Somatic Psychology is related to how the body experiences life on earth.
Pioneered by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich early in the twentieth century, somatic psychology was the first analysis to depart from the internal mind and also examine the human body as a source for both pathology, and healing. Today, Somatic Psychology has since been expanded to include not just the human biology, but the relationships that a human body has with others, including the family, the community, and the biological inter-play between all bodies, cultures, eco-systems and natural sustenance.
Finding healthy ways for the human body to be sustained requires people to develop relationships with others and with food, water, land, soil and other organisms that sustain life and contribute to fulfilling body, mind and spirit.
Somatic psychology centers on human senses and awareness about the human body. Until a rather recent revival in consciousness of that relationship, people have routinely had negative, guilt based inadequacy issues about their bodies. Standards of beauty and conformity have led many to experience their body in shame rather than celebration. Early trauma and fixations experienced first by the body, and then the mind, are addressed. Healing can begin through movement, meditation, yoga, holistic Gestalt training, and more.
Somatic psychology enhanced by Ecopsychology directs human beings to use senses and sensory awareness to feel the sustaining gifts of exchanged energy, for food, water, soil air (through the breath) and more. This is often done with movement and dance. Somatic and sensory awareness is concerned with human relationships too.
The foundation of life on earth is in interconnected relationships. The ability to benefit from these relationships is sensory. Modern life is often cut off from these benefits because people feel inadequate, or they have suffered abuse from others, and even from themselves. . They no longer live in close relationships to sources of food, (animals and plants) fresh outdoor air, or healing connection to biodiversity.
Therefore, somatic exploration investigates ancient and modern healing ritual, dance, shamanistic circles and more. It addresses feelings of repressed sexuality, damaged self esteem and what sustains a healthier life. It is observed in Somatic training, that movement and dance, rhythm and ritual all contribute to centering focus on understanding, being in touch with the body, celebrating the body and new found insights from many realms of cultural traditions and healing practices. Many world-wide dances and rituals are shared and compared.
For many traumatized individuals, or those just “disconnected” from their bodily awareness there are healing therapies built with the many world wide traditions of dance and exercise. For some, human/nature relationship is damaged due to highly isolated, abstraction based lives. People are more in touch with artificial supports such as money, mortgages, technology and stress that ignore all resources from earth, they have shut down senses and discounted bodily awareness and belonging.
Somatic Psychology combined with modern therapies in ecopsychology, humanistic theory, art and music therapy, Gestalt, systems theory and family counseling is now practiced in a myriad of ways. There are both western and eastern medical and spiritual traditions and training practices explored.
It may be said that psychoanalysis began with the focus on the mind. With somatic therapy this was extended to the whole body. Now that extension has reached even farther to explore healing in the moving, active and interactive world. All resources of abundance and health are acknowledged in the healing process.
