Compassionate somatic therapy in Virginia allows residents to process trauma through body-based healing with online sessions available statewide.
My name is Micah Fleitman, LPC. I am a Somatic and trauma therapist in Virginia. I can help you heal overwhelming emotions, poor self-esteem, and painful relationships by fusing Somatic Therapy with EMDR and other trauma therapies.
Through secure online sessions, I support individuals throughout Virginia in reconnecting with their bodies and building lasting safety from within.
Many people seeking somatic therapy in Virginia describe feeling trapped in their own bodies. Whether you’re in Arlington, Richmond, or anywhere across the state, these struggles show up in similar ways.
Virginia residents from Alexandria to Virginia Beach recognize these patterns.
One small moment, a look, a tone, a change in someone’s mood, can leave you spiraling. You replay conversations, second-guess your every move, and still feel like you’re not getting it right. People throughout Northern Virginia, from Radnor-Fort Myer Heights to Clarendon, know this exhausting internal battle intimately.
But you don’t feel safe in your own skin, and you definitely don’t feel safe letting someone else get close. It’s hard not to blame yourself for it. For not being more “together,” more “normal,” more lovable. Somatic therapy in Virginia helps address this fundamental lack of felt safety.
But now those patterns are holding you back. Somatic Therapy helps you gently unwind them by listening to what your body has been trying to tell you all along. Virginia individuals throughout the state benefit from this body-based approach to healing.
Your body remembers what your mind tries to forget. Somatic therapy helps you finally release what you've been holding.
Work with an experienced somatic therapist in Virginia who specializes in body-based trauma healing.
You notice what your emotions are telling you and respond with clarity. You set boundaries with ease, speak up without shame, and let love in without fear.
With somatic therapy, you can:
This is what healing can feel like. And with Somatic Therapy, VA, it’s possible.
Even if you know you’re safe now, your body might not believe it yet. Somatic Therapy near me helps you gently explore how your body has learned to protect you. And help it recognize when the threat has passed so you can relax without feeling unsafe.
Together, we slow things down so you can start to notice what’s happening inside. We work with those patterns, not to force them to change, but to offer them something they didn’t have before: understanding, choice, and safety.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. It means you don’t have to live in reaction to it anymore.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. It means you don’t have to live in reaction to it anymore.
For a long time, I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. My emotions felt overwhelming, and I didn’t know how to let people care for me. I tried to hold it all together, but I never felt good enough.
Healing began when I stopped fighting my feelings and started listening to them.
I learned that even the parts of me I wanted to ignore were trying to help me. And they needed my help too. As I began to trust myself, I was able to let others in—fully, safely, and without shame.
Now I help others do the same. You’re not broken. You’re carrying pain that deserves care. Healing is possible—and you don’t have to do it alone.
Hello. I’m Micah Fleitman, LPC.
Alex had spent years in traditional talk therapy, understanding their trauma intellectually but still feeling trapped in their body. The chronic tension, unexplained pain, and constant sense of being on edge wouldn’t respond to cognitive approaches alone.
They knew something was missing. When they discovered somatic therapy in Virginia, they were skeptical but desperate for a different approach. The idea of working directly with their body, rather than just talking about it, felt both terrifying and necessary.
When Alex came to me, I took time to explain the framework I would be using before we began. This transparency mattered deeply to them. I explained how trauma lives in the body, how the nervous system gets stuck in protective patterns, and how somatic therapy helps release what’s been held.
We discussed polyvagal theory, the window of tolerance, and how bilateral stimulation combined with body awareness could create lasting change. Alex treasured having this roadmap, knowing what to expect and why.
We began with gentle breathwork and body scanning, teaching Alex to notice sensations without becoming overwhelmed. I used bilateral stimulation through tapping and eye movements while Alex tracked physical sensations connected to traumatic memories. We worked with pendulation, moving between activation and calm, gradually expanding their window of tolerance.
Session by session, Alex learned to stay present with difficult emotions in their body rather than dissociating or becoming flooded. The chronic shoulder tension began to release. Their sleep improved. They started recognizing when their nervous system was moving into hyperarousal or shutdown.
Throughout our work together, Alex could count on my reliability. I was consistently communicative, flexible when life happened, and present during every session. This consistency mattered because it was often what Alex had missed in early relationships.
The therapeutic relationship itself became a place to practice feeling safe with another person. Week after week, Alex knew they could depend on me to show up, to stay grounded when they couldn’t, and to hold steady belief in their capacity to heal.
Today, Alex describes feeling “at home” in their body for the first time they can remember. The constant vigilance has softened. They can feel emotions without being consumed by them. They’ve rebuilt relationships that had been strained by their trauma responses. Most significantly, they trust themselves now, their body’s signals, their emotional responses, and their intuition.
You can count on somatic therapy to change the rest of your life. For Alex, it meant moving from survival to actually living. Virginia residents throughout the state discover this same profound shift.
Name and identifying details have been changed for privacy purposes.
