Imagine describing an internal struggle, a relationship concern, or a difficult life event to a friend or a therapist. You might naturally focus on details such as your partner’s reactions or conflicts at work, on everything that feels right and coherent to you. You might want to interpret, connect events or thoughts, explain, and create a coherent story in words. This is me, and this is my life.
However, when our objective is to create a coherent story, we may, even unintentionally, rely too heavily on the prior (cognitive) models or belief systems we have built over our lifetimes. These models are sometimes activated automatically, which can contribute to distorted interpretations, socially desirable explanations, or even false memories (Weiss & Daye, 2018). This can happen even with a therapist if we focus on detailed verbal descriptions of life events. All of this makes sense, but it may also be hiding something deeper, that is, what we feel before we explain it.
A different starting point
Somatic psychotherapists take a different approach. Instead of focusing on the content of the story, they focus on the storyteller. They support clients in feeling into their bodily experience before any story or explanation takes shape. A somatic psychotherapist accesses and explores somatic experiences by supporting clients to feel into themselves before coming up with an interpretation. The same applies to therapists themselves. Rather than offering their own interpretations, they let clients access their experiences at their own pace, and attaching meaning comes later.
Some therapeutic approaches use mindfulness to deepen this exploration. In Hakomi, a mindfulness-based somatic method, mindfulness is woven into the whole therapeutic process. It is a practice of being fully present and aware of experience, including bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions, without reacting to or judging them. The central idea is that, in a state of mindfulness, we have better means of observing and becoming aware of our learned habitual patterns, or scripts. Mindful observation may offer a clearer understanding of whether these patterns are truly me, and whether this is truly my life.
Holding experience together
Mindfulness is especially powerful in the relationship with the therapist. In a state of bi-directional mindfulness, where both therapist and client are present and attuned, they can together hold a deeply compassionate presence toward the client’s earlier painful life event or emotion (“held experience”; Lavie, 2015). Gradually, the painful emotion or experience becomes something that can be held, first together with the therapist and then eventually on one’s own. When the client’s inner experience is met with compassion, defensive patterns come to feel less necessary, and greater freedom of choice becomes available.
Try it yourself
Next time you are trying to find a solution to a conflict, you might want to pause first and feel into yourself, noticing your bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions without reacting to or judging them. Stay with what you notice for a few breaths. You may find that the situation looks different once you have given yourself this moment of presence. From there, you may notice more freedom in how you respond.
References and further reading
Lavie, S (2015) Held Experience: Using Mindfulness in Psychotherapy to Facilitate Deeper Psychological Repair. International Body Psychotherapy Journal: The Art and Science of Somatic Praxis, 14 (2), 101–108.
Weiss, H., and Daye, M. (2018) The art of bottom-up processing: Mindfulness, meaning, and self-compassion in body psychotherapy. In: Payne, H., Koch, S., Tantia, J. & Fuchs, T. (2018): Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy. London: Routledge.
