Body centered psychotherapy is sometimes referred to as somatic psychotherapy. It combines a range of approaches that promote psychological health while considering the body's role in healing and life experience. People often repress the impulses, emotions and feelings that form part of our experiences, and body centered psychotherapy opens up their understanding and experience of these aspects.

This form of therapy offers a level of healing that is not often experienced in conventional talk therapy. The conscious controls verbal expression and maintenance of muscular tension. Those functions anchor and reinforce a person's characterological responses to their environment. Body centered psychotherapy helps patients to become aware of their physiological sensations, impulses and emotions to gain greater control over their thoughts and behaviours.

A body centered psychotherapy therapist will guide the client to increase body awareness to become conscious of their movements, breathing, and the way in which they speak.

If you are looking for a therapist who offers body centered psychotherapy therapy, please browse our list of practitioners below..

There are a variety of approaches to address the issue of shame.  One of them is the Shame Resilience method is based on the research of Brené Brown, Ph.D. LMSW. 

Shame Resilience is the developed ability to practice authenticity when we experience shame, to move through the experience without sacrificing our values, and to come out on the other side of the shame experience with more courage, compassion, and connection than we had going into it.

Shame Resilience is about moving from shame to empathy- the real antidote to shame. Self-compassion is also critically important, because when we’re able to be tender with ourselves in the midst of shame we’re more likely to reach out, connect and experience empathy.

Other approaches, like Complex Integration of Multiple Brain Systems (CIMBS)  uses what is called a systems perspective that can address how an individual has learned to respond due to early trauma and or other developmental experiences.

Approaches to shame are not limited to the above.  There are many other therapies that address feeling.

If you do contact a therapist regarding shame issues please make sure that you ask them about their training in this area and choose a therapist whose approach makes sense to you.