You Deserve a Healing Process That Cares for All of You
Trauma lives in your body, emotions, relationships, and sense of self. By combining Somatic Therapy with other powerful trauma therapies, we can gently care for every part of your experience.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing: Releasing Stuck Trauma Gently
EMDR helps your brain process the memories that keep you feeling trapped, while Somatic Therapy helps your body let go of the tension and fear tied to them, so healing feels natural, deep, and lasting.
IFS helps you connect with the parts of you that carry pain, while Somatic Therapy helps your body release the protective patterns those parts created, so you feel more whole and less fragmented.
TF-CBT challenges the painful beliefs trauma created, while Somatic Therapy addresses how those beliefs live in your body as tension, shutdown, or hypervigilance.
Psychodynamic work explores how early relationships shaped your patterns, while Somatic Therapy helps your body learn new ways of experiencing connection and safety.
Hypnosis accesses the subconscious patterns holding pain, while Somatic Therapy helps your body integrate and release what hypnosis brings to awareness.
You deserve a healing process that cares for all of you. By integrating the most powerful trauma therapies, we can meet you wherever you are and walk with you toward where you want to go. Virginia individuals throughout the state benefit from this comprehensive approach to body-based healing.
Somatic Therapy meets you where you are and helps you move forward in a way that feels gentle, grounded, and fully in your control.
Here’s how it works:
Before exploring anything difficult, we’ll build a foundation of safety by helping you recognize and meet your body’s needs with care and respect.
You’ll learn how to:
Instead of diving into stories from the past, we pay attention to how your body responds in the present. Because trauma isn’t just what happened—it’s what your body still remembers.
We’ll understand what they’re trying to protect you from. Then we experiment with small, gentle shifts in your body that help you feel stronger or more open.
These new experiences tell your body: “You’re not stuck anymore. You get to choose. You are safe now.”
As your body begins to trust the safety you’re building, new possibilities open up. Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop, you start to feel:
As you nurture a felt sense of these new beliefs in the body, you’ll go from this…….to this
The autonomic nervous system has three states: ventral vagal (social engagement and safety), sympathetic (fight or flight), and dorsal vagal (shutdown and freeze). Trauma pushes your nervous system out of the safety zone and into survival mode, where it can become stuck.
The Polyvagal Ladder: Understanding Your Nervous System States
Ventral Vagal (Safety and Social Engagement): You feel calm, connected, and capable of engaging with others. Your body knows it’s safe. This is where healing happens.
Sympathetic (Fight or Flight): Your heart races, muscles tense, thoughts speed up. You feel anxious, angry, or panicked. Your body is preparing to fight or run from danger.
Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown and Freeze): You feel numb, exhausted, disconnected. Your body has moved into conservation mode, shutting down to survive what feels overwhelming.
The Window of Tolerance: Your window of tolerance is the zone where you can process emotions and experiences without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. Trauma narrows this window.
Somatic therapy helps widen your window of tolerance, giving you more capacity to handle stress without tipping into dysregulation.
Virginia residents working with somatic therapy learn to recognize their nervous system states and develop tools to return to safety, creating lasting change from the nervous system up.
You Deserve a Healing Process That Cares for All of You
Somatic Therapy is about gently coming back to who you are, and who you’ve always been underneath the pain. Virginia individuals throughout the state benefit from this body-based approach to lasting transformation.
Somatic therapy helps with a wide range of issues where the body holds emotional and psychological pain. From chronic tension to dissociation, these body-based approaches address what talk therapy alone often cannot reach.
Virginia residents from Courthouse to Colonial Village find relief through somatic therapy for various struggles that manifest physically.
Chronic muscle tension, unexplained pain, and physical rigidity often stem from unprocessed trauma. Your body learned to brace against threat, and that protective response became permanent.
You might experience tight shoulders, jaw clenching, lower back pain, or tension headaches that won’t respond to medical treatment. Somatic therapy helps by teaching your body that it’s safe to release the chronic holding patterns.
We work with breath, gentle movement, and awareness to help your muscles finally let go of what they’ve been gripping. Through bilateral stimulation and body scanning, we address the nervous system dysregulation underlying the physical symptoms.
“This creates space for your body to find its natural resting state.”
Explore our EMDR therapy approach for additional trauma processing that complements somatic work.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Virginia people in Arlington, Richmond, and across the state often find that somatic therapy addresses physical symptoms that have resisted other treatments. From Radnor-Fort Myer Heights to Virginia Beach, individuals discover body-based relief.
Dissociation, depersonalization, and feeling disconnected from your body are protective responses to overwhelming experiences. You might feel like you’re watching your life from outside yourself, experiencing emotional numbness, or having difficulty staying present in your physical experience. Everything feels distant, muted, or unreal.
Somatic therapy helps by gently guiding you back into your body at a pace that feels safe. We build your capacity to tolerate physical sensations without becoming overwhelmed, gradually expanding your window of tolerance.
Through grounding techniques, breathwork, and gentle movement, we help your nervous system learn it’s safe to be present again. The goal is not to force presence but to create enough safety that your body chooses to reconnect.
