Twenty minutes into our first conversation, a woman sitting across from me still has her coat on, zipped to the collar, and when I ask whether she has noticed, she looks down, laughs, and says she had not. She came in to ask whether somatic coaching could do anything about the tightness she carries between her shoulder blades from Monday through Friday, the kind that no stretching routine reaches. The coat is the first piece of information either of us has.
Whether coaching is right for you depends on what you came in with and on what you need from the person across from you, so the honest answer takes more than a yes or a no.
What does a somatic coach do?
I am a coach, not a therapist. I work from Hakomi, a mindfulness-based, body-centered method that Ron Kurtz began developing in the United States in the late 1970s, and a session with me looks less like a conversation about your week than like a slow, shared study of what is happening in you right now. We might notice that your breath goes shallow when you talk about your manager. I might offer a small experiment: a sentence spoken aloud, a hand resting on the back of the chair, a change in posture, and we watch together to see what your body does with it. Hakomi calls this stance loving presence, which in practice means I am curious about you rather than busy fixing you.
What I do not do is assess, name, or manage a condition, prescribe anything, or bill insurance. If a pattern we find together turns out to be bigger than a coaching relationship can hold, I will say so and help you find a therapist, because sending someone to the right person is part of the job.
Who does somatic coaching help?
The people who get the most from coaching tend to be functioning reasonably well and tired of a specific pattern they cannot think their way out of. A composite of a few of them:
- Someone who tenses before every meeting and has read enough about the nervous system to know the tension is a signal, but cannot find the signal from the inside.
- Someone who says yes when they mean no and feels the yes in their stomach for the rest of the afternoon.
- Someone who runs, lifts, or dances and wants to know their body from the inside rather than from a mirror or a watch.
- Someone who has finished a course of therapy, feels steady, and wants a place to keep practicing attention to the body without reopening the whole story.
What these people share is a question about how they live in their bodies rather than an emergency, and that is a question a coach can work on.
Who should see a therapist instead?
Some situations call for a licensed therapist, and coaching is not a substitute in any of them. Please see a therapist, or call or text 988, if any of the following is true:
- You are in crisis right now.
- You are having thoughts of harming yourself or someone else.
- You need a diagnosis, whether for your own understanding, for accommodations at school or work, or for a court or an employer.
- You need medication, or you need someone who can coordinate with the person prescribing it.
- You need care that your insurance will cover.
If you already work with a therapist and want to add coaching, tell me, and tell them, since coaching alongside therapy works best when your therapist and I each know the other exists.
A quick way to sort it
| Situation | Coaching fits | See a therapist |
|---|---|---|
| You hold tension you cannot locate and want to study it | Yes | |
| You want to know your body better for dance, sport, or daily life | Yes | |
| You are grieving, still functioning, and want company in noticing it | Often | If the grief stops you from working, eating, or sleeping |
| You are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself | Yes, now | |
| You need a diagnosis, medication, or insurance-covered care | Yes | |
| You are in therapy and want a body-based practice beside it | Yes, with your therapist’s knowledge |
What happens if you are not sure?
Most people who contact me are not sure, which is why the first step is a discovery call rather than a booking. On the call I will ask what brought you, listen for whether what you describe sits in the coaching column or the therapy column, and tell you plainly which one I hear. If I hear the therapy column, you will leave the call with that said out loud and with my help finding someone. You can book the call from the coaching page.
The woman with the coat did not take it off that day. We spent part of the hour on what it would be like to, and she said she would think about it, which is sometimes exactly where a first session ends.