Somatic work is often assumed to be synonymous with trauma work - but it isn’t. 

Trauma is only one facet of a much wider field.

We know more about trauma than we ever have. The leading trauma therapies are now somatic because they recognise trauma as a neuropsychobiological event that must be worked with through the body. And yet, the field is still evolving. 

Although somatic therapy and somatic coaching both engage the body, they do so in fundamentally different ways.

The field of somatics holds many approaches, each contributing something valuable.

At The Somatic School, we are working with the latest, cutting-edge understandings of how to work somatically in a way that is appropriate to coaching:

• embodied,
• relational,
• nervous-system-conscious,
• and clearly distinguished from trauma therapy.

Knowing this difference is essential for your practice, your safety, and your clients’ wellbeing.

Somatic Therapy Works On Trauma. Somatic Coaching Works With Embodied Sense-Making.

Somatic therapies - broadly speaking - tend to work directly with trauma through the body.
Their aim is often the resolution, integration, or processing of traumatic material.

Somatic coaching, by contrast, is not designed to process trauma.

Somatic or Body-Oriented Coaching is about embodied sense-making - partnering with the body’s intelligence, as well as the thinking mind, to support clarity, creativity, regulation, and growth.

This means we:

• work in trauma-sensitive, nervous-system-conscious ways
• stay within the window of tolerance (primarily “sub-threshold” in Organic Intelligence® terms)
• attune to thresholds of intensity
• support states that are optimal for learning, creativity, and growth

But we do not work on trauma.

Why Quick-Fix “Somatic Trauma Certifications” Are Concerning

There is a rise in “seven-week somatic trauma practitioner” type programmes online.
And while the impetus is commendable - people want to help - it is also deeply concerning to us.

Responsible trauma therapy training is measured in years, not weeks.

It usually includes:

• multi-year study
• supervised clinical practice
• placements
• safeguarding frameworks
• ongoing mentorship and competence checks

The idea that someone could be qualified to work directly with trauma after a short online course is troubling - and potentially unsafe. There is depth, nuance, and responsibility involved in working directly on trauma.

At The Somatic School, we hold a firm ethical line: trauma therapy requires long-term, clinically supervised training.

Trauma is not a quick fix

Part of the appeal of quick trauma trainings is understandable: people want a technique they can rely on - a silver bullet.

But trauma and post-traumatic growth are not quick-win processes. There isn’t a single practice that “covers” dysregulation for everyone. Even a carefully curated set of exercises for vagus nerve stimulation is not a universal answer.

The myth of the perfect technique

Many practitioners are looking for the one technique that will handle the “worst case” moments - something they can fall back on.

The moments when someone becomes:

• highly dysregulated
• very agitated or panicked
• fearful
• dissociative or shut down

Working with the body can indeed amplify these moments - the moments when a person’s processing capacity is maxed out, when they’ve gone “over-threshold”, akin to the spinning rainbow wheel on a Mac or the flipping hourglass on a PC.

At that point, trying to “do more” rarely helps. The system needs space to free up capacity and complete its own process.

Ironically, the most effective technique in those moments is often no technique.

Doing less - and Doing it Skilfully

Doing less doesn’t mean doing nothing, though. 

It means that what you are doing is primarily relational: presence, attunement, staying with.

For example, you wouldn’t guide someone who is clearly very agitated - gritted teeth, clenched fists - into deep internal focusing on their rage. Doing so could push them over-threshold. 

Instead, we want to work sub-threshold for as long as needed, in ways that support their system, until and unless it’s appropriate to move towards more internal experience.

We’re always asking:

What does this person’s system want and need right now?

Clients can find resolution and new solutions to what troubles them - or what they want to create in their lives - without going over-threshold. Change can happen within autonomic states that are conducive to learning, creativity, growth, and integration.

It does not have to feel worse before it feels better.

People often seek out trauma techniques because they are afraid - afraid of doing something wrong, of being out of their depth, of not knowing what to do if something unexpected arises.

And it is possible to learn to coach in a way that enables you to meet the body without fear, whilst supporting you to stay within clear ethical and nervous-system-conscious scope.

What Body-Oriented Coaching actually trains you to do

In Body-Oriented Coaching, we train you to:

• Know what to do and what not to do so as not to evoke overwhelming reactions
• Create conditions of safety within which rich embodied sense-making can unfold
• Work at somatic depth without feeling out of your depth

Within these conditions, some discharge or release may happen on occasion - of its own accord and in its own time. When it does, and when the conditions are right, it can happen in a way that doesn’t feel overwhelming, frightening, or “too much” for the client. It can simply be allowed.

This is very different from working directly on someone’s trauma.

For example, a veteran with PTSD experiencing night terrors, frequent fights, or an inability to settle needs a different kind of support than coaching can offer. Marketing yourself as someone who works directly with such presentations would not be ethical or responsible without appropriate therapeutic training.

Alignment with Organic Intelligence®

We align with the paradigm of Organic Intelligence® in several important ways - especially in how it understands and works with nervous system states.

OI holds a complexity-science view of human beings as complex living systems and focuses on supporting what it calls auto-regulation (what we might also describe as self-organisation). Their view of trauma as “unintegrated resource” is one we resonate with.

We do not position ourselves as a trauma training.

We draw on this paradigm to support coaches in working in nervous-system-conscious ways: stabilising and supporting regulation when activation arises, without claiming to resolve or process trauma.

This is where elements of our training like the Regulation Station sessions come in - supporting you to recognise when a nervous system falls out of regulation, and how to help bring more stability and safety without stepping into trauma therapy.

Presence, safety, and co-regulation

What makes Body-Oriented Coaching safe is, in part, the client’s neuroception of safety within the session.

That has everything to do with the coach’s presence. 

It’s why we say at The Somatic School:

“Your presence is more important than your intervention.”

Before you’ve even uttered a word, your presence is already shaping the session - influencing whether it moves towards greater disorganisation, or towards more coherence, integration, and nourishment.

You are priming the space with your presence.

This is fundamentally relational and mammalian. 

It draws on co-regulation. 

It’s about learning “as you touch a human soul” to “be just another human soul”, in the words of Carl Jung - or simply, one human being with another human being.

A Different Kind of Depth

When Body-Oriented Coaching is practiced well, something becomes clear:

You can work somatically, at depth, without feeling out of your depth.
You can go to somatic depth without pushing clients beyond their capacity.
You can trust that, with the right training and ethical clarity, you don’t need to be afraid of what might arise in the body.

In Body-Oriented Coaching, depth doesn’t come from intensity - it comes from presence.
And when you learn to work in this way, the body stops being something to manage or fear, and becomes an intelligence to partner with.

This is where coaching evolves.
This is where transformation becomes humane, grounded, and truly relational.

And this is where Body-Oriented Coaching becomes not just safe - but fearless.

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