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Somatic Therapy: A New Service at Ocean Hills
- paulettecrowley
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
At Ocean Hills, our mission has always been to support recovery holistically – treating not just behaviour, but the whole person: mind, body and nervous system. That’s why we’re pleased to introduce Somatic Therapy, offered by our skilled therapist, Liz Webster. For many clients, this offers a fresh, powerful path toward healing – especially for those who feel stuck or unfulfilled by traditional talk-based approaches alone.
Somatic therapy is often described as “the bottom-up approach” to healing. Rather than focusing solely on thoughts or narratives, it works directly with the body – the nervous system, physical sensations, and stored trauma that can be held in the body long after the mind thinks it’s healed.
“Doing this work in my own healing journey from alcohol addiction & mental health, is like getting the last of the peanut butter out of the jar!!” Liz reflects. “I have safely released old traumas and beliefs and even emotions that I have carried that didn’t even belong to me!”
In the journey of recovery, sometimes we know what happened – but the body still carries the imprint. Somatic therapy offers a way to release what the mind alone cannot reach.
Why Somatic Therapy?
Many people seeking help begin with talk therapy, and for many, it’s deeply useful. Talk therapy offers tools to process past events, explore feelings and shift patterns of thinking. But for some – especially those whose trauma, stress, or addiction is deeply rooted – talk therapy can reach only part of the picture. The body may still hold unresolved tension, tightness, pain, dissociation or emotional numbing. Sunrise Counseling Services+2MyTherapy+2
Traditional talk therapy may help with coping, reframing or insight but it doesn’t always lead to transformation at the level of the nervous system or the body. Wholly You+2Alison H. Counseling+2
This is where somatic therapy can be a game-changer for people who:
want to release unresolved emotions or trauma that may have contributed to addiction
have tried talk therapy but still feel stuck, disconnected or physically tense
are ready to address long-held physical, emotional, and nervous-system imbalances
seek a more integrative, body-aware path to healing.
Somatic therapy offers a different approach – one that honours the mind–body connection and invites healing from the bottom up.
What happens in a Somatic Therapy session
At Ocean Hills, Somatic Therapy sessions with Liz are tailored individually. Liz is trained in Embodied Processing (EP), Root Cause Therapy (RCT), somatic- and trauma-informed yoga therapy, as well as addiction studies – and draws on her own lived experience of trauma, addiction, mental health struggles and family disconnection. This deep personal understanding allows her to hold a grounded, compassionate, safe space for clients.
Sessions may include a mix of:
Nervous system tracking and regulation work
Gentle embodied movement, breathwork or somatic yoga
Guided awareness of body sensations where tension, pain or “stuck emotion” may reside
Grounding, resourcing, and pacing – to ensure safety while accessing and releasing stored stress
Somatic-informed dialogue or reflections (as needed)
Tools and practices clients can use between sessions to support regulation, embodiment and self-awareness.
“Learning how to sit with emotions, acknowledge them and help them to release is transformative,” Liz says.
Because somatic therapy works at a more fundamental, physiological level, many clients who once felt numb, disconnected, tense or overwhelmed begin to sense more aliveness, fluidity, calm – even before they have fully processed memories or stories.
The science and research
Somatic therapy is still a developing field, but emerging research is encouraging. A scoping review of 16 eligible studies found that SE was associated with significant reductions in PTSD-related symptoms.
Other studies and clinical reviews report benefits including improved emotional regulation, reduced anxiety and depression symptoms, better overall wellbeing and greater resilience, especially among people recovering from trauma or chronic stress.
For people in addiction recovery, this can be especially meaningful – trauma, dysregulated nervous systems and unprocessed emotional pain are often underlying drivers of addictive behaviour. By working at the level of the body, somatic therapy helps restore balance.
It’s important to note that somatic therapy is still growing. Compared with well-established therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), the scientific literature is smaller.
But for many people, this work provides shifts in a way talk therapy could not.
Somatic Therapy at Ocean Hills
At Ocean Hills we strive to provide care that honours the complexity of recovery. Addiction rarely exists in isolation; it often intertwines with trauma, family dynamics, emotional pain, nervous-system dysregulation and long-held coping patterns. Somatic therapy is a powerful addition to our service offering because it meets people where they are – sometimes before words, stories or insight can reach the heart of the matter.
If you’ve tried talk therapy without experiencing the changes you hoped for, or if you sense there is more to heal – something held deep in the body – somatic therapy may be what unlocks transformation.
If you or a loved one is struggling with alcohol, contact Ocean Hills founder Elaine on 027 574 7744. You can also check out our admissions page here.
*This award-winning podcast was made with the help of Radio Hawke's Bay.
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