Somatic Therapy in San Francisco, CA

Find your center and embody confidence with online somatic therapy throughout California and Virginia.
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Learn to listen to your body, calm your nervous system, and feel more grounded in yourself.

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The body says what words cannot.

— Marion Woodman

Does this sound familiar?

Maybe you understand why you feel the way you do. You know your past wasn’t your fault. You know you’re safe now. You know you’re allowed to set boundaries—and yet, your body still reacts as though something is wrong.

Maybe You Notice:

  • Feeling tense or on edge, even when you’re trying to relax

  • Tension in your neck, jaw, shoulders, or chest

  • Feeling fatigued, overwhelmed, numb, or disconnected from yourself

  • Freezing, shutting down, or feeling stuck when you’re stressed or overwhelmed

  • Difficulty knowing what you feel or need until you’re already overwhelmed

  • Strong physical reactions to conflict, rejection, uncertainty, or feeling unsafe

  • Finding yourself pushing past discomfort or overriding what your body is telling you

Somatic therapy helps you slow down, tune into what your body is communicating, and develop a deeper awareness of your emotions, needs, and nervous system. Together, we can begin to understand the patterns your body has learned and gently practice new ways of responding. Over time, you can feel more grounded, connected, and confident in yourself.

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What is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic therapy is a body-centered approach to healing that recognizes that our experiences are held not only in our thoughts and memories, but also in our emotions, sensations, movements, and nervous system responses.

Instead of focusing only on “What happened?” or “What am I thinking?”, we also begin to notice:

  • What is happening in my body right now?

  • What am I feeling?

  • What is my body trying to tell me?

  • What do I need?

Your body is constantly communicating with you through sensations, tension, impulses, emotions, and shifts in your nervous system. Somatic therapy helps you become more aware of these signals so you can respond to yourself with greater understanding and compassion.

Over time, this awareness can create greater alignment between your thoughts, emotions, and body—helping you develop deeper self-trust, a stronger connection to yourself, and greater confidence in your ability to navigate life and relationships.

Trauma’s impact on the body

Trauma can teach your nervous system to stay on alert long after the original experiences are over. Trauma isn’t only the story of what happened to you—it can also live in what your body remembers.

You may understand that you are safe today, while your body still responds as though you need to protect yourself.

Trauma Can Show Up in the Body As:

  • Feeling tense, restless, frozen, numb, or disconnected

  • A slumped or guarded posture

  • Feelings of rage, fear, or shame

  • Shallow or restricted breathing

  • Hypervigilance or constantly scanning for potential danger

  • Feeling overwhelmed by your emotions

These responses aren’t a sign that something is wrong with you. They are protective responses your nervous system developed to help keep you safe.

Somatic therapy for trauma helps you notice these responses without judging or trying to force them away. Together, we can begin to understand what your body is communicating and gently develop new ways of responding.

Over time, your body can begin to recognize the difference between what happened then and what is happening now. With that awareness can come a greater sense of choice, agency, and connection to yourself.

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How Somatic Therapy in San Francisco, CA can help

If talk therapy has helped you understand why you feel the way you do, but you still don’t actually feel different—or you continue to notice moments of disconnect between your mind and body—somatic therapy offers another way in. By bringing greater awareness to your body, emotions, and nervous system, somatic therapy can help you:

  • Feel more connected to your body

  • Develop a greater sense of safety within your body

  • Trust the wisdom and signals your body communicates

  • Create greater alignment between your mind and body

  • Experience more joy, ease, and playfulness

  • Learn new ways of supporting and caring for yourself

  • Release old survival patterns that your body no longer needs

Over time, this work can help you feel more grounded, present, and at home in yourself.

  • 1. Slow down, tune in, build self-awareness

    Learn to recognize what you need, trust your feelings, and stay connected to yourself while staying connected to others.

    You'll practice setting boundaries, communicating honestly, and making choices based on what feels right for you, not simply what keeps someone else happy.

  • 2. Process and heal past traumatic experiences

    Somatic therapy offers a gentle, body-centered way to process traumatic experiences and create new experiences of safety. This can help your brain and nervous system develop a more updated sense of what happened and what is happening now.
    We’ll first build a foundation of safety and develop ways for you to stay grounded when difficult emotions or sensations arise. When you feel ready, we can gently work with experiences that still feel unresolved, helping your mind and body recognize that they belong in the past.

