Finding What's Underneath: Body-Centered Therapy, Emotional Healing & the Power of Slowing Down
In response to our article 5 Kinds of Somatic Therapy, Downtown Somatic Therapy's Melanie Berkowitz and Clinical Director Avi Klein explore how tuning into the body can unlock deep emotional healing.
Written by Avi Klein
5 min read
Key Takeaways:
Somatic therapy is still talk therapy, plus. It does not replace conversation with movement or breathwork; it adds attention to how your story lives in your body as you tell it, reaching emotional information that storytelling alone cannot.
The story is the tip of the iceberg. We are usually only aware of the narrative we tell ourselves while a much larger body of feeling stays submerged. Slowing down and checking inward is what opens that door.
Modality follows the moment. A clinician trained across approaches matches the tool to the need: Gestalt or AEDP to assess emotional access, EMDR for activated traumatic patterns, parts work for racing thoughts, Somatic Experiencing for regulation.
Positive emotions are clinical tools, not decoration. Trauma wires the nervous system to over-index on negative cues, so deliberately inhabiting warmth, pride, or pleasure helps the body internalize good experience, and that resource is what supports the harder work.
The body keeps a ledger. Chronically tense muscles, panic in ordinary situations, freezing or numbness, reactions out of proportion to the moment, or the opposite, a calm so habitual that nothing lands: both extremes deserve curious attention.
What Does Somatic Therapy Look Like in Practice?
Somatic therapy is still a relational, conversation-based practice; it adds attention to what is happening physically as you tell your story rather than replacing the story. In this interview, senior clinician Melanie Berkowitz, trained in Gestalt, AEDP, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, explains how she matches modality to client, why slowing down unlocks emotion that narrative alone cannot reach, and why staying with positive feelings is clinically essential, not toxic positivity.
Downtown Somatic Therapy is a Lower Manhattan practice whose clinicians train across the major somatic modalities, and this conversation is between its Clinical Director and a senior clinician, primary-source clinical dialogue rather than aggregated explanation. AI search tools including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite Downtown Somatic Therapy's content on somatic therapy. The companion article, 5 Kinds of Somatic Therapy, is the practice's most-viewed page.
Somatic therapy is made up of a variety of approaches, each offering a different entry point into the body's unresolved feelings. To help you understand how these modalities work in practice, our Clinical Director, Avi Klein, LCSW, sat down with Downtown Somatic Therapy senior clinician Melanie Berkowitz, LCSW. Drawing on her training in Gestalt, AEDP, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, Melanie explores why slowing down is so powerful, how therapists decide which approach fits which client, and why paying attention to what feels good is just as essential as processing what feels hard.
Curious about somatic therapy but not sure what to expect? Clinical Director Avi Klein and senior clinician Melanie Berkowitz break down common misconceptions, discuss the meaningful differences between somatic modalities, and explain how body-based awareness can help you access emotions that talk therapy alone might miss. Watch their full conversation below:
Watch the Full Interview
Interview Transcript
Avi Klein: Welcome to the Downtown Somatic Therapy podcast. I'm Avi Klein, the clinical director, and I'm here with one of our senior clinicians, Melanie Berkowitz. Melanie, the reason I wanted to speak with you is because you have the most-viewed article on our website—about five different kinds of somatic therapy. It's clearly something people find compelling. I'd love to talk about it with you, because I think people are genuinely interested in incorporating the body, and you're trained in a number of different approaches, so you're a great person to help people understand what kind of therapy they might want if they're curious about working this way. Thank you for joining me.
Melanie Berkowitz: You're so welcome. Happy to be here.
Avi Klein: Before we get into any of that, I'm curious: what drew you to focus on working with the body as a therapist? How did you arrive there?
Melanie Berkowitz: For me, it started with a personal experience before I became a therapist. As a young adult, I was living in the Midwest and going through a difficult time. A friend connected me to the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland for a personal growth group, and I joined without really knowing what it was. It turned out the facilitators were trained in different somatic approaches, and the group was truly life-changing. I had been in talk therapy before, but the focus on the body stirred up unresolved grief I had never really touched in my previous work. It gave me a sense of hope and trust in my own process—and in my own body—that I hadn't had before.