Explore Internal Family Systems therapy for working with protective parts that create dissociation.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Virginia residents dealing with dissociation often find that somatic approaches succeed where cognitive methods alone haven’t. Throughout Northern Virginia communities, people reconnect with embodied presence.
Anxiety, panic attacks, and hypervigilance are signs your nervous system is operating in sympathetic activation. Your body is constantly preparing for danger that isn’t present, creating physical symptoms like a racing heart, shallow breathing, muscle tension, and feeling on edge. Even when your mind knows you’re safe, your body doesn’t believe it.
Somatic therapy helps by teaching your body how to downregulate from sympathetic activation. Through breathwork, body awareness, and gentle movement, we help your nervous system find its way back to safety. This isn’t about managing anxiety symptoms or using coping skills to push through. It’s about addressing the dysregulation underneath, teaching your body that it can relax without danger.
Learn about trauma-focused CBT for additional cognitive tools that complement somatic regulation work.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
From Clarendon to Rosslyn, Virginia, people find that somatic therapy addresses anxiety at its source rather than just managing symptoms. Alexandria and Norfolk residents discover nervous system regulation.
Trauma gets stored in the body as incomplete defensive responses. Your muscles, posture, breath patterns, and nervous system all hold the imprint of overwhelming experiences. This creates symptoms like chronic tension, pain, digestive issues, or feeling physically unsafe even in safe environments. Your body is still trying to complete the protective responses that got interrupted.
Somatic therapy helps by allowing your body to complete the protective responses that got interrupted during trauma. Through gentle techniques like bilateral stimulation, titration, and pendulation, we help your body discharge the energy it’s been holding.
We work at the level of the nervous system, releasing trauma from your tissues and autonomic responses. This creates lasting change because we’re addressing where trauma actually lives.
Understand clinical hypnosis for trauma for accessing deeper layers of body-stored material.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Throughout Virginia communities from Richmond to Roanoke, somatic therapy helps people heal trauma that talk therapy alone couldn’t reach. Harrisonburg and Lynchburg residents find body-based relief.
When trauma keeps your nervous system in chronic activation, relaxation can actually feel dangerous. You might notice you can never fully let your guard down, even in safe environments. Your body stays braced, ready, vigilant. Sleep is difficult. Rest feels impossible. Your system has been running on high alert for so long that calm feels foreign and unsafe.
Somatic therapy helps by gradually teaching your nervous system what safety actually feels like in your body. We don’t force relaxation, which would activate more defenses. Instead, we create tiny moments of ease and build from there. Through co-regulation in the therapeutic relationship, your nervous system learns it can begin to relax without danger. We work with your window of tolerance, expanding it slowly so calm becomes accessible.
Explore relational psychodynamic therapy for understanding relational patterns that keep you activated.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Virginia residents across the state find that somatic therapy helps them finally access the rest their bodies have been craving. From Manassas to Newport News, people discover sustainable calm.
Hypervigilance, constantly scanning for threat, difficulty relaxing, and feeling on edge are signs your nervous system is stuck in sympathetic activation. Your body learned that vigilance kept you safe, and now it can’t turn off that protective response even when the danger has passed.
You might notice you’re always monitoring others’ moods, scanning for danger, or unable to truly be present because part of you is always on guard.
Somatic therapy helps by teaching your nervous system that it’s safe to relax its vigilance. Through body-based techniques, we help your system downregulate from chronic activation.
We work with the physical manifestations of hypervigilance, the tension, the shallow breathing, the constantly activated startle response. This isn’t about forcing relaxation. It’s about creating the conditions where your body naturally finds its way back to safety and can maintain that state.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Virginia residents throughout the state find that somatic therapy helps them finally relax in ways they haven’t been able to in years. Portsmouth and Suffolk individuals discover nervous system regulation.
Emotional dysregulation shows up as intense emotional reactions that feel disproportionate, difficulty managing feelings without becoming overwhelmed, or complete emotional numbness.
Your nervous system moves between hyperarousal (flooding) and hypoarousal (shutdown) without much time in the regulated middle zone. One moment you’re fine, the next you’re drowning in emotion or completely disconnected.
Somatic therapy helps by expanding your window of tolerance, giving you more capacity to experience emotions without tipping into overwhelm or shutdown. We work with your body’s natural rhythms, teaching you to track sensations and stay grounded even when feelings are strong.
Through techniques like pendulation and titration, we help you learn to move between activation and calm safely, building your nervous system’s capacity for regulation.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Virginia people in Chesapeake, Hampton, and throughout the state find somatic approaches especially effective for emotional regulation challenges. Leesburg and Reston residents build nervous system capacity.
Body image struggles and low self-worth often have roots in trauma and attachment wounds. Your body might feel like the enemy, something to control, hide, or punish. These struggles aren’t just cognitive; they live in how you experience being in your body. Shame gets stored physically as tension, disconnection, or harsh internal criticism that feels visceral.
Somatic therapy helps by rebuilding your relationship with your body from the inside out. Rather than trying to think differently about your body, we help you feel differently in your body. Through gentle, compassionate body awareness practices, we address the shame and disconnection held physically.
