Somatic Yoga vs Somatic Therapy: What’s the Difference?

(And How to Know Which One You Actually Need)

If you’ve ever found yourself googling “somatic healing” at 2am wondering whether you need a therapist… or a yoga mat… or a good cry… you’re not alone.

The world of somatic work is exploding right now — and with it comes a lot of confusion.

People know they want to heal through the body.

They know talk therapy isn’t always enough.

But then what?

Somatic therapy? Somatic yoga? Somatic coaching?

They sound similar, they overlap, and yet they serve completely different purposes.

Let’s make it simple.

What “Somatic” Actually Means (In Normal-People Language)

Somatic work is any approach that helps you notice — and respond to — the body’s language.

That includes breath, movement, sound, awareness, and the five senses.

But different somatic modalities use these tools in different ways.

That’s where the confusion begins… and where hopefully this blog, and my book Healing with Somatic Yoga: A 6-Week Journey to Release Emotions, Rewire Your Nervous System, and Reclaim Your Body finally gives you clarity.

What Is Somatic Therapy (and How Is It Different from Somatic Coaching?)

Both somatic therapy and somatic coaching are body-based approaches that work with the nervous system, emotions, and psychological patterns — but they are not the same, and they serve people at different stages of healing.

Understanding the distinction helps you choose the kind of support that’s actually right for you.

Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy is a mental health modality led by a licensed clinician trained to treat trauma, dysregulation, and psychological distress through the body.

It includes approaches such as:

• Somatic Experiencing (SE)
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
• Hakomi
• Body-centered psychotherapy
  

A somatic therapist may use tools like:

✔ tracking bodily sensations
✔ titration and pendulation
✔ parts work
✔ grounding and orientation
✔ breathwork
✔ subtle movement impulses

Somatic Coaching

Somatic coaching is also body-based, but it is led by a certified somatic coach, not a licensed therapist.

Somatic coaches are trained to work with:

• the nervous system
• emotional patterns
• embodiment
• behavior change
• psychological dynamics without diagnosing or treating mental illness
  

Somatic coaching assumes the client is resourced, capable, and whole, and focuses on supporting present-moment awareness and future-forward change through the body.

Here’s the Key Difference

Somatic therapy is designed to:

✔ heal trauma
✔ resolve nervous system dysregulation
✔ process painful or overwhelming experiences
✔ work directly with the past

Somatic coaching works from a place of post-trauma growth.

That means:

• the client has some capacity to self-regulate
• emotions may still be big, but they’re navigable
• the focus is on living more fully now
• the work is oriented toward the present and future, not reprocessing the past
  

In other words:

Therapy helps you heal what happened.
Coaching helps you live differently because of it.

Somatic Therapy vs. Somatic Coaching

Somatic Therapy	Somatic Coaching
Led by a licensed mental health clinician	Led by a certified somatic coach
Clinical mental health treatment	Non-clinical personal growth modality
Past-focused	Present & future-focused
Designed to treat trauma and dysfunction	Designed to support post-trauma growth
Can diagnose and treat mental health conditions	Does not diagnose or treat
Works directly with trauma processing	Works with regulation, embodiment, and choice
Therapist is the expert	Coach is a partner and mirror
Often slow, titrated, and highly contained	Structured yet client-responsive

What a Somatic Therapist Can Help With

• Diagnosing and treating mental health conditions
• Processing trauma safely
• Supporting dissociation, freeze, shutdown, or overwhelm
• Working through emotional material that feels too big to hold alone
• Expanding your window of tolerance

What a Somatic Coach Can Help With

• Building embodied self-awareness
• Strengthening your ability to self-regulate
• Noticing and shifting patterns as they arise
• Integrating insights into daily life
• Making aligned decisions from the body, not just the mind
• Moving toward meaningful change without “fixing” yourself

Both approaches are powerful — when used for the right purpose.

So Where Does Somatic Yoga Fit?

Somatic therapy and somatic coaching work relationally, one-on-one.