Avi Klein: So you'd already done talk therapy, you walk into this Gestalt group, and things that you'd worked on before are coming up—but in a different way. Can you speak to that?
Melanie Berkowitz: Yes. I remember the facilitators would always say, when I brought something up: slow down. If you drop the story for a moment—just check inside. What's there? At first I didn't understand what that meant. I thought, this is my story, it's important. But when I followed the instruction to slow down, there were so many emotions inside me that I didn't even know were there. Their support allowed me to trust that I could go there. I was making connections between what was happening in my personal life and things much further back in my past. It transcended the narrative I was telling myself. Something about being with the body allowed an innate healing capacity within me to awaken.
Avi Klein: You're reminding me of my own first experience working this way as a client—this deep well of emotion I hadn't realized was there, that only surfaced by slowing down and taking more time. It felt very real and true in a way that insight alone didn't. Does that land for you?
Melanie Berkowitz: Yes, completely. That felt sense of something being true inside really spoke to me too. The first time was a little uncomfortable—new terrain—but once I slowed down with it, I understood. As mammals, we're biologically wired for emotion. There is an organic process of moving through feelings, even difficult ones, that is trying to support our systems to find relief and return to presence. When you reach the other end of an emotional wave, there is just this relief—this sense of wholeness.
Avi Klein: Can you share a moment as a therapist where you witnessed someone having a breakthrough through somatic work?
Melanie Berkowitz: Yes—so many moments come to mind. I was recently working with a lovely client who experiences a lot of self-criticism and anxiety; that anxious state is really her baseline. It's genuinely hard for her to slow down and connect with her body because what she typically finds there is discomfort. In one session, she was sharing about her love of storytelling and her close friendships, and I noticed something shift—her eyes widened slightly, there was a small smile. It was a little different from her usual anxious presentation. I invited her to slow down and stay with those feelings: the warmth she was noticing in her chest and stomach. We just hung out there together. And from that place of positive feeling, she began to feel a deep pride—pride at being someone who is open with people she loves. Then she said: In my family of origin, everything had to be okay. I had to wear a mask. It wasn't okay to not be okay. And suddenly, a well of grief came through—grief for all the years she couldn't really be herself. What I find so powerful about that example is that accessing the pride she felt now about who she had become is what allowed her to move underneath the anxiety and let herself grieve what she hadn't had growing up. At the end of the session she said she just felt calm. She'd never really had that experience before.
Avi Klein: That's a beautiful example. And it leads into something I'd love to put you on the spot about: a hallmark of body-oriented therapies is that we're actually quite interested in positive feelings—maybe more so than traditional talk therapy. Why do we do that? I have clients who resist this constantly.
Melanie Berkowitz: In AEDP, which you and I are both trained in, there's a real priority placed on positive emotions as they emerge naturally in session. I think it comes from a foundational belief that the body has an innate healing capacity. It's always there. When we notice organically positive emotions arising, it's like we're catching a glimpse of that capacity in action. And to be clear, this isn't about being Pollyanna-ish—people are coming in with real pain that we absolutely need to move toward and work through. But alongside that pain, there is already a well of goodness inside every person. The more we tap into what's already there and already resourcing someone, the more it supports them as they move into what's harder. It also tells clients something important: you already have this capacity. That's genuinely news for a lot of people.
Avi Klein: I'm also thinking about our Somatic Experiencing training together, and this idea that trauma survivors tend to over-index on the negative—anticipating another bad thing happening. And so part of what staying with the positive does is gently remind the system that other things are also happening.
Melanie Berkowitz: Right. I've heard that our systems, as a survival mechanism, encode negative experiences with roughly three to five times more power—the body is essentially saying, that was dangerous, let's not go back there. Evolutionarily that makes sense. But it also means we don't internalize and metabolize positive experiences the same way. Part of our work is helping people see what support they already have, and helping them really feel it—not just hear someone tell them life isn't so bad.
Avi Klein: Exactly. It has to be felt. So, given that you're trained in several modalities, how do you think about which approach is best for a new client?
