One-to-one somatic psychotherapy for anxiety, grief, trauma, burnout, and the long work of becoming yourself. We move at your pace, in conversation and in the body. In person in Waldoboro, or online across New York and Maine.
Individual Somatic Therapy
Have questions or ready to take the next step? We’re here to help.
Somatic therapy is psychotherapy that treats the body as part of the conversation, not a bystander to it. Somatic comes from the Greek soma, body. In practice it means that when you talk about what's hard, your therapist also helps you notice what's happening under the words: the jaw that sets, the breath that goes shallow, the sudden urge to change the subject. Those signals carry information that thinking alone tends to miss.
The premise is simple. Anxiety, grief, and trauma don't live only in your thoughts. They live in patterns of tension, posture, breath, and reflex that formed to protect you, often long before you had language for them. Working with the body directly is how those patterns loosen.
What is somatic therapy?
How is somatic therapy different from talk therapy?
Talk therapy works with the story. Somatic therapy works with the story and with what the body does while you tell it. We still talk, a lot. The difference is that we slow down at the places where the body has something to say, and we treat what it says as evidence, not noise.
Most people arrive with a version of the mind/body split built into how they think about themselves. It's in the language: we say we're "in our heads," that something "landed," that we know it "in our bones." Somatic therapy takes that language literally. It has been keeping track the whole time.
A session is a conversation with pauses built in. You bring what's on your mind. As we talk, your therapist may ask you to notice a sensation, stay with it for a breath or two, or track what shifts. Sometimes that means a grounding practice. Sometimes it means simply noticing that your shoulders dropped when you said a certain name.
Nothing is forced. You set the pace, and you can always come back to your feet on the floor. Over time the practice becomes yours: a way of checking in with yourself that doesn't require a therapist in the room.
What does a session look like?
Our clinicians work with adults dealing with anxiety, grief, trauma, burnout, relationship conflict, and life transitions. Many of the people who find us are highly sensitive, empathic, or in caregiving roles: therapists, healers, parents, artists, and others who hold space for everyone but themselves. If you've done talk therapy and understood your patterns without feeling them change, this is often the missing piece.
Somatic therapy is also a fit if you're not in crisis and simply want a fuller relationship with yourself. That's the long work of becoming yourself, and it's most of what we do.
Who is somatic therapy for?
Do you offer somatic therapy online?
Yes. Shadowlight is a telehealth-first practice. We see clients online throughout Maine and New York, and in person in Waldoboro, Maine. Somatic work translates well to video: your body is with you wherever you are, and many people find it easier to notice sensation in their own space.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. It's a conversation, not an intake. You'll tell us what's going on, we'll tell you how we'd approach it, and together we'll figure out whether one of our therapists is the right fit.