What is Somatic Therapy? How Does it Help with Anxiety and Depression?

In many of our households, emotional struggles are often expressed physically rather than verbally. You might hear someone say, “My chest feels tight” or “I can’t sleep,” instead of naming anxiety or depression directly. When strength and endurance were emphasised growing up, stress often went unprocessed. 

Somatic therapy recognises the mind-to-body connection and offers a gentle way to work with the nervous system rather than against it.

What is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic therapy is a body-centred form of psychotherapy that focuses on how stress, trauma and emotional experiences are stored in the body. Rather than working only with thoughts, as in traditional therapy, it includes awareness of physical sensations, breathing patterns, posture, and nervous system responses.

Modern somatic approaches were influenced by the work of Peter Levine, who developed Somatic Experiencing in the 1970s while studying how animals naturally release stress after life-threatening events. His early work supported trauma survivors by helping their nervous systems complete stress responses that had been interrupted.

Today, somatic therapy is used to support individuals experiencing:

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Trauma and PTSD

• Chronic stress and burnout

• Intergenerational trauma

• Grief and relationship challenges

For many immigrants and first-generation individuals, there may be layers of migration stress, cultural identity conflict, family pressure, or unspoken trauma. Somatic therapy gently works with the body’s stress response, rather than trying to “think” your way out of it.

How is Somatic Therapy Practised?

Somatic therapy is often described as gentle and collaborative. It is slow, guided, and grounded.

In a session, a therapist may help you:

• Notice body sensations such as tightness, heaviness, warmth, and breath changes

• Track how your nervous system shifts when discussing certain topics

• Use grounding and breathing techniques

• Develop awareness of triggers and stress responses

• Build capacity to feel emotions safely without becoming overwhelmed

For many of us, this can feel unfamiliar at first. We are often taught to analyse, advise, or fix, not to notice and feel. The goal is to create space for the body to complete stress cycles that may have been interrupted years ago. 

Therapists at Here and Now combine somatic therapy with ACT, CBT, and DBT to support more well rounded and lasting change.

How Does it Help with Anxiety?

Anxiety often reflects a nervous system that feels unsafe, even when there is no immediate danger. 

What you ignore as overthinking may also be a sign that your body needs support.

Many immigrants carry years of adapting, achieving, and being responsible, which can keep the body in a heightened state of alertness. When this happens, symptoms can include restlessness, sleep difficulties, shallow breathing, irritability, or racing thoughts. 

Somatic therapy helps anxiety by:

• Supporting nervous system regulation

• Teaching grounding and breathing techniques

• Slowing fight or flight responses

• Increasing tolerance for uncertainty

• Helping you respond thoughtfully rather than react automatically

Instead of forcing yourself to “calm down,” you learn how to gently guide your nervous system back to regulation.

How Does it Help with Depression?

Depression can feel like heaviness, numbness, low energy, or a sense of disconnection. In somatic terms, this may reflect a freeze or shutdown response in the nervous system. 

Depression is a complex mental health issue because it doesn’t look the same for everyone. Some experience stigma or internal pressure that keeps them functioning well on the outside. 

Somatic therapy supports depression by:

• Gradually increasing energy

• Processing stored emotional pain

• Reducing feelings of heaviness or numbness

• Building a sense of internal safety and stability

• Helping reconnect individuals with bodily sensations

Rather than forcing positivity, somatic therapy works at the pace of your nervous system. When the body feels safer, emotional shifts often follow.

Somatic therapy acknowledges that healing is not only cognitive, but also physiological. By working with the body, individuals can develop a deeper sense of regulation, resilience, and connection.

Somatic Therapy in GTA

When stress lives in the body, talking alone may not feel like enough.

Here and Now Therapy offers therapy and support for inner child healing, grief, trauma, anxiety, anger, identity issues, and relationship challenges, through an awareness-based lens. In-person sessions take place in Brampton, with virtual therapy available across Ontario.

Our team also includes South Asian therapists who understand cultural dynamics, family roles, and the unspoken expectations many clients navigate, as well as relationship therapists who support monogamous and non monogamous relationships through conflict, communication issues and emotional disconnection. 

Book a consultation and we will connect you with the therapist who best fits your needs.