Most people who book this kind of work spend the week beforehand quietly bracing.
Not for the session. For a version of it they’ve assembled from films, from a friend’s retreat story, and from the general cultural sense that body-based work involves crying on a floor in front of a stranger while someone says let it move through you.
I want to describe what actually happens instead, in enough detail that you can decide whether you want it — including the parts that are unglamorous and the parts where the evidence is thinner than my industry usually admits.
The short version
You sit in a chair. You talk about the thing you keep circling. I watch what your body does while you talk about it.
That’s the technique. Everything else is refinement.
What actually happens, minute by minute
The first five minutes are administrative and slightly boring. How you are today, not how you are in general. Whether you slept. What’s already happened to you this morning — because a session at 9 am after a fight in the car is a different session, and pretending otherwise wastes both of us.
Then I ask what brought you. You’ll probably have prepared a version. Most people do, and the prepared version is useful — not because it’s the truth, but because how you tell it is data. Where the pace changes. Where the detail suddenly gets specific or suddenly goes vague. Where you smile at a part that isn’t funny.
Somewhere in the next ten minutes, something in your body will do something. A shift in the shoulders. A breath that doesn’t complete. A hand that starts moving. You almost certainly won’t notice it. I’ll ask about it, and my question will seem oddly small — “what happened in your chest just then?” — because small is where this work happens.
That question is usually the hinge. Not because it’s clever, but because it interrupts the narration. You’ve told this story before. You have not been asked what your body was doing during it.
We follow that, slowly, for most of the hour. Slowly is not a stylistic preference. A nervous system integrates new information at a limited rate, and going faster produces overwhelm, which is not therapeutic and undoes the session.
The last ten minutes come back up. Deliberately. You are going to leave this room and drive somewhere. We finish by naming what happened in plain language and identifying one different thing, and it will usually be smaller than you hoped and more specific than you expected.
What you will be asked
Standard: what medication you take. Sleep. Whether you’ve done this kind of work before and how it went. Whether anything is currently unsafe in your life.
What you will never be asked to do
You will not be asked to relive anything. Competent somatic work is titrated — it works at the edge of what your system can currently process, not in the middle of it. Being flooded isn’t a breakthrough. It’s a session run badly, and it can set you back.
You will not be asked to lie on the floor and breathe until something happens. Breathwork is a specific tool with specific indications. It is not the default setting, and it is not what a first hour is for.
You will not be given a diagnosis. I’m a medicinal chemist and a somatic practitioner. I am not a licensed psychotherapist; I do not diagnose, and if something in the room belongs with a clinician, I will tell you that in the room rather than three months later.
You will not be told what your soul is trying to teach you. If that’s what you’re after, I’m the wrong person, and I’d rather be the wrong person out loud than take your money.
What this is not
It isn’t therapy, and the distinction is legal rather than rhetorical: therapy is a regulated profession with diagnostic scope. Somatic coaching is not.
It isn’t a sales call with a session attached. There’s nothing to upgrade to at the end unless you ask.
It isn’t a replacement for medical care, medication, or a psychiatrist.
“Trauma-informed” is an unregulated term
This is the part I’d want to know if I were you.
Anyone can write “trauma-informed” on a website. There is no licensing body, no protected title, no minimum training, and no complaints procedure attached to the phrase. It ranges from a five-hour online module to years of supervised clinical work, and the website copy is identical either way.
So it can’t function as a filter, and you need one — which is what the next section is.
While we’re being honest about the field: the evidence base is thinner than it’s usually presented. A 2021 scoping review of Somatic Experiencing found promising results and stated, in the authors’ own words, that “the overall study quality is mixed” (1). Cochrane risk-of-bias concerns were flagged across the included studies.
I use these methods because the mechanism is coherent and because I watch them work in front of me. I’m not going to tell you they’re settled science, because they aren’t yet, and you’re entitled to know what you’re buying.
Three questions to ask before you book
Ask any practitioner, including me. The content of the answer matters less than whether they can give one without getting defensive.
1. What’s your training, and what does it not qualify you to do? Look for a specific scope and a specific limit. “I work with everything” is not a credential.
2. What happens if we get it wrong? Rupture in this work is normal and expected; the evidence points to repair as the variable that matters. A practitioner who has never considered getting it wrong has not thought about the job properly.
3. When would you refer me elsewhere? A good answer is immediate and concrete. Hesitation here is the single most informative response you will get.
There’s more on this in how to tell whether a practitioner is genuinely trauma-informed.
What it looks like when it works — and when it doesn’t
When it works, you usually don’t leave transformed. You leave with something named more precisely than when you arrived — and the change shows up on Tuesday, in a moment where you’d normally do the thing and there’s an extra half-second before you do.
That half-second is the whole product. It doesn’t photograph well.
When it doesn’t, nothing much happens. That’s a real outcome, and it’s more common than the industry admits. What should happen next is that your practitioner says so plainly, and either adjusts the approach or tells you this isn’t the right method for you. What should not happen is a manufactured breakthrough so that everyone feels the hour was worth it.
If you want to start
The First Hour is sixty minutes, one-to-one, online. It’s €35.
The rate is low because I’m currently certifying in Compassionate Inquiry, and it rises when I certify. I’d rather tell you that plainly than dress it up as a limited offer.
You bring the thing you keep circling. We work with what your body does while you talk about it. You leave with the pattern underneath named out loud — usually for the first time.
That’s the whole offer. There isn’t a hidden second half.
Frequently asked questions
Will I have to relive my trauma?
No. Competent somatic work is titrated — it deliberately works at the edge of what your system can process rather than plunging into the middle of it. Being flooded is not therapeutic and is a sign the session is being run badly.
Do I have to talk about my childhood?
Only if it’s relevant to what you came in with. You bring the current situation; history surfaces if the pattern points there. Nobody should be excavating your childhood on a schedule.
What if I don’t feel anything in my body?
Extremely common, and it’s information rather than failure. Reduced interoceptive access is a well-documented feature of chronic stress. A competent practitioner works with the absence rather than pushing through it.
Is somatic work evidence-based?
Partially, and honestly the evidence base is thinner than the field implies. A 2021 scoping review of Somatic Experiencing found promising results alongside the authors’ own conclusion that overall study quality is mixed (1). Worth knowing before you spend money.
What if nothing happens in my session?
Sometimes nothing dramatic happens, and that’s a legitimate outcome. A good practitioner will say so rather than manufacture a breakthrough. What should happen is that you leave with something named more precisely than when you arrived.
How is this different from therapy?
Therapy is a regulated profession with diagnostic scope. Somatic coaching is not. A practitioner who isn’t a licensed therapist shouldn’t be diagnosing you, and should tell you when something belongs with a clinician.
References
(1) Kuhfuß, M.; Maldei, T.; Hetmanek, A.; Baumann, N. Somatic Experiencing — Effectiveness and Key Factors of a Body-Oriented Trauma Therapy: A Scoping Literature Review. Eur. J. Psychotraumatol. 2021, 12 (1), 1929023. DOI: 10.1080/20008198.2021.1929023.
Rosa F. Brissos, PhD, is a medicinal chemist and holistic therapist specialising in nervous system regulation, somatic trauma work, and preparation and integration of altered states. Based in Portugal. Working internationally.
