How does Somatic Therapy help with depression?
Tapping into your bodily experience can provide relief from lethargy and despair by accessing deeper feelings that are buried underneath
3 min read | Illustration by Anthony Orozco
Key points:
Depression causes our bodies to expend inordinate amounts of energy just to manage the stress of depression and cause disconnect with our bodies
Somatic therapies can help people suffering from depression to reconnect with their bodies in healthy ways
By acknowledging and noticing how we disassociate with our bodies when depressed, we can overcome the overwhelming feelings that often accompany depression
How does somatic therapy help with depression?
Depression often pulls energy into managing stress and can leave people feeling dissociated from their bodies. Somatic therapy helps by guiding attention back to physical sensations in a gradual, supported way, so feelings that were warded off can be noticed and tolerated rather than avoided. As this reconnection grows, the sense of overwhelm can ease and people often begin to feel more like themselves again.
When we are depressed a lot of our energy goes toward attempting to manage the stress brought on by being depressed. This, in turn, siphons energy that we might otherwise use to relax, seek pleasure, or gain comfort. Joy fades, concentration wanes, decision making becomes muddled, our appetites fluctuate, our sleep habits suffer.
All of these factors can lead people experiencing depression to feel dissociated from their bodies, to feel not quite like themselves, to feel that they are living but are perhaps not fully alive. This might take the form of retreating into TV, the internet, or fantasy as a distraction. It also could manifest as a sort of obsessive hyper vigilance, making it hard to feel much else apart from anxiety, fear and a sense of dread.
Somatic therapy and somatic mindfulness can serve as a conduit, allowing depressed people to reconnect with their bodies in a manner that promotes the sort of comfort and ease that contending with depression often eradicates. At first, a somatic therapeutic approach might feel quite difficult or uncomfortable to the depressed person. However, therapeutic modalities like AEDP, Internal Family Systems and Somatic Experiencing all provide a framework to allow therapists to assist people with the discomfort brought on by negative affective states like depression.
Stefan Allen-Hickey, a therapist at Downtown Somatic Therapy in Manhattan, says “by cultivating a non-judgmental attitude of self-acceptance while focusing on the discomfort brought on by depression, people can eventually come to terms with and lessen the pain they are experiencing. It may seem counterintuitive, but by directing more awareness to how depression affects our bodies, people can dissolve the more pernicious impacts of depression.”
“It may seem counterintuitive, but by directing more awareness to how depression affects our bodies, people can dissolve the more pernicious impacts of depression.”
Somatic therapy can help people notice their tendency to dissociate to protect themselves from the fear and pain associated with depression. By being encouraged to eschew their tendency to dissociate, people learn to spend more and more time tolerating bodily sensations, and emotions. As previously warded off feelings like fear or emotional pain are explored, new feelings of vitality often emerge.
A by-product of somatic therapy is often an improved ability to assess our emotional needs in real time, since we learn to be less afraid of feelings that previously might have been avoided. As Stefan notes: “Somatic therapy allows people to come back into their bodies and experience sensations more vividly than their depression had been allowing. This can, in turn, allow people to begin to feel a bit more like themselves again”.
“Somatic therapy allows depressed people to come back into their bodies and experience sensations more vividly than their depression had been allowing.”
By acknowledging, and sitting with, how depression makes us feel in our bodies, we can begin to overcome the feelings of “overwhelm” that depression can engender.
If you want to meet with a skilled therapist to improve how you cope with symptoms of depression, consider contacting Downtown Somatic Therapy today.
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Somatic therapy and somatic mindfulness help people reconnect with their bodies in a way that supports comfort and ease, which depression often erodes. By gently directing awareness to how depression affects the body, people can lessen its more pernicious impacts and begin to feel more like themselves.
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When we are depressed, much of our energy goes toward managing the stress of being depressed, which siphons energy from rest, pleasure, and comfort. This can lead to feeling dissociated from the body, not quite like yourself, sometimes retreating into distraction or a state of anxious hypervigilance.
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Modalities such as AEDP, Internal Family Systems, and Somatic Experiencing give therapists a framework to help people stay with the discomfort that accompanies depression. The work centers on a non-judgmental, self-accepting attention to bodily sensations.
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It can feel difficult or uncomfortable at first. Somatic therapy proceeds gradually, helping people tolerate bodily sensations and previously warded-off feelings. As fear and emotional pain are explored with support, new feelings of vitality often emerge.
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A common by-product is an improved ability to read your emotional needs in real time, because you become less afraid of feelings you once avoided. By acknowledging and sitting with how depression feels in the body, people can begin to overcome the feelings of overwhelm it can create.