6 Benefits of Somatic Therapy for Trauma Patients

Somatic therapy is highly beneficial for trauma patients. It works well for those with PTSD, with 44.1% of those diagnosed recovering following treatment. If you struggle with trauma, then you can receive those same benefits.

This article will cover all the benefits of starting somatic therapy for trauma. Keep reading to learn more.

1. Trauma Patients Develop Body Awareness

Body awareness is crucial to those recovering from a PTSD diagnosis. Trauma impacts various areas of your body in negative ways. By being more aware of your body’s responses, you can work on releasing trauma. Basically, somatic therapy can help you reconnect with your body positively.

Some techniques used during somatic therapy that builds on body awareness include:

• Grounding: This technique allows you to bring yourself back to the present. It’s extremely useful if you suffer from PTSD flashbacks. It can reduce anxiety as well. You perform grounding by tensing parts of your body and focusing on them. Or running your hands under water. It’s best when you need to stop thinking about a traumatic event.
• Deep breathing exercises: When you have trauma, sometimes it can feel difficult to breathe. You’ll learn to focus on your breathing and calm yourself, bringing you back to the present.
• Resourcing: You’ll recall a happy place from your memories. These thoughts can make you feel good and help anchor you when anxious. You’ll practice identifying how you felt in those moments, which can release tension from your body.
• Body scanning: Lastly, you can use this technique to assess where tension or pain is in your body. Lay down comfortably, then practice becoming aware of each body part. You’ll work slowly to scan your whole body. Then, you can tense and release those parts until you feel more comfortable. 

Overall, building body awareness skills can drastically help trauma patients. It gives them the tools they need to recognize when they’re having a trauma response and allows them to manage it. The more they practice body awareness, the easier it becomes, so many somatic therapists will focus on teaching these techniques.

2. It Teaches Trauma Patients Essential Tools

As mentioned above, somatic therapy gives trauma patients the tools to manage their PTSD symptoms. It can be tough to deal with it without them.

A negative response can happen anywhere, anytime. So, knowing how to manage those feelings and stay grounded can drastically help a trauma patient. If you learn these skills, you can return to the present.

Many people with PTSD think about the trauma event, which can disrupt their daily lives. Somatic therapy gives them the tools they need to recover and start living their lives how they want again.

In short, trauma patients learn invaluable skills they can use in their daily lives through somatic therapy. These tools can offer tremendous relief to anyone struggling with PTSD.

3. It Helps Patients Release Trauma

People store trauma in their bodies. You might feel like your heart’s racing or parts of your body are uncomfortably tense. Somatic therapy assists patients in releasing trauma from their bodies by helping them become more aware of their bodies.

Trauma also can cause emotional dysregulation and intensify the “fight or flight” response, causing patients to feel confused and anxious and have trouble moving or taking action. However, you could feel this way whether or not there’s a real threat present.

Somatic therapy releases the trauma from your body so patients don’t feel trapped in a fight or flight state.

4. Patients Experience Increased Positivity

Somatic therapy can change the way that patients think. It rewires your brain’s pathways and gets you out of a constant survival mode. So, these effects can make you feel much more positive about your life.

When you spend more time listening to your body, you’ll better know what you need. You can change your behaviors and thoughts, making your life much more peaceful and joyous than before.

Patients feel they have more balance in their lives, allowing them to think more clearly. Overall, somatic therapy helps get you out of negative thoughts and patterns. These effects also increase emotional awareness and help patients accurately identify their feelings.

5. Patients Feel Freer

Patients who’ve completed somatic therapy also reported feeling freer than ever. Being able to recognize your emotions and be more aware of your body gives off a sense of freedom. Especially if you were struggling with feelings of being trapped with PTSD.

Somatic therapy can change your internal self-talk, which is why it also makes people feel more positive. However, it doesn’t encourage you to bury negative self-thoughts; instead, it will have you learn how to work through them in a healthy way.

Knowing how to deal with uncomfortable feelings healthily is highly freeing to those with PTSD. You’ll also learn much about yourself, letting you experience mental freedom like never before. Many patients feel more confident when completing the treatment as well.

6. It’s Excellent for Treating PTSD Symptoms

Finally, the best benefit would be that somatic therapy is one of the best treatments for PTSD. It keeps you present, releases tension from trauma, and can rewire your brain over time. The treatment can remove most PTSD symptoms if you stick with it.

It can even help with anxiety and depression, which can come with PTSD, since it focuses on regulating emotions and body responses. 

As mentioned at the start of this article, about 44% of patients who participated in somatic therapy had the diagnosis of PTSD removed. The exact number of patients maintained that status at follow-up sessions, showing its effectiveness.

Overall, those who struggle with PTSD will benefit from being able to treat their symptoms. It’s very effective and gives you the skills to overcome your trauma.

Somatic Therapy is Beneficial for PTSD Patients

To summarize, somatic therapy is highly beneficial for PTSD patients. If you have trauma, you’ll learn tools to deal with it in healthy ways instead of continuing to store the trauma in your body.