We work with the parts of you that learned your body wasn’t safe or acceptable, helping them release those old protective patterns.
How Somatic Therapy Helps:
Throughout Virginia, somatic therapy helps people move from body-based shame to embodied self-acceptance. Virginia Beach and Norfolk residents discover compassionate embodiment.
Issues we address:
You Deserve a Healing Process That Cares for All of You
Somatic Therapy is about gently coming back to who you are, and who you’ve always been underneath the pain. Calm. Connected. Whole. Begin somatic therapy in Virginia today.
Somatic therapy works best when you’re ready to explore healing through your body, not just your thoughts. This approach requires a willingness to notice physical sensations and stay curious about what your body is communicating.
It’s powerful for people who feel stuck in cognitive approaches or who recognize their trauma lives more in their body than their mind.
Virginia residents from Radnor-Fort Myer Heights to Courthouse, from Colonial Village to Rosslyn, benefit most from somatic therapy when they’re open to body-based exploration.
You experience chronic tension or unexplained physical symptoms
You’re uncomfortable with body awareness practices
You’re willing to explore body-based healing
You’re uncomfortable with body awareness practices
You’re not ready to slow down and notice sensations
You need crisis intervention rather than deeper healing work
You want advice-giving rather than experiential work
With Somatic Therapy, emotions become easier to manage, self-doubt quiets down, and relationships feel safer and more real. Here’s how somatic therapy gently supports each of these areas in your life.
Emotions can hit like a tidal wave. This isn’t a flaw. It’s your body’s way of protecting you when life doesn’t feel safe.
Trauma teaches you painful lessons about yourself, lessons that were never true to begin with.
With time, that old voice telling you you’re not enough shifts to recognize: I’m doing enough. I am enough.
When you’ve been hurt before, it’s hard to trust. You learn to silence your own needs or push others away to avoid getting hurt again.
You don’t have to choose between protecting yourself and connecting with others. You can have both. You can feel safe and loved.
I offer somatic therapy both online throughout Virginia and in-person in Northern Virginia. Whether you’re in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Charlottesville, Roanoke, or anywhere in between, you can access trauma-informed somatic therapy that addresses healing at the nervous system level.
Northern Virginia: Arlington (Radnor-Fort Myer Heights, Courthouse, Colonial Village, Clarendon, Rosslyn) | Alexandria | Fairfax | Loudoun County | Leesburg | Reston | Manassas | Prince William County
Central Virginia: Richmond | Charlottesville | Lynchburg | Fredericksburg | Harrisonburg
Hampton Roads: Virginia Beach | Norfolk | Newport News | Hampton | Chesapeake | Portsmouth | Suffolk
And throughout the entire Commonwealth via secure telehealth
Office: 1550 Wilson Blvd Ste. 700 #226 Arlington, VA 22209
Convenient to Radnor-Fort Myer Heights, Courthouse, Colonial Village, Clarendon, and Rosslyn neighborhoods.
Services Available:
Somatic therapy is often described as body-centered psychotherapy, but that label does not capture how practical and procedural the work actually is. If your nervous system keeps reacting in ways that make life harder, a somatic therapist helps your body learn new patterns of safety and regulation. The focus is less on telling the story over and over and more on noticing what your body is doing, and then using small, repeatable interventions so your nervous system can reorganize itself around safety rather than threat.
Most people seek a somatic therapist after talk therapy has created understanding but not relief. You may know the facts about what happened to you, but your body still tightens, freezes, or spikes into panic when you encounter reminders. A somatic therapist tracks sensations, breath, posture, micro movements, and autonomic signals.
They teach and guide gentle practices, breath regulation, grounding, orientation, pendulation, and micro movements. So that the nervous system gradually expands its window of tolerance and no longer defaults to survival responses in everyday situations.
How a somatic therapist typically works in session
Intake and safety building
Moment-to-moment tracking
Skill training and resource building
Integration and consolidation
What somatic therapists treat
Somatic therapists work with PTSD and complex trauma, chronic tension and pain without clear medical causes, panic and hypervigilance, dissociation and emotional numbness, attachment wounds, and anxiety that is experienced primarily in the body. They also support people with chronic health symptoms that appear to be stress-related.
Clinical skills and training that matter
A qualified somatic therapist will have training in interoceptive awareness, polyvagal-informed methods, and somatic modalities such as Somatic Experiencing, sensorimotor psychotherapy, or other body-based trauma therapies. They use careful pacing, titration, and pendulation to avoid flooding the system. This expertise matters because the work directly affects the autonomic nervous system and requires precise, gentle interventions.
Typical session structure and what you will experience
When somatic therapy is especially useful
What to expect after a few sessions
Small shifts in baseline tension, improved sleep onset, fewer panic spikes, and a greater ability to name internal states without being carried away by them. Over months, the nervous system learns safety more reliably, and reactivity decreases. Somatic therapy is about cumulative learning, not instant fixes.