    The goal isn’t to erase what happened. It’s to help you feel less controlled by those experiences in the present.

  • 3. Rebuild confidence, safety, and healthy relationships

    As you become more connected to your body, you can begin to recognize what feels right, what doesn’t, and what you need.

    You can learn to pause instead of automatically reacting, listen to your instincts, set boundaries, and stay connected to yourself in your relationships. Over time, you can begin to trust yourself again and build relationships where you don’t have to abandon yourself in order to maintain connection.

  • ★★★★★

    “I love the way Alexis helped me to recognize the connection of my body to my mind. I am able to move through traumatic or difficult feelings by understanding how my body responds to those feelings and shifting my body in order to change how I feel. I could actually feel the change in my sense of well being in the moment. It is a very powerful and empowered experience.”

    – Client 

  • ★★★★★

    “I feel so much more confident in myself. I literally walk differently.”

    – Client 

  • ★★★★★

    “I’ve known Alexis for nearly two decades. She is kind and inquisitive, eager to get to know people whom she meets. That organic interest in others makes her welcoming and prompts introspection. Working with Alexis brings both warmth and enlightenment in a way few people offer.”

    — Personal Recommendation

Meet your San Francisco Somatic Therapist

Online therapy available throughout California and Virginia

Hi, I’m Alexis! I’m a licensed therapist and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional with over a decade of experience helping women heal from childhood trauma, attachment wounds, and relationship anxiety.

My approach to somatic therapy is rooted in the belief that your body isn’t a problem to be fixed—it’s a source of wisdom and strength.

The tension, shutdown, anxiety, numbness, or urge to please, fix, or escape that you experience may be your nervous system responding to what it has learned from your past. Rather than trying to push these responses away, we’ll slow down and become curious about them.

We’ll work with both your mind and body to understand what your nervous system is communicating, develop a greater sense of safety and regulation, and gently practice new ways of responding.

A mind-body, attachment-based approach.

My approach is grounded in attachment theory and informed by trauma-sensitive somatic therapy, parts work, inner child healing, and mindfulness-based approaches.

I believe lasting change happens when insight becomes something you can actually feel. When you can understand your patterns intellectually while also experiencing greater safety, confidence, and self-trust in your body, you can begin to choose relationships, identities, and responses that feel authentically aligned with who you are.

At the heart of our work is helping you reconnect with your authentic self—your feelings, your needs, your instincts, and your sense of who you are underneath the protective patterns you developed to feel safe and connected.

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Reach out to your San Francisco Somatic Therapist today!

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FAQ’s

  • Talking about your experiences can be an important part of healing, but sometimes understanding something intellectually isn’t enough to change how you feel in your body.

    Difficult experiences can shape more than our thoughts. They can also influence our nervous system, body, emotions, and automatic responses. Somatic therapy brings these experiences into the work so we can notice what is happening in your body alongside what you’re thinking and feeling.

    This can help the insight you gain in therapy become something you can actually feel and experience—not just understand intellectually.

  • Somatic approaches can be part of trauma-informed therapy, helping you understand and work with the ways childhood experiences may continue to affect your body, emotions, relationships, and sense of self.

    By gently noticing and working with these protective responses in the present, somatic therapy can support your body in developing new ways of responding and, when appropriate, working through survival responses that may have been interrupted or never fully expressed.

  • Somatic therapy involves slowing things down so we can notice how your body responds as you talk about your experiences.

    We may use grounding, mindfulness, breathwork, movement, or other body-based practices to help you develop greater awareness, regulation, and connection with yourself.

  • You don’t have to feel completely comfortable in your body before starting somatic therapy. In fact, feeling disconnected from your body can be one reason this approach may feel helpful.

    Somatic therapy supports you in reconnecting with your body gradually, at a pace that feels safe and comfortable for you. You’re always invited to notice what feels manageable and to work within your own boundaries.

  • Yes. Somatic therapy can be done online, and many body-based practices can be adapted to the virtual setting.

    I’ll ask you to sit far enough back from your camera that I can help notice and track some of the ways your body responds during our sessions. Practicing somatic work from home can also offer the benefit of being in a familiar, comfortable environment where you have space to explore new ways of relating to yourself.

    I offer online somatic therapy to people living in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and throughout California, as well as Alexandria, Fairfax, Richmond, and throughout Virginia.