical care.
Which one fits depends on how much structure your nervous system needs right now, not on how severe you think your trauma is.
How to Start Online Somatic Therapy
Our somatic therapy specialists work with stored trauma at a pace your nervous system sets. Verification is obligation-free and completely confidential.
You can start with a call or by verifying your benefits online. From there, the process has four steps.
- Confidential Consultation — Talk with a care coordinator about your trauma history and what you are hoping somatic work will help with. Call (310) 307-0020 to schedule. All communications are confidential.
- Benefit Verification — Our intake team verifies your insurance benefits for you. Verification is obligation-free and completely confidential, and it creates no obligation to enroll in treatment.
- Clinical Assessment & Personalized Treatment Plan — A licensed clinician completes a trauma assessment, recommends the level of care that fits, and builds a personalized somatic therapy plan within our RITTM framework.
- Your First Somatic Therapy Session — You're matched with a therapist trained in Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. Your first session focuses on safety, orientation, and noticing how trauma is showing up in your body right now.
Related Therapies
RITTM Model
Reconnect's integrative trauma treatment model, which brings body-based work, EMDR, and Brainspotting together in one plan.
Learn MoreEMDR Therapy
Bilateral stimulation to reprocess traumatic memories, allowing the brain's natural healing mechanisms to resolve stored distress.
Learn MoreBrainspotting
Fixed eye positions to access subcortical brain regions where trauma is stored, enabling deep processing beyond conscious awareness.
Learn MoreSensorimotor Psychotherapy
Pat Ogden's body-centered method, working with posture, movement, and sensation alongside emotion and meaning.
Learn MoreMindfulness Therapy
Present-moment awareness practices that build grounding and emotional regulation between and during sessions.
Learn MoreAll Therapies
Compare every therapy we offer and see how each one fits into your care.
Learn MoreFAQs About Somatic Therapy
Yes. The protocols are the same, and your therapist tracks your nervous system over video through breath, posture, voice, and pauses, adjusting pace in real time. All Reconnect Center care is delivered by telehealth.
Somatic therapy is a body-based, trauma-informed approach that addresses how trauma may be stored in the nervous system and body, not just in thoughts or memories. Through guided attention to body sensations, breath, and movement, somatic therapy can help support natural nervous system regulation and reduce physical symptoms of trauma, anxiety, and chronic stress.
Two of the most widely practiced are Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, Ph.D., and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, developed by Pat Ogden, Ph.D. Other body-oriented therapies exist as well, such as Hakomi. At Reconnect Center, clinicians draw mainly on Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.
Somatic therapy works by gently bringing awareness to physical sensations and nervous system responses tied to stressful or traumatic experiences. Modalities like Somatic Experiencing® and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy use techniques such as titration, pendulation, and resourcing to help the body discharge stored survival energy. Many somatic clinicians also use ideas from polyvagal theory to describe these nervous system states.
Somatic therapy may be helpful for adults living with PTSD and complex trauma, anxiety disorders, depression, dissociation, emotional dysregulation, and stress-related physical symptoms like chronic tension or pain. It's also frequently integrated into care for co-occurring conditions where unresolved trauma underlies anxiety, mood, or compulsive patterns.
Sessions begin with a check-in and a brief orientation to the body. Your therapist may guide you to notice specific sensations, breathing patterns, or areas of tension. Sessions stay within your "window of tolerance," meaning no one pushes you to revisit trauma before you're ready. Many clients describe somatic therapy as quieter and slower than traditional talk therapy.
Some somatic practices, such as noticing sensations, slowing your breath, or orienting to the room around you, can be practiced on your own, and many clients use them between sessions. Working through trauma held in the body is different: a trained therapist helps pace that work so it stays within your window of tolerance. If practicing alone brings up overwhelming memories or feelings, pause and bring it to a clinician.
Traditional talk therapy primarily engages the thinking, narrative brain. Somatic therapy works directly with the body and nervous system, recognizing that trauma can persist as physiological dysregulation even after a story has been processed cognitively. At Reconnect Center, somatic therapy is often combined with EMDR and Brainspotting within our RITTM framework for a more integrated trauma recovery approach.
Neither is better for everyone. EMDR works with traumatic memories through bilateral stimulation, while somatic therapy works with body sensations and survival responses. Many people benefit from both, and at Reconnect Center your clinician may combine them within RITTM based on what your nervous system can work with.
Timelines vary based on trauma complexity, level of care, and individual nervous system patterns. Some clients notice shifts in sleep, anxiety, or body tension within a few sessions, while deeper change for complex trauma may take several months of consistent work. Our clinical team discusses realistic timeframes during your initial assessment.
Somatic therapy is delivered as part of a clinical program, so coverage depends on your plan and your level of care. Our intake team verifies your benefits for you. Verification is obligation-free and completely confidential.
Our clinicians are licensed in California, Georgia, and Florida. Ask our team about availability in your state.
No. Your clinician can help with safety planning and grounding, but sessions are not an emergency service. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or 988.
Dr. Karol Darsa,
Psy.D. · Last reviewed April 2026
Dr. Darsa is a licensed clinical psychologist with 28 years of clinical experience in trauma and mental health treatment. She is the founder of Reconnect Center and the creator of the Reconnect Integrative Trauma Treatment Model (RITTM), the framework that anchors every program and therapy at Reconnect Center. A certified Brainspotting therapist with advanced EMDR training and extensive Somatic Experiencing training, Dr. Darsa lectures on trauma treatment at USC, UCLA, and Cal Lutheran, and oversees clinical standards across all of Reconnect's virtual care.
Heal From the Body Up
Trauma lives in the body. Somatic therapy helps you release what's stored and restore your sense of safety.