Finding a good somatic therapist means matching credentials, clinical approach, and practical fit. There is no single certification that guarantees quality across all somatic approaches, but there are reliable indicators you can use to evaluate clinicians. The goal is to find someone who knows how to keep a nervous system safe while doing therapeutic, body-based interventions that produce lasting regulation.
Start with the basics.
Credentials and training
Clinical style and approach
Practical filters that matter
Availability and format
Fees and insurance
Evaluating clinical competence
Ask about specific methods
Ask about integration with medical care.
Red flags to watch for
Questions to ask in a consult
Local considerations for Virginia residents
If you live in Northern Virginia, such as Radnor–Fort Myer Heights, Court House, Clarendon, or Rosslyn, confirm the therapist’s comfort with telehealth and client accessibility. Traffic and commute concerns often make virtual somatic sessions a practical option. Ensure the clinician has strong telehealth protocols for safety and grounding.
Trial period and outcome measures
Consider a short trial of 4 to 8 sessions to evaluate fit. Good therapists track outcomes using symptom measures and practical indicators: sleep quality, tension levels, dissociative frequency, and ability to tolerate emotional or relational stress. Progress in these areas is a reliable sign of effective somatic therapy.
What matters most
A good somatic therapist is both scientifically informed and practically competent. They keep your nervous system safe, teach usable skills, and adapt pacing to your capacity. With the right clinician, somatic therapy becomes a pragmatic path to feeling safer in your body, sleeping better, being more present, and rebuilding relationships without fear.
Fine, no tag labels in the text. Just clean headings exactly as they should appear in the document.
People searching for a somatic psychotherapist near me are usually trying to understand how this type of therapy differs from regular counseling. A somatic psychotherapist is trained to work with both the emotional and physical effects of trauma, helping your nervous system release what talking alone can’t resolve.
Instead of focusing only on thoughts or behaviors, they pay close attention to how your body responds: tension, breath, posture, impulses, numbness, or shutdown. These responses often tell the deeper story of trauma.
What a somatic psychotherapist actually does
A somatic psychotherapist works with you to gently explore the places where your body is holding stress or protective patterns. This happens slowly and intentionally, so you stay within your window of tolerance and avoid overwhelm.
A somatic psychotherapist may guide you to:
The goal isn’t to relive trauma. It’s to help your body understand the threat has passed, so it no longer reacts as if you’re still in danger.
How somatic psychotherapy supports deeper healing
Across Virginia, people work with somatic psychotherapists when they want deeper, body-based trauma healing that goes beyond cognitive insight.
If you’re searching for somatic therapy in Virginia or a somatic therapist near me, cost becomes an important part of figuring out whether you can commit to healing consistently. Pricing varies depending on training, specialization, and where the therapist is located.
Somatic therapy requires advanced trauma training, which often places it in a higher fee range than general talk therapy.
Typical somatic therapy fees in Virginia
Most somatic therapists in Virginia charge within these ranges:
Northern Virginia regions such as Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax typically fall on the higher end due to demand and cost of living.
Why somatic therapy tends to cost more
Somatic therapy requires specialized education and skill, including:
You’re paying for expertise that supports emotional safety throughout the process.
What the session cost includes
A somatic therapy fee typically covers more than the time in session. It includes:
Somatic therapy requires careful attunement, which is why experienced therapists charge higher rates.
Insurance coverage in Virginia
Insurance companies reimburse based on diagnosis, not treatment modality. Many somatic therapists work out of network, but offer superbills for reimbursement.
People often receive 30 to 70 percent back, depending on their plan. HSA or FSA funds can also be used for somatic therapy sessions.
How long does somatic therapy take
The overall cost also depends on the duration of treatment:
Preparation and stabilization often take several sessions before deeper trauma work begins.
How to decide if the cost is worth it
Ask yourself:
Somatic therapy is a long-term investment in your regulation, emotional safety, and well-being.
When people search for somatic therapists in Virginia or somatic therapists near me, they’re usually already carrying years of emotional survival work on their shoulders. The last thing they need is a surprise therapy bill that activates their entire nervous system in the worst possible way.
So the question, “Does insurance pay for somatic therapy?” matters because stability matters. You want predictable care, not financial chaos layered on top of trauma healing.
Insurance does cover therapy, but here’s the annoying truth: it doesn’t cover somatic therapy because it is somatic therapy.
It covers therapy when there’s a diagnosis tied to the work you’re doing and when the therapist is either in-network or able to provide out-of-network paperwork you can submit for reimbursement.
This means your insurance doesn’t care about polyvagal theory, embodiment practices, or nervous system regulation. It cares about CPT codes, diagnosis codes, and whether a therapist has jumped through enough bureaucratic hoops.
Most trained somatic therapists in Virginia are out of network, not because they’re elitist, but because insurance companies reimburse at rates that barely cover the electricity bill.
Somatic therapists also tend to have advanced training, trauma specialization, and expertise in body-based clinical approaches that insurance companies don’t compensate for. So yes, they usually stay out of the network for their own survival, not to be difficult.
What insurance actually covers
Insurance will generally reimburse sessions if:
Insurance does not evaluate whether your therapist is doing somatic work, EMDR, IFS, CBT, or hypnosis. It reimburses based on the diagnosis code (like F43.10 for PTSD or F41.1 for GAD) and the therapy code (most commonly 90837 or 90834).
