We Offer:
A Certification Program for Therapists
Course For Clients to Use in Therapy
Our Processing Cycle
Sense.Open.Move.Awaken™
The S.O.M.A Method is trauma therapy rooted in the nervous system. Our Neuroception (internal surveillance system of threat of safety) reads somatic cues from trauma and ignites survival pathways of collapse, mobilization and connection - these activation pathways shape our personality. Trauma is less about what happened to us and more about what has been patterned within us.
The S.O.M.A Method understands that access to these pathways is sensory, relational and emotional; cognitive dialogue is not enough. Our experiential processing cycle accesses what cognition alone can not.
The Method:
Sense the body, Open relationally, Move emotion and Awaken new pathways.
S.O.M.A Processing
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.
The body will neuroceed (somatically perceive) what was too much for the mind to logically store.
Open
A practice of learning to receive support and internalize loving kindness. Expand your capacity to feel the roots of trauma only through safety.
Contractions and defenses in the body begin to soften with supportive attention and posture opening
Move
Move Suppressed survival responses & emotions with shaking, sighing, sounding, humming, and various forms of expression. Breathwork is often used to awaken the bodies instinct to move survival response.
Awaken
A practice to experience, remember and embody your authentic alive and condident self (pathway of connection).
Awaken grounded, flourishing nervous system patterns rooted in nurture. Own and embody your authentic self.
Survival Patterns & Pathways
The SOMA logo represents self as an embodied interactive system with three primary nervous system pathways: collapse, mobilize, and connection.
These pathways become embedded in our nervous system and patterned in our personality.
Which pathway has become your home?
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The S.O.M.A Method offers four experiential practices to access and process somatically what logic can not access.
trauma through the lens of neuroception and adaptive survival strategies.
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
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Buy 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.
