“The field of Somatics today includes a wide range of disciplines from movement to body-centered psychotherapy.”

Somatics and Somatic Expression

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What is Somatics? “Somatics" (from the Greek, soma, body) is an approach to the human body that emphasizes the interrelatedness of your body, mind and spirit. You focus on your body from the inside out, giving attention to your inner experience with an awareness of sensation, emotion and thinking. You combine this inner awareness with functional knowledge of the body and universal principles of human movement. Somatics is a path for becoming more awake to your life through conscious awareness and mindful action of your body. This differentiates Somatics from other body disciplines, like dance or fitness training, that focus more on a performance outcome or a particular look.

Somatics is the art and craft of conscious relationship with your own body.

Even though it is a relatively new field, the roots of Somatics can be seen in Yoga, T’ai Chi, Asian martial arts, as well as the Western contributions from the early 1900’s of Rudolph Steiner’s Eurythmy, Charlotte Selver’s Sensory Awareness, Mabel Todd’s Structural Hygiene, etc.

The field of Somatics today includes a wide range of disciplines from movement to body-centered psychotherapy. The Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Bioenergetics, Rolfing, Continuum, Body-Mind Centering, Rosen, and Hakomi are just a few of these many approaches. Somatic Expression is part of this lineage, building upon recognized disciplines while pioneering new dimensions to address the evolving needs of the modern human being.

What is Somatic Expression?

Somatic Expression - Body Wisdom for Modern Times - is an innovative approach to somatic education, expressive therapy and mind/body healing developed by Jamie McHugh. Somatic Expression works with the “soma” (your subjective experience of the body/mind) and its expression (your individual and creative responses) to create more wholeness and integration through the sensing, feeling and healing power of your own body.

Movement, breath, sound, touch and stillness are the five original preverbal languages given to your body by nature. You use these five elements unconsciously when you spontaneously stretch, yawn, fidget or hum. Somatic Expression brings conscious attention to these five elements through simple and pleasurable practices to bring the body back into nature.

Somatic Expression is best understood through personal experience. In a Somatic Expression session, you will explore a range of possibilities with the five somatic elements to illuminate your body tensions, expressive constrictions, or physical/emotional blocks. These somatic explorations bring unconscious patterns of moving, feeling and thinking to the surface where they can be unraveled and transformed.

You can easily integrate the five element practices of Somatic Expression into your daily life. Practicing alone and with others enables a collaborative, intelligent relationship with your own body to emerge and deepen. The practices initially provide a sanctuary from the demands of life for self-regeneration and renewal. Repeated over time, they increase your capacity for maintaining inner connection while simultaneously being involved in the outer environment.

Somatic Expression synthesizes elements from the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, Continuum, Halprin Life/Art Dance, Mindfulness Meditation, Process-Oriented Psychology, and Taoist practices. Somatic Expression also draws upon current research in the burgeoning fields of mind/body medicine, neuroscience, somatic psychology and trauma studies.

See Somatic Expression and The Five elements of Somatic Expression for more theoretical information about this work.

Touch.
photo by Hilary Nichols.