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What Is Touch Work?

Touch work may be used in Somatic Therapy sessions to support healing from shock trauma, as well as complex and developmental trauma. 

Therapeutic Touch Work is a gentle, body-centered therapeutic approach that supports trauma resolution, nervous system regulation, and deeper embodiment. Drawing from Somatic Experiencing® Touch Work (developed by Dr. Peter Levine) this work addresses the impact of both shock trauma and early developmental or attachment wounding—especially when words are not enough. 

While traditional talk therapy focuses on cognitive insight, somatic touch work engages the body directly to help enhance nervous system regulation and restore balance. It's especially supportive when trauma has disrupted the body’s ability to feel safe, grounded, or connected.

Core Principles

• Touch as a Regulator: Safe, attuned touch co-regulates the autonomic nervous system (ANS), helping shift the body out of freeze, collapse, or hyperarousal states and into a sense of calm and containment. Your autonomic nervous system receives clear signals of safety, potentially shifting from defensive states to a more regulated state.

• Bottom-Up Healing: Your interoceptive system (your body's internal awareness) activates, allowing you to sense and process physical sensations that may have been numbed or overwhelming. The focus on interoception rather than mental processing helps access implicit memory and resolve trauma at a physiological level.

• Your proprioceptive system provides crucial information about your position in space, supporting grounding.

• Your social engagement system recognizes this touch as nurturing rather than threatening

• Restoring Developmental Needs: For clients with early relational or pre-verbal trauma, therapeutic touch can repair missed experiences of nurturing, presence, and secure connection.

• Somatic Tracking Through Contact: Gentle touch enhances awareness of how and where trauma is held in the body, supporting the completion of unfinished defensive responses from a Shock Trauma event (e.g., fight, flight, or freeze).

• Integration of Body, Mind, and Emotion: This work helps bridge disconnection between emotions, bodily sensations, and identity—fostering a more coherent, embodied sense of self.

What Sessions Look Like

• Touch work may be incorporated in Somatic Therapy sessions (click here for a description of what a somatic therapy session entails). 

• Touch is always consensual and collaborative.

• You remain fully clothed as you lie down on the table.

• The practitioner may place hands on areas such as:

• Kidneys/adrenals – to support regulation.

• Diaphragm – to assist with breath and emotional flow.

• Sacrum or feet – to enhance grounding.

• Heart or head – to support emotional integration and presence.

• Touch is non-sexual, and is only used for the support of awareness. 

• The emphasis is on stillness, subtle shifts, and micro-regulation—not manipulation or deep tissue work.
  
  

Benefits of Somatic Touch Work

• Helps resolve both shock trauma, pre-verbal or early developmental trauma, attachment trauma and unmet early touch needs.

• Supports completion of fight/flight/freeze responses.

• Restores nervous system balance and resilience.

• Builds a deeper felt sense of safety, boundary, and agency.

• Addresses symptoms like dissociation, anxiety, numbness, or chronic tension.

• Facilitates emotional integration and self-regulation.

• Heals early attachment wounds through safe, embodied relational repair.
  
  

Beyond Relaxation: The Deeper Science of Regulated Touch

Therapeutic touch is often misunderstood as merely relaxing—but its true power lies in its neurobiological effects. When applied with skill and intention, regulated touch activates the body's internal awareness, signals safety to the nervous system, supports grounding, and fosters a sense of connection.

This work speaks the body’s language—sensation, rhythm, and presence—rather than relying solely on words. It challenges common myths, such as the idea that healing requires revisiting trauma or verbal processing. Instead, it emphasizes building regulation and safety, allowing the body to naturally integrate past experiences without retraumatization.

Far from being “just comforting,” regulated touch is a profound tool for healing that taps into the body’s innate capacity for transformation—often before the mind catches up.