Why talking isn’t always enough

Here's a common experience: you already understand your pattern. You know where it came from, you can name it, you've talked it through more than once — and it still comes back. This is one of the more frequent experiences in therapy, and one of the reasons talking alone is sometimes not enough.

The body keeps the score

The psychiatrist and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk captured it in the title of his book: The Body Keeps the Score (2014). Difficult and overwhelming experiences are recorded not only as a story we can consciously recall, but also as implicit memory — in tensions, reflexes, the way we breathe, automatic reactions to cues. This memory doesn't live in the layer of words, so words alone struggle to reach it.

Top-down and bottom-up

Talking mainly engages the „thinking” brain — it helps us understand, make meaning, plan. That's „top-down” work. But many patterns live below words: in the nervous system, in the body, in reflexes. Here „bottom-up” work helps: through sensation, breath, movement, and mindful noticing of what is happening in the body right now. One doesn't exclude the other — the two paths complement each other.

States of the nervous system

You've probably noticed different „modes” in yourself: a state in which you feel safe and open to contact; a state of mobilisation — tension, unease, readiness to act or flee; and a state of withdrawal — numbness, fatigue, a sense of cutting off. The language of these states was popularised by Stephen Porges's polyvagal theory. It's worth saying honestly that its neurophysiological and evolutionary premises are currently the subject of serious scientific debate and criticism. The clinical observation itself — that we move between states, and that a sense of safety changes everything — is, however, widely shared, regardless of the dispute over mechanisms. In somatic work we also pay close attention to interoception: the ability to sense signals from inside the body.

Safety is relational

The nervous system doesn't calm down on command — it calms in the presence of another, safe person. This is why the therapeutic relationship itself is regulating: a calm, attentive presence helps the body learn again that it's possible to feel safe. What was once hurt in relationship also heals most fully in relationship.

Where somatic work begins

In my practice I draw on approaches that give the body a central place — among them Bodynamic Analysis, a somatic-developmental approach from Denmark, and Somatic Experiencing. Rather than only talking about emotions, we learn to sense them, to track their movement in the body, and to find resources there: support, breath, the ground under our feet. This isn't instead of understanding — it's understanding that travels from the head into the body.

If you feel that you „know it all and nothing changes”, or that a difficulty sits somewhere in the body deeper than words, it may be worth trying another way. You're welcome to get in touch.