We Offer:
A Certification Program
Course For Clients
The SOMA Method
Sense.Open.Move.Awaken™
S.O.M.A uses sensory awareness, breath & movement to facilitate the sensing and transformation of trauma from its roots of suppressed emotional pain to its branches of protective survival patterns. The method uses four somatic interventions designed to help clients sense and move somatically what words alone can not access.
S.O.M.A
Sense.Open.Move.Awaken
Sense
Sense your body from within. Learn to listen to your felt- sense and discover parts, patterns, images, memories and emotions present in the roots of your psyche.
Somatically sense the high-tension protective patterns present in your nervous system.
Open
Tense contractions and defenses in the body begin to soften with affectionate attention, breathwork, and posture opening.
Opening is a practice of receiving and internalizing support while opening patterns of bracing against feeling.
Move
Move suppressed survival responses & emotions with shaking, sighing, sounding, humming, and various forms of expression.
Engage various physicalizing practices to instinctively move and express what was at one time unsafe to feel.
Awaken
A practice to sense and embody your authentic alive and confident self-- a body both at ease and energized.
Awaken grounded, flourishing nervous system patterns rooted in nurture.
Embody ventral states of ease, low tension and balanced energy.
The Adaptive Self
The S.O.M.A Method understands self as an organic, embodied interactive adaptive system with three primary nervous system pathways: collapse, mobilize, and ease.
Our nervous system's internal surveillance system of threat or safety reads somatic cues from trauma and earliy life dynamics, igniting various survival pathways and personalty patterns.
These pathways become embedded in our nervous system and patterned in our personality.
Which pattern has become your home?
S.O.M.A Method™ Modalities
Felt-Sense Inquiry
Felt Sense tracking. Let the body speak what the mind can not
Compassion Practice
Learn to practice self-compassion and Non-Resistance
Inner-Child Dialogue
Soften the body's contractions with inner-child dialogue. Invite and increase permission to feel
EMDR & EFT
Use bi-lateral stimulation and tapping to gently move out of freeze states into mobilization
Yoga Therapy
Embody and sense the postures of the adaptive self
Breathwork
Rhythmic breathing and breath-holds support expression and regulation
Somatic Expression
qi-gong, shaking, sounding, and emotional voicing
Inner Listening
Access adult-self states of inner-belonging. Somatically listen for Healing messages
Visualization
Visualize and embody authentic self and awakened postures
A Certification Program for Therapists
Course For Clients to Use in Therapy
The S.O.M.A Method™ draws on the wisdom found in psychoanalytic and depth psychologies, polyvagel theory, IFS, focusing, attachment theory, neuroscience studies, as well as contemplative traditions.
S.O.M.A is a powerful nervous system based processing sequence interrupting adaptive patterns rooted in trauma. It is used effectively in combination with parts-work, trauma therapy, and as a daily practice.
Our 8 video course will teach you how to use this method effectively with your therapist or coach or in your own daily practice.
MEET
Carolyn Kutsko, PhD
Dr. Kutsko created the S.O.M.A Method from hundreds of her own client sessions. She is a licensed therapist and holds her PhD in Somatic and Clinical Psychology with certificates in EMDR, Relational Somatic Psychotherapy, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, BodyWay Emotional Eating Recovery, The Daring Way, Thai Massage, and Somatic Breathwork.
She wrote her dissertation on “Full Emotional Expression,” an exploration in relational support within catharsis, where she challenges theories cautioning expressive emoting and demonstrates through a phenomenological study the efficacy of relationally supported catharsis and the often miss-used and miss-understood use of "window of tolerance". She describes The S.O.M.A Method as an experiential form of therapy, waking up the body's natural organismic healing capacity.
Receive S.O.M.A Guide
Schedule a Free Discovery Call
Click Here to ScheduleBuy the S.O.M.A Method Course - $29
Enjoy 8 Video lessons combined with written experiential guidance. Learn how to apply each phase of S.O.M.A in addition to developing a deeper understanding of several common adaptive personality patterns (control, perfectionism, manipulation, addiction, codapendency, and collapse). Special attention and explanation is given to Stephen Porges Poylyvagel Theory, focusing on how ones neuroception of threat or safety underlies each pattern.
We mobilize, collapse and flourish based upon biological survival instincts— these Neuro-somatic patterns are responses to trauma and our environment; they are instinctive choices to stay safe and regulated.
The course includes a musically guided breathwork S.O.M.A practice™ which can be used anytime to regulate or relieve stress.