Intensives address the physiological layer of trauma, which is difficult to access through cognitive or verbal approaches alone. They are designed to complement your client's work with you, not compete with it or replace it. Many clients find that concentrated somatic work creates more capacity to engage with the therapeutic work they return to afterward. You remain the primary provider throughout.

No. Alex's role is explicitly adjunct. Your client remains in your care and you remain the primary provider. The somatic work addresses the physiological layer that talk-based approaches don't typically reach directly. If your client is working with you at the time of the referral, that relationship continues unchanged.

Your client begins their intake and somatic work with Alex at their own pace. With explicit client consent, Alex can provide occasional updates to support continuity and alignment with your approach. If no updates are requested, the client's work remains fully contained within their somatic sessions. There is no formal referral form required. Direct contact to discuss a specific client is always welcome.

The evidence base for SE is growing and is more developed than many clinicians realise. A 2021 literature review found preliminary evidence for positive effects of SE on PTSD-related symptoms, as well as on affective and somatic symptoms and measures of wellbeing in both traumatised and non-traumatised populations. Resource orientation and the use of touch were identified as method-specific key factors by both practitioners and clients.

The honest answer is that SE has a promising and growing evidence base, but has not yet accumulated the volume of randomised controlled trials that CBT has. It is not fringe, and it is not unresearched. For clients who have not responded adequately to evidence-based cognitive approaches, SE addresses a different physiological layer and is a clinically reasonable next step

That's worth taking seriously rather than pushing through. If a client is in acute crisis, actively destabilised, or doesn't yet have enough capacity to tolerate body-based work, referring too early can do more harm than good.

If you're unsure about timing, the 15-minute professional consultation is a good place to think it through together. Sometimes the question isn't whether somatic work is appropriate, but when. And sometimes the answer is not yet, which is a useful thing to establish before the client makes contact.

For Ontario-based clients who want to use insurance, sessions can be arranged through Whole Heart Mental Health and Wellness under the clinical supervision of Daisy Galeano (CRPO). A standard intake process applies through the clinic.

For clients outside Ontario or those not using insurance, sessions are available directly through Body Mind Reset as a private pay practice.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-based approach to working with the physiological effects of trauma and stress, developed by Dr. Peter Levine. It draws on an understanding of how the mammalian nervous system responds to threat. When a stress response cycle doesn't complete, the activation that was mobilized for survival can remain in the system, showing up as hypervigilance, freeze states, chronic tension, dissociation, or dysregulation. SE works with those incomplete responses directly, without requiring you to retell or relive what happened.

For clients outside Ontario or those not using insurance, sessions are available directly through Body Mind Reset as a private pay practice.

Somatic work tends to be a good fit if you've already done significant cognitive or emotional work and still find your body responding in ways you can't think your way out of. If you understand your patterns clearly but the understanding hasn't changed how your system actually responds, that gap is usually what somatic work addresses.

It's also a good fit if you're newer to any kind of therapeutic work and want to start with something that doesn't require you to narrate your history in detail.