What Is Somatic EMDR?
Maybe you've done enough therapy that you can explain yourself pretty well.
You understand why conflict is hard for you. You know where the people-pleasing came from. You recognize the relationship pattern. You know you're safe.
And you're still having the reaction.
Your mind knows you're safe, but your body braces.
You know you're allowed to say no, but the guilt arrives anyway.
You know this relationship is different, but something happens and you find yourself freezing, shutting down, or reacting in the same familiar way.
Or maybe you can't really tell me where the reaction came from. You just know you've been responding this way for as long as you can remember.
Either way, your body can react before everything you know has a chance to matter.
That's a large part of what eventually led me to EMDR. I was working with women who didn't necessarily need another explanation for why they felt stuck. I wanted another way to work with what insight hadn't changed.
I kept coming back to the same distinction:
Insight and change aren't always the same thing.
We can know something and still have a body that hasn't caught up with what we know.
What is Somatic EMDR?
When I use the term Somatic EMDR, I'm not talking about abandoning EMDR or creating an entirely different therapy.
Somatic EMDR, as I practice it, is EMDR therapy with more intentional attention to the body—how I include physical responses in the work, how I think about pacing, and how I listen for information that may not always come through words.
For me, it's less about adding somatic techniques to EMDR and more about how I pay attention.
In fact, EMDR is already embodied.
The body is already part of the established EMDR model. We pay attention to physical sensations during assessment and processing and return to the body again through a body scan.
Somatic EMDR, as I practice it, means becoming more intentional with that part of the process.
One of the things that surprised me when I trained in EMDR was how much room there could be within its structure. I had expected something much more rigid. Instead, I found that the structure could give me a foundation rather than a box—a clinical framework with room for relationship, curiosity, pacing, and the person sitting in front of me.
How is Somatic EMDR different from EMDR?
I don't think of Somatic EMDR as a separate form of EMDR.
The distinction is one of emphasis.
The body is already included in EMDR. In my work, I intentionally make more room for what's happening physically alongside thoughts, emotions, memories, beliefs, and what's happening in the present.
That may mean slowing down with a physical response rather than simply noticing it and moving on. It may mean paying attention to an impulse, a change in breathing, or the way your body responds as you talk about something you already understand very well.
It also means letting your responses help inform the pace of the work rather than assuming that moving faster is always better.
What does Somatic EMDR look like in a therapy session?
Let's say you're talking about an interaction with someone important to you.
You understand what happened. You can explain why it affected you. Maybe you've even talked about this pattern before.
But while you're talking, something changes.
Your shoulders rise. Your hands tighten. Your breathing shifts. There's pressure in your chest. Maybe you notice an urge to pull away.
Your explanation may be completely accurate. We don't need to throw it away or find a better one.
We're simply noticing that something else is happening while you're explaining it.
Rather than recording the physical response and moving on, we may slow down enough to become curious about it.
Not because I already know what it means.
And not because every physical sensation needs an explanation.
Sometimes the thing that creates movement is simply enough space to notice something before immediately trying to organize it, explain it, or figure it out.
Does Somatic EMDR mean interpreting what your body is telling you?
No.
Your body gets a seat at the table.
That sentence captures something important about how I think about this work.
Our bodies are part of how we experience fear, grief, joy, connection, pain, and safety. So I don't want to treat the physical part of your experience as background noise while we focus only on what you think about it.
At the same time, paying attention to your body doesn't mean assuming that I know what a sensation means.
I don't.
A tight chest doesn't automatically tell us why it's tight. An urge to pull away doesn't prove something happened in your past.
The body gets a seat at the table. It doesn't get turned into a story before we know what the story is.
How does Somatic EMDR approach pacing and safety?
Another principle I come back to is:
The body sets the pace.
That doesn't mean we wait until you feel perfectly calm before doing meaningful work. Safety doesn't always mean calm.
It means I'm paying attention to whether you can stay connected to yourself and to what's happening as we work.
Sometimes we keep going.
Sometimes we slow down.
Sometimes we realize that you need more support or more time before continuing.
The goal isn't to push through because we're supposed to get somewhere in a session. It's to pay attention to what allows you to stay present enough for the work we're doing.
Do you have to talk about everything during Somatic EMDR?
No. You don't have to process everything through words or have a perfectly organized story.
Some people can tell me exactly where a pattern began.
Others can't.
You may have a clear story about why you react the way you do, or you may find yourself saying:
I don't know. I've always been this way.
Sometimes what's most available is an emotion.
Sometimes it's a physical sensation or an impulse.
Sometimes it's simply the awareness that something has shifted.
Rather than asking you to give me the kind of information I expect, I'm interested in the information that's actually available.
That doesn't mean we turn a sensation or an emotion into a memory. It means we don't have to force you to produce a particular kind of information before there's something meaningful to work with.
If you don't have a clear memory connected to a reaction, that's something we can approach thoughtfully too.
[Internal link: Can You Do EMDR If You Don't Have a Specific Trauma Memory?]
Who might be interested in Somatic EMDR?
Somatic EMDR may resonate with you if you find yourself saying things like:
I know why I do this. Why am I still doing it?
I know I'm safe, but I don't feel safe.
I understand the pattern, but I still freeze when it happens.
I've talked about this for years. I don't know what else there is to say.
Or:
I don't really know where this comes from. I feel like I've always been this way.
You may have already gained a great deal from therapy and insight. This isn't about dismissing that work or suggesting that understanding doesn't matter.
It does.
And Somatic EMDR isn't automatically the right approach for every person or every concern.
But whether you're thinking, I know exactly why I do this and I still can't stop, or I don't know why I do this at all, you don't have to produce another perfect explanation before there's something to work with.
When more insight isn't what you're missing
Maybe you've spent years becoming very good at understanding yourself.
Or maybe there are parts of your experience that still don't come with a clear explanation.
Either way, you don't have to arrive in therapy with the right words, the right insight, or a perfectly organized story.
Somatic EMDR gives us a way to work with more of what's already there without discarding what you know or forcing meaning onto what you don't.
Sometimes what you understand is important. Sometimes what you're noticing now gives us something else to pay attention to.
The body gets a seat at the table, too.
If you're interested in working this way, I offer Somatic EMDR through extended therapy sessions and therapy intensives for women in Florida, Georgia, and Colorado, with in-person options in Orlando.
[Internal link: Learn more about Somatic EMDR therapy]
Frequently asked questions about Somatic EMDR
Is Somatic EMDR different from regular EMDR?
I don't use Somatic EMDR to mean a completely separate therapy. EMDR already includes attention to physical sensations and the body. In my practice, the word somatic describes the additional intention I bring to embodiment, pacing, physical responses, and information that may not always come through words.
Do I need to know where my reaction came from before starting EMDR?
Not necessarily. Some people have a clear memory or story connected to a pattern, while others know the reaction much better than they know where it began. We can start by becoming curious about the information that's actually available rather than forcing an explanation.
Does Somatic EMDR mean focusing on body sensations for the whole session?
No. The goal isn't to hyperfocus on every sensation. Thoughts, emotions, memories, relationships, and present-day experiences all matter. The body simply becomes another source of useful information rather than something we automatically move past.
If you recognize yourself in the gap between what you understand and what your body continues to do, Somatic EMDR may offer another way to work with it.
I offer Somatic EMDR through extended therapy sessions and therapy intensives for women in Florida, Georgia, and Colorado, with in-person options in Orlando.