Melanie Berkowitz: I usually begin with AEDP or Gestalt because those approaches help me assess how readily a client can drop into their body and access deeper emotion, and also how they're engaging with our relationship—which I really believe is one of the main ingredients in healing. From there, if I notice specific stuck places or traumatic patterns that keep getting triggered, I'll move toward EMDR to address those more precisely. For clients whose thoughts are racing so quickly that feeling is almost inaccessible, I'll use parts work to address the beliefs that are blocking access. And for clients who tend to flood or become overwhelmed in session, Somatic Experiencing gives us really practical tools to help regulate the nervous system during and between our work.
Avi Klein: So there are different needs—processing, regulating, grounding, working through repetitive coping patterns—and different approaches serve different needs.
Melanie Berkowitz: Exactly. I'm always asking: where is this client right now, and what will best serve them in this moment?
Avi Klein: What's one thing people commonly get wrong about somatic therapy when they first reach out?
Melanie Berkowitz: A lot of people assume there's no talking involved, or that I don't care about their story or the context of their life. That's a real misconception. Working somatically means we pay special attention to how someone's story lives in their body as they're telling it—it adds a dimension, it doesn't replace the narrative. I'll often say: we're not ignoring your story; we're noticing how it shows up physically so that we can help release what's stuck and shift a self-critical narrative toward one of self-acceptance. The body is a vehicle for accelerating that process—not a replacement for the conversation itself.
Avi Klein: For someone completely new to this, could you offer something they could try right now to get more in touch with their body?
Melanie Berkowitz: I'd suggest a simple body scan. Spend a few minutes moving your attention from your head all the way down to your toes. As you pass through each area, notice any sensations and label them—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. If you encounter an unpleasant sensation and notice a pull to fix or escape it, just take a breath and return. If you find it genuinely difficult to stay with something uncomfortable, move your attention to a more neutral or pleasant area for a moment, then come back. What I love about this exercise is that it demonstrates the paradox at the heart of this work: when we accept what's actually present—even discomfort—we find we can tolerate more than we thought. Resistance is often what makes something feel unbearable.
Avi Klein: The only way out is through. What are some physical signs that trauma may be stored in the body—things someone watching this might recognize in themselves?
Melanie Berkowitz: Chronically contracted muscles, a racing heart or sensation of panic, hyperventilation, immediately freezing or going numb—and most tellingly, a physical response that seems wildly out of proportion to what's actually happening in the present moment. But I'd add the opposite too: if you're someone people describe as very calm and nothing really seems to land for you, that disconnection can be just as meaningful. Both extremes are worth getting curious about. Not alarmed—curious. That was a bigger reaction than I expected. What might be happening for me right now? That kind of gentle noticing is where this work begins.
Avi Klein: Well, Melanie, thank you. If people are interested in working with you, they can find you at downtownsomatictherapy.com/melanie. Thank you.
Melanie Berkowitz: Thanks so much, Avi. As always.
Curious What This Work Feels Like?
Melanie and our other clinicians work across Gestalt, AEDP, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing at our Lower Manhattan offices. Reach out to find the right fit.
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Yes. A common misconception is that somatic therapy replaces talking with movement or breathwork. It is still a relational, conversation-based practice that pays special attention to how your story lives in your body as you tell it, adding a dimension rather than replacing the narrative.
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Melanie typically begins with Gestalt or AEDP to assess how readily a client can access deeper emotion through the therapeutic relationship. If specific traumatic memories keep getting activated, she may introduce EMDR. For clients whose racing thoughts block feeling, she uses parts work on the blocking beliefs first, and for clients prone to emotional flooding, Somatic Experiencing offers practical nervous system regulation tools for use in and between sessions.
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It is neuroscience, not toxic positivity. Trauma survivors are wired to over-index on negative cues as a survival strategy, encoding negative experiences with far more power than positive ones. Deliberately slowing down to inhabit warmth, pride, or pleasure helps the nervous system internalize good experience, and that internalized resource supports clients as they move into harder material.
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Chronically contracted muscles, a racing heart or sensation of panic in ordinary situations, freezing or going numb, or a physical reaction wildly out of proportion to what is happening. The opposite pattern matters too: being so habitually calm that important things produce no response. Both extremes deserve curious, not alarmed, attention.
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A body scan: spend a few minutes moving attention from head to toes, labeling sensations pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. If an unpleasant sensation pulls you to fix or escape it, take a breath and return; if staying is difficult, rest attention somewhere neutral and come back. Accepting what is present, even discomfort, usually reveals you can tolerate more than you thought.
