Somatic Therapist in Atlanta

Work with what your body is holding, not only what you can explain.

You can understand exactly what happened to you and still feel it in your chest, your jaw, your stomach. You can know that something is over and still find your body reacting as though it isn’t. Talking about a difficult experience doesn’t always change the way your body responds to it, and that gap isn’t a failure of effort or insight. Somatic therapy works with it directly.

What somatic therapy is

Bodies hold on to unprocessed trauma, and it often surfaces as physical symptoms that leave you feeling unsafe in your own body. That can look like:

• Flashbacks
• Chronic pain
• Gastrointestinal issues
• Muscle tension and backaches
• Poor sleep and migraines
• Feelings of hopelessness, depression, or numbness

Trauma is stored at the subcortical level, below the reach of language, and needs to be released in ways that talk therapy can’t address on its own.¹ Somatic therapy honors the mind–body connection by addressing those physical symptoms directly, treating trauma closer to its root rather than only reworking the story around it.²

Nothing is forced. You set the pace, you can stop at any point, and you never have to describe more than you want to.

What a session looks like

Your therapist will invite you to notice what’s happening in your body while you talk — where the tension sits, where your breath stops, what shifts when you describe something. From there you might work with breath, gentle movement, grounding, or simply tracking one sensation until it changes on its own. Sessions often move more slowly than talk therapy, and a good deal happens without much narration.

If the idea of paying that much attention to your body feels uncomfortable, please don’t let that stop you from asking about it. For many people that discomfort is exactly the thing the work is for, and you and your therapist will go at whatever pace you need.

Somatic Experiencing

Somatic Experiencing is a specific somatic method built on the observation that your body mobilizes enormous energy to survive a threat, and that this energy often stays stuck once the threat has passed. Rather than returning to the full story of what happened, it works with the physical residue left behind, in pieces small enough to stay tolerable. Jessica Taylor has completed all levels and all consultations of Somatic Experiencing training.

Who somatic therapy tends to help

• People whose trauma hasn’t shifted through talk therapy alone
• Anxiety that shows up physically before it shows up in thought
• Feeling numb, flat, or disconnected from your own body
• Chronic tension, sleep or gut symptoms with no medical explanation
• Neurodivergent adults, for whom sensory experience and nervous-system regulation are often central rather than incidental

As a result of somatic therapy, you may find yourself:

• Noticing what you feel before it becomes overwhelming
• Settling yourself without having to talk your way out of it
• Sleeping, breathing, and resting more easily
• Feeling at home in your body rather than braced inside it

Take the next step

If this is the kind of work you’ve been looking for, the easiest place to start is a free consultation call. It’s a short conversation, with no obligation, to get a feel for how sessions might go and to ask anything you want to ask first. You can also reach our intake coordinator at info@innerbalanceatlanta.com.