Why somatic therapists stay out of the network
Somatic therapy requires:
Insurance models tend to undervalue specialized trauma care, expecting all therapists to offer the same 45-minute cognitive session for the same fee. Somatic therapists often need 55–60 minutes or even 75 minutes, and insurance doesn’t pay sustainably for that.
What “insurance reimbursement” really means
Reimbursement usually looks like this:
Common reimbursement ranges:
What determines how much you get back
Your reimbursement depends on:
People in Virginia using insurance for somatic therapy often learn to check:
The reality: costs vary across Virginia
In areas like Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax, where demand is high, the full session fee is often higher, which also affects your reimbursement.
Typical ranges for somatic therapy in Virginia:
Insurance reimbursement will never cover these fully unless you have an unusually generous PPO plan.
When insurance is more likely to pay
Insurance tends to reimburse reliably when:
When insurance may not help much
Other financial paths people use
Somatic therapy is a long-term investment in nervous system stability. People often manage the costs through:
The core truth
Insurance can support the cost of somatic therapy, but it won’t carry the full weight. Somatic therapy is specialized work, and reimbursement models rarely honor the depth of training required.
The goal is not to find the cheapest therapist. It’s to find someone who can safely guide your body out of survival mode… someone who understands trauma, the nervous system, and the protective patterns that have shaped your life.
People searching for somatic therapy near me or a somatic therapist in Virginia often wonder if the Department of Veterans Affairs offers somatic therapy, especially because so many veterans live with trauma that lives in the body, not just the mind.
The short answer? The VA sometimes uses somatic-informed approaches, but it rarely offers the kind of specialized somatic therapy provided by private trauma therapists across Virginia.
The VA is structured around standardized, evidence-based models, which means they prioritize therapies like CBT, CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy), EMDR, and Prolonged Exposure. These are excellent therapies… but they’re not the same thing as somatic therapy.
What the VA typically does offer
VA clinicians often incorporate elements that overlap with somatic principles, such as:
Some therapists may also use pieces of polyvagal theory or nervous system mapping, depending on their training.
But full somatic therapy modalities, like Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, or biodynamic methods, are not standard at the VA.
Why somatic therapy isn’t common in the VA
The VA tends to follow standardized treatment models to ensure consistency across clinics. Somatic therapy, however, is:
This makes it more difficult to integrate into a system where therapists must follow strict treatment structures.
What the VA is more likely to offer
Some VA centers offer:
These approaches overlap with somatic principles but are not the full version of somatic therapy offered privately.
Where full somatic therapy is available
Virginia somatic therapists in private practice offer:
These approaches provide the deep, body-first trauma healing many people actually want but cannot get through the VA.
How veterans can access somatic therapy outside the VA
Some veterans qualify for Community Care, which allows them to see private therapists when the VA cannot provide specific treatments. This can open the door to somatic therapy in Virginia.
Veterans can ask:
What determines access
Whether you can receive somatic therapy through the VA depends on:
Why do some veterans choose private somatic therapy
Veterans often choose private somatic therapy because:
The truth in simple terms
The VA may offer pieces of somatic therapy, but rarely the full approach. Most veterans seeking deep body-based trauma work find what they need through a somatic therapist in Virginia who specializes in nervous system healing, trauma resolution, and long-term embodiment.
Many people begin their search for a somatic therapist in Virginia or somatic therapy near me because they can feel that something in their body is not matching what their mind keeps insisting is fine.
Somatic therapy is not a last resort treatment. It is a specialized trauma therapy designed for people who feel their emotions, thoughts, or reactions in the body before they feel them anywhere else. Knowing whether you need somatic therapy is less about having the right diagnosis and more about understanding how your nervous system has learned to survive.
You might feel like your body reacts faster than you can think. You might feel numb without knowing why. You might know that you have trauma, but cannot access it through talk therapy.
You might feel like your relationships are being shaped by physical tension, shutdown patterns, or protective responses that happen automatically. Somatic therapy is for anyone whose pain is not only emotional or intellectual, but also physical, relational, and sensory.
The body holds experiences that the mind cannot always explain. That means you can feel symptoms long before you can articulate what caused them. Somatic therapy helps you understand what your body has been trying to tell you, sometimes for years.
Signs you might need somatic therapy
The following experiences are common indicators that somatic therapy could help:
If you recognize more than a few of these, somatic therapy may provide the type of healing that traditional talk therapy has not been able to reach.
Why somatic therapy works when other therapies do not
Talk therapy focuses on thoughts. Somatic therapy focuses on the nervous system. Trauma is stored in the body as survival responses, which means the body reacts long before your logical mind can catch up. The brainstem and limbic regions hold patterns of protection.
These patterns do not respond to reasoning. They respond to safety, regulation, and slow, attuned sensory work. Somatic therapy works because it meets your body where trauma actually lives.
