Samantha J Holland

Samantha J. Holland

A Somatic Experiencing Informed Clinical Somatic Educator for some years, I'm now also a qualified SEP.

I help people release embodied stress to nurture greater freedom from stress and trauma, from stiffness and discomfort, and from physical and emotional pain.

In recent years, I have worked increasingly with psychotherapists, counsellors, and fellow SEPs to integrate Clinical Somatics into their practice - to more fully address the whole, embodied person, by using movement as well as sensing that relates directly and specifically to stuck stress patterns and stored trauma.

In my 1:1 practice, I work primarily with people suffering from chronic pain and tension - whether that shows up more as physical or emotional "symptoms". Clinical Somatic Education allows me to guide clients to access and release stuck stress and stored tension and trauma, and to release muscles that have become stuck, or "frozen", and have been causing tightness and pain.

I have particular experience and interest in neck and shoulder pain, back pain, scoliosis, and pain 'syndromes'/'conditions' such as fibro and ME. However, my overarching belief is that whenever stiffness, discomfort, and pain are an issue - especially when they seem hard or even impossible to resolve - then the whole person (the whole soma) needs help to release stuck stress, tension and often trauma, so it can learn to self-regulate to a place of greater safety and, so, of greater flexibility and comfort.

Clients can work with me long term or for shorter periods of time.

My approach is always SE Informed, and focuses on self-sensing, self-moving, and self-learning to guide people to find ways that release their pain and tension, and lead them to be more fully able to use their own inbuilt capacity to self-regulate and live life with greater comfort and ease.

With a background in academia (philosophy, film & lit, anthrozoology), practising law, and - for a brief time, before I discovered Thomas Hanna's Somatic work! - psychotherapy, I've also lived overseas in a number of countries, doing voluntary work and engaging with a wide range of communities and worldviews. I have a longstanding interest in our status as animals, and in how our identity as mammals involves us having fantastic inbuilt powers to overcome stress and trauma stuck in our neuromuscular and nervous systems - when we learn how (despite the restrictions of contemporary culture, and despite cultural 'myths' that often hold us back, such as the 'myth of ageing' and the myth of the mind/body split).

As well as seeing clients for individual sessions (mostly in person, but online can be arranged), I teach groups of counsellors, psychotherapists and coaches more about what Clinical Somatic Education *is*; how it helps make sense of the whole, *embodied* person, and also how to use this knowledge for their own benefit as well as their clients', as well as how to refer appropriately when helpful.

I'm also a BFRP and trainee Focusing practitioner.

Specialties

• Anxiety Disorders
• Chronic Illness
• Chronic Pain/Fibromyalgia
• Developmental Trauma
• Early Childhood Attachment Disturbances
• Grief and Loss
• Self-Esteem
• Sleep/Insomnia