Somatic yoga, on the other hand, is a self-led, movement-based practice that gives you the tools to regulate, express, and reconnect with your body in everyday life.

Which brings us to…

What Is Somatic Yoga?

(The Movement-Based, Empowering, At-Home Practice)

Somatic yoga is an intuitive, body-led movement practice that helps you reconnect with your body’s wisdom through sensation, expression, and nervous system regulation.

It uses breath, movement, sound, and sensory awareness to support regulation — not by forcing change, but by listening more deeply.

As I define it in my book, Healing with Somatic Yoga:

Somatic Yoga is an intuitive, body-led movement practice that helps you reconnect with your body’s wisdom through sensation, expression, and nervous system regulation.

(Healing with Somatic Yoga, p. 5)

The word somatic comes from the Greek soma, meaning the living body — not the body as an object to fix or improve, but as a sensing, feeling, intelligent being.

Somatic yoga works with that intelligence.

What Somatic Yoga Is (and Isn’t)

Somatic yoga is:

• non-clinical
• accessible
• experiential
• designed to help you feel safe in your body
• rooted in your natural physiology

While traditional yoga often emphasizes alignment, discipline, and performance, somatic yoga emphasizes inner experience:

• How does your body want to move?
• What sensation is arising right now?
• What message is your nervous system sending?
• What happens if you slow down… even more?

Somatic yoga gently shifts you out of your thinking mind and into your sensing body — what I call your animal body, the place where instinct, intuition, and healing live.

Somatic Healing Masterclass: Rewire Trauma, Reclaim Your Intuition (usually $67) FREE👇

Traditional Yoga vs. Somatic Yoga

This comparison chart appears in Healing with Somatic Yoga (p. 6), and it often gives readers an immediate “aha” moment:

Traditional Yoga	Somatic Yoga
Follows set sequences and precise alignment	Encourages intuitive, organic movement
Emphasizes discipline and control	Emphasizes curiosity and sensation
Aims to perfect the pose	Aims to explore what feels good
Often dissociates from body sensation	Deeply connects with body wisdom
Guided by external standards	Guided by internal awareness
Body as a project to improve	Body as a partner to trust

Traditional yoga can be powerful, strengthening, and transformative.

But it doesn’t always help us discharge, remap, or repattern survival responses stored in the nervous system.

That’s where somatic yoga comes in.

Why Somatic Yoga Works Differently

In Healing with Somatic Yoga, I describe three models of healing that somatic yoga supports:

1. The Adjustment Model – small, intuitive movements help the nervous system recalibrate
   
2. The Discharge Model – shaking, sound, breath, and movement help release stored stress and survival energy
   
3. The Process Model – emotions and patterns are allowed to unfold organically, without force or bypassing
   

Traditional yoga often aims to transcend the body in pursuit of enlightenment.

Somatic yoga works with the body, honoring its pacing, its boundaries, and its need for safety first.

Your body’s responses — tension, bracing, collapse, freeze — aren’t problems to fix.

They’re brilliant survival strategies.

Somatic yoga creates the conditions for those strategies to soften naturally, without re-traumatization.

What Somatic Yoga Supports (and What It Doesn’t)

Unlike somatic therapy:

• Somatic yoga does not diagnose or treat mental health conditions
• It does not process trauma directly
• It does not dig into your past
• It does not require a clinician
  

Instead, somatic yoga gives you daily, embodied tools to support:

✔ nervous system regulation
✔ emotional digestion
✔ softening bracing patterns
✔ releasing stress cycles
✔ increasing capacity
✔ building resilience

It is a practice, not a treatment — and that’s precisely what makes it so powerful and accessible.

Where Somatic Yoga Fits in a Healing Journey

Many people discover somatic yoga:

• before therapy, as a gentle way back into the body
• after therapy, to integrate and live differently
• alongside therapy or somatic coaching, to support regulation between sessions

It meets you exactly where you are.

