Somatic Movement Therapy & Embodiment

guided . Moving . Sensing . cellular . creative . haptic

 

A Somatic Movement Therapy approach is as much a process of education as it is a transformative therapeutic experience. Noticing sensations and movement patterns that live in your tissue, the energy that flows in sequence, as well as how you sense and feel what’s here now, is all part of developing what is known as somatic or embodied awareness. This kind of awareness colours your experience and expression and is the field of soma - ‘the living organism in its wholeness’ (Hanna, 1979, p. 6), you.

Somatics & embodiment is still a burgeoning field of research, practice and education that has been informed by generations of inquiry from various embodiment practitioners and artists who form a lineage of knowledge & practice.


WHAT DOES SOMATIC MEAN?

The term somatic, coined by the philosopher and teacher, Thomas Hanna, is drawn from the ancient Greek word ‘soma’. Somatic practices engage soma as a point of reference and a means of exploration. They are experiential, movement-based activities that invite you to attune to inner and outer realities by listening, moving, seeing, sensing, touching, sounding and imagining from the perspective of soma.


WHAT IS EMBODIMENT? 

Embodiment is a state of being. It is the ongoing becoming of self-organized, generative and innately creative life. You are an embodied life composed of integrated and ever-changing organic structures, systems, thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, actions, and environments that coordinate with their context. In this way embodiment is a spectrum rather than an end game, the complexities of which can be forever explored through soma.

Listen to us chat about this way of working…

For US AT Live PArticle, Somatics is about:

  • landing in the living tissue and paying attention to our living histories & stories embedded there

  • attuning to & consciously surfacing innate cellular intelligence

  • paying attention to intuition & energetics

  • patterns, behaviour, values

  • the quality of your attention

  • the process of becoming absorbed in what’s here

  • cultivating your present moment awareness

  • paying attention to a multi-sensory field

  • focussing on things from the inside out

  • taking a trauma informed approach

Our therapeutic repertoire is sourced from the following practices:

  • Therapeutic Somatic Practices: Body-Mind Centering, Yoga Therapy, Somatic Experiencing, Social Presencing Theatre, Hanna Somatics, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Focussing, Embodied Flow

  • Eastern Traditions: Anusara Yoga, Yoga of Sound, Qigong, Buddhist & Hindu Meditation

  • Dance & Theatre Practices: Contact Improvisation, Skinner Release

  • Creative Arts Therapy: MIECAT, Tamalpa Institute

  • Mindfulness


Defining Somatic Movement Therapy is as broad as the body-oriented perspectives and practices it contains. While SMT is now an attainable certification the definition of SMT depends on the perspective of the practice through which it is being applied and school through which the certification is being bestowed.

Here at Live Particle embodiment & somatics are a lens through which we approach therapeutics and their applications range from rehabilitation, creative practice & education, to trauma-informed practices, sexuality work & spiritual practice.