Does Somatic Bodywork Help With Chronic Pain?

The answer to this question depends on the nature of your pain, the source of the pain, your relationship with the pain, and what you have or haven’t already tried. If you’re not sure if somatic bodywork is the right modality for working with your pain, below are some questions you can ask yourself as you reflect on the best match for care.

Is the pain related to a stress in your life?

Does your pain get worse when you are under stress? If so, there is decent chance the pain is something you are creating through a tightening or holding in your body. For example, I have many clients who have headaches when their stress builds. Fortunately, many of them have learned to identify where and how in their bodies they first start to contract when they are under pressure. I can think of one client in particular who has learned to let her belly be soft when she is under stress to keep the tension from building into a full-blown migraine. Body pain that increases with psychological distress is very often something that can be addressed through somatic bodywork and coaching. Similarly, when the pain is correlated with a trauma, this can also be an indication that the body is stuck in a contraction. Somatic bodywork is a powerful way to deepen your felt sense of where and how in your body you hold tension related to stress or trauma. 

Have you explored your pain with a physician or medical professional?

Mysterious pain that has no obvious organic cause or medical cause is another indication that somatic bodywork could be a good choice. Sometimes people have had physical traumas, after which the pain continues long past the time when (medically speaking) everything has healed. It’s possible to hold tension unconsciously in our bodies chronically long after the injury has subsided. This generates pain. Both psychological and physical traumas create a contraction in the body and, if we are not paying attention, we can hold onto that contraction for many years. This is the body taking care of itself and armoring and protecting, however sometimes we need to remind the body that it is safe and that we can begin to soften around that holding. Somatic bodywork is an excellent choice if you identify with this type of habituated tightness. 

Are you looking for the pain simply to go away or do you want to change your relationship to the pain?

If you just want the pain to stop and you have yet to explore the discomfort with a physician or physical therapist, it may be that you are in need of a more clinical approach to addressing or treating your pain. On the other hand, if you identify that the pain itself may or may totally go away and you want to focus on ways you can be with the pain, bodywork and coaching will serve you well. It’s common that the physical pain is actually less stressful than the story we have about our pain. For example, do you notice yourself thinking, “I hate this pain so much and it’s not fair I have to deal with this - nobody else has to deal with this!”? The anger that can accompany our pain creates its own type of contraction in the body and can easily exacerbate the physical pain. Learning to shift the self-narrative about your pain to a story that is more self-forgiving and self-caring can ease the body, whether or not it relieves the actual physical pain.

What is the pain doing for you?

Is this pain taking care of something? This can be a powerful question to sit with. Sometimes pain keeps us from going deeper in ourselves. For instance, if I’m always in physical discomfort, then I never have to feel my grief or my disappointment. Keeping ourselves focused on pain is understandable, but it also can starve us of our capacity to be with our more difficult emotions and thoughts, which in return can keep us in a cycle where nothing really resolves or heals.

Schedule an in person or online (virtual) somatic bodywork session to explore if this modality of bodywork is the right fit for you.