Portland Therapy | Portland Counseling for the Whole Person

About the Mind/Body (somatic) Approach to counseling / therapy

As a therapist in private practice in Portland, my mind/body or "somatic" counseling applies to personal growth an approach that expands the counseling experience beyond mere talk to include working on our issues with the felt experience of them in our emotions and body. (Soma is greek for body). This felt experience is essential, if counseling is to bring forth a lasting change, because we experience our issues not just as mental preoccupations, but also as habits of feelings and patterns of muscular tension, gestures, postures, and other physical phenomena. As a therapist counseling with a somatic approach, my work brings forth comprehensive change on all these levels of our experience.

Somatic therapy approaches are rooted in the increasing understanding of the interdependent unity of the body (soma) and the mind. Not only does the mind affect the body as in psychosomatic illness, but also the body affects the mind as with drugs prescribed for mood disorders. This mind-body unity explains why throughout the world emotional and experiential therapy methods are propagating such as Somatic Experiencing, Radix, Bioenergetics, Hakomi, Core Energetics, Alexander technique, Breema Bodywork, Bodynamics, Focusing, Rubenfeld Method, and Hellerwork.

Contemporary scientific research tells us that there is a cognitive brain and an emotional brain. The emotional brain is intimately connected with the body, much more so than the cognitive brain. That is why it is so much easier to access emotions through the body than it is through language.

Understandably, the mind-body unity frees somatic based therapy practices from the sometimes ineffective constraints of talk-only therapy. When we just talk about our issues, certainly we may achieve intellectual insights, but often our habits of feeling and patterns of physical tension remain untouched. Many of us know persons who have undergone years of verbal counseling only to discover that despite their comprehensive intellectual understanding of their problems, their problems still shackle them and inhibit their aliveness.

A somatic therapy approach honors the emotional and the cognitive components of our lived experience. It allows our personal growth to more integrated, deep, and lasting than just an intellectual understanding. My expertise as a somatic therapist includes certification in the Radix somatic counseling training and also I am a teacher of Focusing, a special way of listening to the inner Self as experienced through the body's felt sense.

To learn more about my somatic counseling practice in downtown Portland, Oregon, I invite you to explore the "Somatic Counseling" menu selection above.

Feel welcome to a free consultation

Counseling is a transformative relationship shared by two persons. So, it is important that you take the time to check out counselor with whom you might work. Is the chemistry right for you? Does the therapist's background and abilities meet your needs? Would a referral be appropriate? Because I believe that it is important that you explore such questions at no cost to you before beginning work, I offer prospective clients the opportunity to meet with me for a free 50-minute consultation.

How do you arrange a consultation?

The easiest way to arrange a consultation is to use the "Online Appointment Booking" link at the top of the page. There you can book a consultation (or any appointment) at a day and time of your convenience. Of course this can be done by phone (503.226.2771) or email, but my busy practice may result in my not replying to you in a timely manner.