How Somatic Psychotherapy Supports Anxiety and Depression Recovery
Body based Depression and Anxiety Treatment
If you’re navigating anxiety or depression, I want you to know this — you’re not broken. You’re not doing life wrong. And most importantly, you’re not alone.
As a somatic psychotherapist and accredited practising dietitian, I’ve had the honour of supporting many women who feel stuck in cycles of overwhelm, shutdown, low mood, and disconnection. While traditional talk therapy can offer valuable insight and awareness, it doesn’t always reach the deeper layers where true healing lives — the body. That’s where somatic psychotherapy comes in.
What is Somatic Psychotherapy?
Somatic psychotherapy is a body-based approach to healing anxiety and depression. Instead of focusing solely on thoughts or behaviours, somatic therapy works with your nervous system, physical sensations, and emotional patterns to gently restore balance, safety, and connection.
Our bodies carry the imprint of everything we’ve lived through — not just cognitively, but also biologically and energetically. Chronic stress, trauma, burnout, and emotional suppression often live in the body as tension, tightness, fatigue, numbness, or racing energy. Somatic therapy gives you the tools to work with these patterns directly, not just analyse them from the neck up.
Why the Body Matters in Mental Health
Here’s something I say often: you can’t think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. Anxiety and depression are not just mental or emotional experiences — they’re also physiological and energetic states.
- Anxiety is often a sign that your nervous system is in a chronic fight-or-flight state. You may feel restless, wired, on edge, unable to relax or sleep, and always waiting for something to go wrong.
- Depression can stem from a freeze or shutdown state, where everything feels heavy, slow, numb, or hopeless. You may withdraw socially, feel unmotivated, and disconnected from joy, purpose, or yourself.
Somatic psychotherapy helps you begin to recognise these patterns in your body and gently shift them. It’s not about forcing change — it’s about building safety, awareness, resilience and capacity from the inside out.
How Somatic Therapy Supports Recovery from Anxiety and Depression
Here are just a few of the ways somatic psychotherapy can support your healing:
1. Regulates Your Nervous System
Somatic therapy works directly with the autonomic nervous system, helping you shift from survival states (like hyperarousal or shutdown) into regulation. This creates the internal conditions for calm, clarity, presence, and connection.
2. Releases Stored Tension and Trauma
Often, emotions and memories are stored in the body as muscle tension, digestive issues, shallow breathing, or chronic pain and disease. Somatic practices allow you to gently discharge this stored energy without needing to relive the trauma.
3. Restores Body Awareness and Trust
When you’ve lived in a state of anxiety or depression for a long time, your body can feel unsafe or unfamiliar. Through gentle movement, breath, and awareness-based techniques, you begin to feel more at home in your body again.
4. Helps You Identify and Shift Patterns
Somatic therapy teaches you how to recognise your internal signals before they escalate — things like shallow breath, clenched jaw, racing thoughts, or emotional numbness. This empowers you to intervene early with nervous system regulation tools and avoid the unwanted consequence of inappropriate reactions.
5. Integrates Mind, Body, and Emotions
You are not just a brain. You are a whole person — with thoughts, emotions, intuition, energy, and a body that remembers. Somatic psychotherapy honours all parts of you and helps integrate them in a way that feels grounded, empowering, and healing.
What Somatic Therapy Looks Like in Practice
Every session is unique, but may include:
- Guided body scans and breathwork
- Movement or posture awareness
- Exploration of physical symptoms or sensations
- Emotional processing through the body
- Nervous system education and mapping
- Practices to build safety, resilience, and self-compassion
You don’t need to have a perfect understanding of your trauma or even know where to begin. Somatic therapy meets you exactly where you are — with kindness, curiosity, and care.
From Surviving to Feeling Alive Again
Healing from anxiety and depression isn’t just about getting through the day — it’s about feeling like yourself again, reconnecting with joy, reclaiming your energy, and creating a life that feels aligned.
If you’re tired of just talking about your symptoms and are ready to actually feel something shift, somatic psychotherapy might be the missing piece.
Ready to explore somatic therapy for anxiety or depression?
Whether you're navigating burnout, emotional overwhelm, chronic fatigue, or feel stuck in a cycle you can’t name — I’m here to support you.
📍 Sessions available in Melbourne or online Australia-wide
🔗 Book an appointment today at www.bmelifestyle.com
Your body holds the wisdom. Let’s listen to it together.