Somatic therapy helps with experiences that talk therapy struggles to reach
People who come to somatic therapy often say things like:
Somatic therapy gives your body the chance to release what it has been holding for years, sometimes decades.
How the nervous system tells you that you need somatic therapy
Somatic therapy is often recommended when your nervous system is stuck in patterns such as:
If your system cycles between these states frequently, somatic therapy can help widen your window of tolerance so you can feel emotions without overwhelm or collapse.
Physical symptoms that may indicate unresolved trauma
Many people seek somatic therapy because of physical symptoms that do not improve with medical treatment:
These symptoms often come from long-term nervous system dysregulation.
Somatic therapy can help when:
You cannot stay present in your body
You dissociate during stress.
You feel unsafe even when nothing is wrong.
Your body reacts before your thoughts do
You feel constant worry, dread, or shutdown.
You experience emotional numbness.
You cannot relax without feeling vulnerable.
Somatic therapy is for people who want to reconnect with their bodies in a safe, structured, and supportive way.
People who benefit most from somatic therapy often have:
Somatic therapy provides a gentle, body-based approach to unwinding these patterns.
How to determine if somatic therapy is right for you
Ask yourself the following:
If you answered yes to many of these questions, somatic therapy can help.
Why somatic therapy is becoming popular in Virginia
People across Virginia, from Arlington and Alexandria to Richmond and Roanoke, are turning to somatic therapy because it treats trauma where it actually lives. Residents throughout the state often want body-based healing that goes beyond cognitive methods. Somatic therapy supports emotional regulation, relational security, and nervous system stability.
What matters most
Somatic therapy is the right path when your body carries stories your words cannot express. If you feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or stuck in protective patterns that no longer serve you, somatic therapy can help you reclaim safety, presence, and trust in your own body.
People searching for a somatic therapist in Virginia or somatic therapy near me often reach this question after months or years of trying to think, analyze, or talk their way out of trauma responses.
Somatic therapy works because it treats trauma where it actually lives. Trauma is not only a memory. It is a physiological state. It is a pattern in the nervous system. It is the body bracing, protecting, and responding to past danger as if it were happening right now.
Somatic therapy helps the body release these protective patterns gently and safely. For many individuals, it creates deeper, longer-lasting change than traditional talk therapy because it works directly with the parts of the nervous system that store trauma.
Why somatic therapy works
Trauma affects the autonomic nervous system, which means it shows up as:
Somatic therapy works because it helps regulate these survival responses. It teaches the nervous system to recognize real safety, not imagined safety. It helps the body stop reacting to old threats and begin responding to the present moment.
Somatic therapy works by:
Somatic therapy does not try to erase the past. It helps your body stop living in it.
Research behind somatic therapy
Science supports somatic therapy as effective for:
Studies on modalities such as Somatic Experiencing and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy show significant improvements in nervous system regulation, trauma recovery, and emotional resilience.
Somatic therapy works when:
Talk therapy has helped you understand your trauma, but not change your reactions
You feel stuck in patterns that do not shift.
Your body carries chronic tension.
You feel emotions physically, but cannot process them logically.
You want deeper healing that goes beyond insight.
Somatic therapy is not about thinking differently. It is about feeling differently and living differently.
What somatic healing feels like
People often describe progress in somatic therapy as:
These changes can feel subtle at first, then gradually become life-altering.
Why somatic therapy works better for some people
Somatic therapy works particularly well for individuals who have:
These experiences live in the body. Somatic therapy treats the body as an active participant in healing.
Why somatic therapy works even when talking does not
Talking can help you understand what happened. It cannot directly change how your body learned to survive. Somatic therapy works because it helps your nervous system unlearn patterns that were necessary once but are no longer useful.
Somatic therapy helps when:
Somatic therapy targets these protective responses directly.
A typical somatic therapy process includes:
This process helps the nervous system return to regulation.
Does somatic therapy create lasting change?
Yes. Somatic therapy supports long-term change because it rewires the patterns trauma created. When the body no longer reacts automatically, emotional and relational healing becomes possible. People often experience improvements in boundaries, self-trust, emotional expression, and relationship security.
Somatic therapy across Virginia
Residents from Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Richmond, Norfolk, and throughout the Shenandoah region seek somatic therapy because it addresses what traditional therapy cannot reach. The approach supports both emotional and physical healing, making it effective for people navigating high-stress lifestyles or long-term trauma.
What matters most
Somatic therapy works because it helps you heal trauma where it lives. It creates a pathway for your body to release patterns that have shaped your life for years. It gives you the capacity to feel safe, present, and connected again.
People searching for somatic therapists in Virginia or somatic therapy near me often notice that EMDR and somatic therapy show up together on trauma websites, in therapist profiles, and in discussions about nervous system healing. This can create understandable confusion.
They are related, but they are not the same. They overlap, complement each other, and work beautifully together, but each one targets trauma differently. Understanding the difference helps you choose the right approach or the right combination of approaches for your healing journey.
Somatic therapy works directly with the nervous system, the body, and the physical expressions of stored trauma. EMDR works with how trauma is processed in the brain, helping your system reprocess memories that still feel threatening.