If you want to explore somatic yoga at home, the best place to start is my Uplifted Yoga Membership, where you’ll find:

• An entire Somatic Yoga section
• The Do Less Nervous System Healing series
• Gentle, trauma-sensitive practices you can return to again and again
  

And if you want the full framework — including science, stories, and step-by-step practices — you can dive deeper in my book.

So What’s the Actual Difference Between Somatic Therapy, Coaching, and Yoga?

Here’s the simplest way to understand the difference:

Somatic therapy = bottom-up body awareness + clinical psychological processing

Somatic coaching = bottom-up body awareness + present and future-focused embodied change

Somatic yoga = bottom-up body awareness + nervous system support through movement and sensation

All three work with the body.

All three support regulation.

All three honor the nervous system.

But their intentions are different.

Somatic Therapy Focuses On:

• healing trauma
• resolving nervous system dysregulation
• understanding how the past shapes the present
• expanding the window of tolerance
• working with complex or overwhelming emotional material

Somatic Coaching Focuses On:

• post-trauma growth
• strengthening self-regulation capacity
• embodied decision-making
• aligning actions with values and desires
• learning to live differently now

Somatic Yoga Focuses On:

• reconnecting with the body
• sensing, expressing, and releasing energy
• cultivating inner safety
• supporting daily emotional digestion
• building embodied resilience
• completing stress cycles through movement
  

Somatic therapy helps you make sense of what shaped you.

Somatic coaching helps you embody how you want to live.

Somatic yoga helps your body feel safe enough to do both.

They are complementary — and distinct.

Which One Do You Need? (A Simple Decision Guide)

Here’s a grounded, no-nonsense breakdown.

Choose Somatic Therapy If:

• You have unprocessed trauma that feels overwhelming
• You shut down, dissociate, or panic under stress
• Your anxiety feels unmanageable
• You want structured support from a licensed clinician
• You’re working through past memories or attachment wounds
• Your emotional waves feel too big to navigate alone
  

To become a somatic therapist, you must already be a licensed clinician.

Many therapists I work with choose to add somatic coaching and movement tools on top of their clinical practice once clients reach a post-trauma growth phase.

Choose Somatic Coaching If:

• You’ve done trauma work and want to live differently now
• You can self-regulate but want support staying embodied
• You feel “functional” but not fully alive
• You want a partner, not an expert
• You want to work with the body without reprocessing the past
  

If you’re interested in becoming a somatic coach — or adding somatic coaching to your existing work — you can explore my Somatic Coaching Certification (EYLC), which trains coaches to work ethically with the nervous system, emotions, and embodiment in a post-trauma-growth framework.

Choose Somatic Yoga If:

• You want to reconnect with your body gently
• You want practical tools for everyday regulation
• You’re healing bracing patterns, chronic tension, or overwhelm
• You’re learning to feel again after years of numbing
• You want a movement-based practice you can do at home
  

If you’re curious, you can try somatic yoga in my free somatic masterclass, which gives you a felt sense of how this work supports the nervous system through movement and sensation.

If you want ongoing support, my Uplifted Yoga Membership includes an entire somatic yoga section — plus the Do Less Nervous System Healing series — designed to help you regulate, release, and come home to your body.

And if you want to teach this work, my Somatic Yoga Teacher Training is for those who want to focus on movement-based healing, nervous system regulation, and trauma-sensitive embodiment.

Choose More Than One If:

Honestly? This is where many people thrive.

Therapy helps you process the past.

Somatic coaching helps you design the present and future.

Somatic yoga helps your body feel safe enough to support both.

Together, they create a powerful, sustainable feedback loop of healing.

Final Thoughts 

Whether you choose somatic therapy, somatic coaching, somatic yoga — or a blend of all three — remember this:

Your body is not the obstacle.

Your body is the path.

Every tension, impulse, and survival response developed to keep you safe.

Somatic practices don’t force change — they create the conditions for change to emerge.

And when you learn to listen to your body with curiosity instead of control?

Everything begins to change.