My name is Stephanie Tack and I am a Somatic Movement Therapist & Embodiment Educator in private practice in Venice Beach, California and in Santa Barbara, California. For more information about my Somatic Movement Therapy Sessions, Somatic Movement Classes, or for a FREE Consultation I welcome your call:

call me: #(310) 896-8506 

OR

email me: info@stephanietack.com.

What is Somatic Movement Therapy?

Somatic Movement Therapy (SMT) is a hands-on integrative body-mind therapy that is capable of relieving pain, resolving trauma and restoring the body into balance and health.

Unlike massage, which works primarily on a physical level with myofascial and muscle tissue release, Somatic Movement Therapy works holistically with the body-mind connection and underlying physiological systems.  It gets underneath dysfunction and dysregulation working with underlying body systems and rhythms that have their own healing intelligence such as the: breath, nervous system, lymphatic system, organs, bones, glands and fluids. 

Likewise, where massage is passive, Somatic Movement Therapy is both passive and active.  It utilizes a mixture of passive hands-on “feel good” touch techniques as well as active movement exercise sequences and stretches to activate or deactivate your body as needed.  It is similar to physical therapy but also very different.

The best way to understand it is to experience it.

What to expect in my Somatic Movement Therapy Sessions?

During a Somatic Movement Therapy session with me I coach you on how to deepen your connection with your body so that you can initiate healing on all levels – physical, emotional and spiritual. I use touch, movement re-patterning exercises and assisted stretching – as well as draw from all of my wellness, fitness and dance training – to support you in your healing journey. Each session is hand-tailored to meet your specific needs.  I also teach you take home strategies that you can do on your own to manage pain and add to your self-care tool-box.

My sessions are practiced fully clothed.  I work with the body: standing, in motion, sitting or laying down. A session might include any of those positions as well as: guided imagery, breath work, bodywork, massage, assisted stretching, movement, dance, lymph massage, organ and gland activation and self-reflective or creatively expressive games.

Who Can Benefit from Somatic Movement Therapy?

Anyone can benefit from Somatic Movement Therapy it:

• Relieves Acute & Chronic Pain & Migraines
• Increases Range of Motion & Maximizes Sports Performance & Sports Recovery
• Strengthens & Stretches the Muscles & Core (optimizing your Stability / Mobility)
• Re-Programs Habitual Patterns & Creates Movement Efficiency
• Unlocks Frozen Shoulder & Tight Muscles
• Reconnects the Body After Injury & Surgery
• Relieves Anxiety & Stress (Calms the Nervous System)
• Alleviates Depression & Activates Positive Emotional States

Somatic Movement Therapy can also help you during times of transformation and transition such as in processing trauma or working on new personal goals.  It can help you move forward when you feel stuck in your body or stuck in your life.  Added benefits are that it helps you feel good physically, sleep better and reduces your need for medications as well as visits to multiple types of therapy.

Is Trauma-Informed Somatic Movement Therapy Right for You?

Somatic Movement Therapy is also an effective tool for moving out of trauma and healing from PTSD.  If you feel you have healed and evolved mentally and emotionally but that on a deeper level your body needs to catch up to your healing process then I recommend Trauma-Informed Somatic Movement Therapy.  The reason why is because trauma is like an unfinished sentence that will repeat over and over again until you process it out of your nervous system.  CPTSD, PTSD and current trauma and ongoing stress can show up as:

• Constant Low Level Anxiety
• Inability to Concentrate
• ADD or ADHD
• Difficulty Being in the Moment Fully
• Difficulty Trusting Others
• Migraines & TMJ
• Chronic Pain for Unknown Reasons
• People Pleasing
• Repeatedly Attracting Toxic People
• Deep Unresolved Feelings

And yes, Somatic Movement Therapy can help with all of these issues.

The body can also endure physical trauma from injury or surgery. What happens when you have suffered an injury or a surgery is that your body goes into what is called “the trauma response”. The trauma response is when your muscles tighten and reflexively draw inwards in response to an injured area. What happens is that as your muscles contract around the injured area over time, this reprograms your your body into dysfunctional holding patterns of compensation, where your movement efficiency becomes distorted. So if you injured your back, hip, shoulder, leg or arm, your body will remember the injury and become chronically  held in this area. It will feel like everything is drawing inwards into the “scene of the crime”, and you will experience stiffness, pain and a lack of mobility that spreads to other areas of the body along the kinetic chain. 

Somatic Movement Therapy hacks these trauma responses with refined techniques that work with the neuro-motor and musculo-skeletal systems to re-pattern your body back into movement efficiency and release the traumatic event/s from your system. Subsequently, this re-patterning tends to eliminate pain, increases mobility, increases strength and returns your body to a state of supported balance and health.