Somatic Experiencing & Touch Work
Somatic therapy supports healing by reconnecting with the body’s innate intelligence. Approaches like somatic experiencing (SE) and somatic touch work gently guide clients to notice, track, and process stored trauma, stress, and dysregulation through sensation, movement, and awareness. This work honors the nervous system’s natural rhythms and capacity for healing.
Somatic experiencing sessions may include gentle prompts to explore internal sensations, grounding practices, or mindful movement, always at your pace and with full consent. Somatic touch work, when appropriate and consensual, incorporates light, non-invasive physical contact to support regulation and restore a felt sense of safety in the body. Our somatic touch practitioners in Chicago prioritize autonomy, attunement, and transparency at every step.
We currently offer virtual somatic therapy* in Illinois, and in-person somatic healing in Irving Park, Chicago. Hybrid somatic experiencing sessions are also available.
*Somatic touch work is only available in-person at our Chicago location.
Areas of Clinical Specialty
LGBTQIA+: We offer affirming, somatic bodywork for the LGBTQIA+ community. Our queer somatic therapists support you in navigating identity development, discrimination, dysphoria, coming out, building chosen family, and other embodied experiences of queerness. Together, we’ll attend to your nervous system and your story with deep respect for your autonomy.
ENM/Poly Folks: Our somatic practitioners understand the relational and nervous system dynamics of ethical non-monogamy and polyamory. Whether you’re exploring new structures, navigating attachment ruptures, or confronting systemic stigma, we offer grounding, nonjudgmental support that honors communication and nervous system regulation.
BDSM/Kink Community: The Hinterlands affirms kink as a valid form of identity, intimacy, and body-based expression. Our kink-aware somatic therapists understand the embodied impact of kink without pathologizing your practices. We work to build safety, trust, and connection on your terms.
Immigrants/Refugees: We offer culturally responsive, body-informed care for immigrants, refugees, and first-generation individuals. Whether you're processing displacement, intergenerational trauma, or living in diaspora, somatic work enables us to tune in to how these experiences live in your body.
Substance Use: We support clients navigating substance use with somatic curiosity, compassion, and harm reduction. Whether you’re seeking sobriety, moderation, or deeper insight into your relationship with substances, we’ll explore the nervous system patterns beneath the behavior, without shame or coercion.
Chronic Illness/HIV: We understand how chronic illness and HIV can affect your body, identity, and nervous system. Somatic experiencing and somatic touch work allow you to tune into your body’s wisdom while honoring your lived experience, autonomy, and needs.
Autism/ADHD/Neuroqueer: We affirm neurodivergence as natural human variation. Our somatic work is adapted for sensory needs, communication preferences, and authenticity. Whether you identify as autistic, ADHD, or neuroqueer, we work with your nervous system, not against it, to support regulation, expression, and embodiment.
Multi-Cultural/Mixed-Race: The Hinterlands honors the layered, body-based impacts of navigating multiple cultural identities. Our somatic therapists support mixed-race and multicultural individuals as they explore identity, belonging, intergenerational trauma, and cultural dissonance.
Artists/Performers/Craftsfolk: As creatives ourselves, we understand the emotional, energetic, and bodily toll of artistic life. Whether you’re managing burnout, stress, or creative block, somatic therapy supports you in reconnecting with your body, voice, and internal rhythm.
Religious/Spiritual Trauma: We offer somatic support for those recovering from religious or spiritual trauma. Whether you're healing from coercion, shame, or loss of belonging, we hold space for the physical and emotional reverberations of those experiences and work to support grief, reclamation, and redefinition.
Parenting: We support caregivers in the complex, often body-draining work of parenting. Whether you're facing intergenerational trauma, co-parenting challenges, or raising neurodivergent kids, somatic therapy helps you regulate your nervous system so you can parent with greater presence and clarity.
Educators: We understand that educational work carries unique forms of nervous system stress. Somatic therapy creates space for rest, regulation, and reconnection with your values. Whether navigating burnout or seeking renewed purpose, your body holds wisdom about the way forward.
Activists: Justice work can activate trauma, grief, and exhaustion in the body. We offer somatic therapy support for activists confronting burnout, moral injury, or disillusionment, recognizing that the body is both a site of resistance and a source of healing.
Mad/Crip Folks: We serve Mad/Crip clients who may need clinical documentation or somatic care but wish to limit exposure to pathologizing systems. Our disability-affirming therapists offer body-based therapy rooted in agency, resistance, and care, without coercion, without fixing, and always with consent.
What to Expect
No two somatic therapy sessions look the same. We begin by understanding your story—your biography, culture, neurotype, and the wisdom your body carries. Together, we’ll clarify your goals, explore what safety and regulation mean for you, and co-create a pace and process that honors your boundaries and needs. Somatic work is just one part of a larger healing journey, where environment, identity, and nervous system patterns all matter. Tuning into these elements can be transformative, empowering, and even joyful.
Your first somatic healing appointment is a space for mutual discovery. You’ll get to know your therapist’s approach, and they’ll get to know you and how your body expresses safety, overwhelm, and resilience. We’ll also review scheduling, payment, and what to expect. We aim to help you feel grounded and supported as you reconnect with your body’s innate capacity for healing.
Somatic Therapy FAQs
-
Somatic experiencing (SE) is a body-oriented approach to healing trauma and nervous system dysregulation. It uses guided awareness of sensation, breath, and movement to help you gently process stored survival responses. SE can be done in-person at our Chicago office, virtually, or via hybrid sessions, and does not require physical contact.
Somatic touch work is a specialized, in-person modality that involves intentional, consent-based touch to support regulation and deeper access to body-held experiences. It’s often used when words or sensations alone don’t feel like enough. Touch work always centers your autonomy, and there is never any pressure to include touch in your healing process. -
Somatic therapy can be helpful if you’ve ever felt like talk therapy wasn’t quite reaching something deeper, or if your experiences live more in your body than in words. You may be navigating trauma, chronic stress, dissociation, or patterns of shutdown or overwhelm. You don’t need a specific diagnosis to benefit from somatic healing.
If you’re curious about your body’s signals, want to build safety and regulation from the inside out, or are simply looking for a new way to connect with yourself, somatic work might be a supportive next step. In our first sessions, we’ll move at your pace and explore what feels right for you. -
The psychotherapists at The Hinterlands are in-network with Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO and Aetna. We are out-of-network with all other insurance providers, including Medicaid and Medicare. Payment is due at the time of service.
If you're using out-of-network benefits, we’re happy to provide monthly superbills and statements to support your reimbursement process. We accept HSA cards, Zelle, and all major credit cards for payment.
-
We are committed to providing affordable somatic healing to our community. We offer a range of cash-pay options, including sliding scale therapy sessions. These rates are based on therapist availability and the type of treatment, and typically range from $50 to the full session fee.
Sliding scale slots are limited and tend to fill quickly. During your intake call, you can ask your therapist whether they currently have sliding scale availability.