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Somatic Humanism: An Emerging integrative therapeutic approach

Somatic Humanism is a co-regulatory trauma therapy that works with two nervous systems — not one.
Healing emerges from the interaction of body sensation, emotional truth, unconscious material, and relational safety, explored together in real time.

Instead of a practitioner “regulating” or “fixing” the client, Somatic Humanism treats the client as an agentic partner. Both parties track their lived experience using “I” language — thoughts, feelings, body sensations, impulses, and subtle cues — and explore what arises with curiosity and choice.

The therapeutic relationship provides order (safety), which makes it possible to approach activation, shadow, and implicit memory, and return again without overwhelm.

There is no hierarchy, no expert override, and no reduction of the client to a dysregulated nervous system. Healing happens between people, because trauma happened between people — and the nervous system learns safety through co-regulation, not compliance.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Most therapy models treat trauma like a thinking problem — or a behavior problem — to be corrected with insight or coping strategies.

But trauma is not stored in thoughts alone.

It lives in:

  • the autonomic nervous system

  • the body’s survival responses

  • relational memory

  • implicit emotion

  • unexpressed shadow

Somatic Humanism brings the body and the relationship together, so the nervous system can finally do what it couldn’t do then: complete, express, integrate, and connect.

WHAT MAKES SOMATIC HUMANISM DIFFERENT

Unlike traditional somatic therapies that position the practitioner as the regulator and the client as the regulated, Somatic Humanism is built on one non-negotiable principle:

Two nervous systems co-regulating together.

That means:

  • no hierarchy

  • no interpretation from above

  • no “fixing”

  • no bypassing the human relationship

Instead, healing emerges through:

  • attunement

  • curiosity

  • “I-experience” tracking

  • safety + choice

  • nervous system mutuality

Because the body doesn’t heal through compliance — it heals through connection.

WHAT SESSIONS LOOK LIKE

Sessions are not passive. They are not performative. They are not clinical role-play.

Client and therapist both track real-time experience, using “I” language across:

  • thoughts

  • emotions

  • body sensations

  • impulses

  • unconscious cues

This provides order (safety) to explore activation, shadow, and unfinished survival responses — and return again without overwhelm.

No forcing.
No flooding.
No reenactment.
Just presence, pace, and co-regulation.

WHO THIS IS FOR

Somatic Humanism supports people who:

  • feel stuck after years of talk therapy

  • struggle with shutdown, overwhelm, or dissociation

  • sense that coping strategies aren’t enough

  • want real change, not just insight

  • crave a therapy that feels human, not mechanical

If the body keeps the score, Somatic Humanism lets the body finally finish the story.

WHAT CLIENTS REPORT

While every journey is unique, clients commonly describe:

  • feeling safer in their body

  • reduced anxiety and shutdown

  • clearer emotional expression

  • increased agency and boundaries

  • improved relationships

  • greater connection to self

Not just symptom reduction — integration.

THE FUTURE OF TRAUMA THERAPY IS RELATIONAL + SOMATIC

For decades, somatic therapy focused on the body, and humanistic therapy focused on the person.

Somatic Humanism unifies the two.

It honors:

  • the body’s intelligence

  • the client’s agency

  • the therapist’s humanity

  • the science of co-regulation

This is therapy for a world that understands trauma better — and demands more from healing

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE APPROACH

Somatic Humanism is grounded in three major evidence-based fields:

1. Interpersonal Neurobiology (Schore, Siegel, Feldman)

Humans regulate through co-regulation.
The nervous system shifts state through facial expression, tone, presence, and attunement.

2. Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges)

Safety is evaluated beneath consciousness via neuroception, not logic.
Social connection is a biological intervention, not a metaphor.

3. Attachment & Developmental Psychology

The most robust predictor of therapeutic outcome is the quality of the relationship, not the technique.
Somatic Humanism elevates that relationship into the active method of change.

Together, this research shows that trauma is relational — and so is healing.

4. Somatic Expression & Embodied Trauma Processing (van der Kolk, Levine, Ogden)

Emotional experience and trauma are not only cognitive — they are physiological and embodied.

Research in trauma therapy shows that movement, posture, breath, and expressive action help the nervous system complete survival responses and restore regulation.

FOR CLINICIANS

Train in a model that integrates:

  • somatics

  • attachment

  • polyvagal theory

  • relational psychology

  • shadow work

  • trauma science

Upcoming cohorts accepting applications.

Join the Training →

FOOTNOTE

Somatic Humanism is an integrative psychological approach co-founded by Daniel LeRoy and Kyle Kearnan.  It synthesizes research from:

  • Interpersonal Neurobiology

  • Polyvagal Theory

  • Affective Neuroscience

  • Attachment Science

  • Somatic Psychology

  • Humanistic Therapy

With contributions from:

  • Stephen Porges

  • Allan Schore

  • Dan Siegel

  • Peter Levine

  • Gabor Maté

  • Eugene Gendlin

  • Carl Rogers

Modern trauma therapy has evolved.
Somatic Humanism is where it’s going.