Both recognize trauma as an experience that involves the whole body and mind, but they use different methods to create change. Many clients in Virginia, from Arlington to Richmond and throughout Northern Virginia, benefit from integrating both.
Somatic therapy and EMDR: what they share
Even though they are different modalities, they are built on shared principles:
Both therapies aim to help you return to a state where you can feel grounded, connected, and emotionally steady.
Where somatic therapy and EMDR differ
Somatic therapy focuses on what is happening in your body in the present moment. It explores sensations, movement, breath, tension patterns, and shutdown responses. EMDR focuses more on reprocessing memories and the emotional and cognitive patterns connected to them.
Somatic therapy works with:
EMDR works with:
Somatic therapy helps your body learn that it is safe. EMDR helps your brain learn that the trauma is over.
How somatic therapy works on trauma
Somatic therapy works through present-moment awareness. It teaches your system to notice and tolerate physical sensations without overwhelm. You learn how to identify your nervous system states, regulate your body, and release stored tension. The focus is on the body first, then the mind.
Somatic therapy helps with:
Somatic therapy does not require you to narrate your trauma in detail. Instead, it allows your system to release protective responses gently.
How EMDR works on trauma
EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help your brain reprocess traumatic memories. It reduces the emotional charge connected to past experiences so that the memories no longer trigger overwhelming reactions.
EMDR helps with:
The goal is for your system to understand that the danger is over and that you can safely integrate what happened.
How do both therapies complement each other
Many people benefit from combining EMDR with somatic therapy because:
When used together, the process can feel safer, more grounded, and more effective.
Who benefits from somatic therapy on its own
Somatic therapy can be especially helpful for people who:
Somatic therapy builds the foundation needed for deeper trauma processing.
Who benefits from EMDR on its own
EMDR can be especially helpful for people who:
EMDR helps reorganize memory networks in the brain.
Why do many Virginia residents combine both
Clients across Virginia, from Arlington to Fairfax to Norfolk, often choose therapists trained in both approaches because trauma affects every system of the body. They appreciate having tools that help the body feel safe and tools that help the mind release what is stuck.
What matters most
Somatic therapy and EMDR are not the same, but both support trauma healing with strength, compassion, and nervous system awareness. Somatic therapy helps your body feel safe enough to heal. EMDR helps your brain release what is still holding on.
Many people benefit from one. Many benefit from both. The right choice depends on what your system needs to feel safe, grounded, and whole.
People searching for a somatic therapist in Virginia or a somatic therapist near me often want a realistic understanding of the cost before they commit to care.
Somatic therapy is a specialized trauma modality that goes far beyond general talk therapy, and the cost reflects the level of training, skill, and nervous system expertise required.
Understanding the price range helps you decide what feels sustainable for your healing journey, especially when finances, trauma symptoms, and emotional overwhelm already feel heavy.
Somatic therapy requires extensive training in trauma physiology, nervous system regulation, body awareness, attachment theory, dissociation, and often integrated modalities such as EMDR, IFS, and psychodynamic therapy.
Because of this specialization, many somatic therapists in Virginia work privately, which means session fees are higher than general counseling.
Typical cost of somatic therapy in Virginia
The price of somatic therapy varies depending on the therapist’s training, experience, and specialization, as well as the regional cost of living. In most of Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, you can expect the following ranges:
Therapists in Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax often fall on the higher end, while more rural regions of Virginia may offer slightly lower rates.
Why somatic therapy costs more than traditional therapy
Somatic therapy is an advanced trauma treatment that requires:
This is not a basic talk therapy technique. You are paying for a therapist who understands how to help your body release trauma safely and gradually.
What is included in a somatic therapy session
The session fee usually includes more than the time spent in session. It may include:
Somatic therapists pay close attention to safety, pacing, and regulation. This requires more preparation and follow-up than standard counseling.
Insurance and somatic therapy cost
Most somatic therapists in Virginia are out of network, meaning:
Insurance companies cover diagnoses, not modalities. If you have a qualifying diagnosis such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, major depression, or adjustment disorder, you may be reimbursed for a portion of the cost even if the therapy is somatic.
How long does somatic therapy take
The cost also depends on how many sessions you need. Timelines vary based on trauma history, nervous system patterns, dissociation, and current life stress.
Typical timelines:
Somatic therapy moves at the pace of your nervous system. It is not rushed, which is why timelines differ so much.
Why the investment is worth it
Somatic therapy does not simply teach coping skills. It changes how your body and nervous system respond to stress, relationships, and emotions. This creates long-term improvements in:
When the body feels safe, everything changes.
How to make somatic therapy financially sustainable
Clients across Virginia often use:
Somatic therapists understand the emotional and financial weight of trauma recovery and will help create a plan that works for you.
What matters most
Somatic therapy is an investment in long-term healing. You are paying for safety, attunement, expertise, and the ability to help your body release trauma patterns that have shaped your life.
When you find a somatic therapist in Virginia who feels attuned and grounded, the financial investment becomes part of a bigger journey toward feeling safe, present, and fully alive again.
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