What Are Somatic Therapy and IFS?
Somatic therapy is an approach that recognizes the body as a partner in healing, not just the mind. When we experience stress, trauma, or difficult emotions, they don’t just live in our thoughts. They live in our bodies too. In tension, in how we breathe, in the way we hold ourselves. Somatic therapy helps us tune into those physical signals and use them as a doorway to deeper healing.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is based on the idea that we’re all made up of different “parts.” You might recognize this in yourself: there’s a part of you that wants to change, and a part that resists. A part that feels confident, and a part that holds a lot of fear. IFS helps us understand those parts with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment and to heal the ones that are still carrying pain from the past.
These two approaches complement each other beautifully, and I often weave them together depending on what you need.