Frequently Asked Questions

Somatic therapy comes from the Greek word "soma," meaning "the body," and it focuses on healing through direct awareness and connection with the body rather than intellectual analysis. At The Olive Branch Healing, somatic therapy is a foundational approach because it helps you tune into your physical sensations, emotions, and inner experiences in a natural, intuitive way. Most body-based healing modalities, including the ones I offer, can be described as somatic because they emphasise embodying presence and self-awareness without overthinking or dissecting the experience mentally. By working through a somatic lens, The Olive Branch Healing supports you in accessing profound healing and integration, inviting you to listen to your body and nervous system as a wise guide on your journey to greater ease and throughout life.

Traditional talk therapy rarely works with your physical body whereas somatic therapy works with your body first before any analysing. When you get triggered, your brain might know you are entirely safe, but your body is already tensing, your chest squeezing, and your heart racing. Somatics bridges that disconnect between body and mind. Instead of trying to convince your mind to feel or think differently, we start with the physical self by noticing the tension and learning how to actively soften around it so your nervous system can finally catch up to what your brain already knows.

Real progress is often understated. It happens in subtle shifts that rarely get posted online. There is no grand celebration for recovering from an anxiety spike a little sooner than you used to. You won't see viral videos of someone noticing an automatic pattern or impulse and holding off for a few seconds or an extra minute before acting.But even those few seconds are massive. That small window is where choice lives - something your nervous system might not have had access to for a very long time. You feel lighter in your body, less weighed down by stress, and anchored in your own autonomy. That constant background tension softens, making room for a quiet sense of calm and breathing room. Healing isn't about chasing some flashy catharsis. It's about slowly regaining the space to respond to your life on your own terms.

Many traditional therapeutic and wellness spaces were built for neurotypical brains. They often rely heavily on rigid structures, cognitive reframing, or guided visual imagery. For neurodivergent folks, this can feel like trying to run software on an incompatible operating system leaving you feeling like you’re "doing the work wrong" or "failing at healing."When it comes to somatics, neurodivergence is an asset. Many neurodivergent people are already intensely hyper-aware and analytical, but stuck in old, deeply wired nervous system responses. Somatics doesn't ask you to change your brain structure or force yourself into neurotypical modes of thinking. Instead, it meets your nervous system where it actually is, using direct, felt-sense techniques (even the ones that feel a bit silly) to shift your heart rate, blood pressure, and physical state in real time.

Aphantasia is a spectrum, but in essence, it is the inability to create mental imagery and oftentimes other imaginary sensory experiences. If someone asks you to "picture a beach," a person with aphantasia can't see a visual scene in their mind's eye. They often can't "smell the fresh, salty seaside air" or "feel the sand between their toes." Instead, they hold the pure concept of or facts about a beach or scenario rather than experiencing it through the senses of the mind's eye/imagination.Because the mind doesn't generate visual pictures (or other sensory information), conditions like Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD often show up very differently for people with aphantasia.Instead of intrusive visual triggers, flashbacks, imagery-based obsessions, or picturing worst-case scenarios, the experience skips the visual mind entirely and goes straight into the body.The Visceral Concept: Anxiety becomes the raw, physical feeling of a concept. For example, if you experience fear of flying, you might not picture a plane crash in your mind’s eye. Instead, your nervous system immediately activates as if the crash is happening right now. It drops you directly into the intense, visceral physical sensation of being crushed, trapped, falling, etc. Trauma & C/PTSD: Traumatic memories are stored as somatic responses. And without a mental picture to contextualise why your body is suddenly reacting so strongly, it can lead to sudden heart-rate spikes, muscular tightness, or profound sensory overload. OCD & Intrusive Thoughts: Intrusive thoughts become intense bodily alerts or somatic sensations rather than vivid mental scenes, making the physiological feeling of danger immediate and overwhelming.Why Traditional Therapy Can Feel FrustratingIn traditional talk therapy or mainstream wellness, aphantasia can be a massive hurdle because so many standard tools rely heavily on active visualization:"Imagine a safe place or a protective bubble surrounding you.""Picture your anxiety as a leaf floating down a stream.""Visualise healing light filling your body."When your mind doesn't give you a visual scene to retreat to, trying to push past intense physical sensations using imagery, or imagination-based techniques can feel frustrating, confusing, or completely ineffective.Somatics Works DifferentlyIn this space, aphantasia is not a flaw or a limitation. It’s simply a different way your nervous system and brain processes reality. Because your body is where the experience lives, that is exactly where we go to resolve it. We skip the mental pictures entirely and focus on:Direct Nervous System Regulation: Working directly with breath, touch, movement, and physical grounding tools that don't require you to visualise a single thing. Somatic Titration: Helping your nervous system safely discharge raw, visceral sensations of fear or overload at a pace that feels manageable. Somatic Pendulation: Moving in and out of sensations, memories, exercises, and challenging material so that our systems feel safe and don't tip into overwhelm. Doing too much, too fast, too soon just to "feel something big" is not helpful and often leaves us worse off. Staying within your window of tolerance and slowly expanding it is key. Somatic Anchors: Building tangible, felt-sense safety in the body so your nervous system learns it is safe in the present moment, without needing to picture an imaginary safe space.