SOMATIC COUNSELLING
For the parts of you that are ready to be met.
You don't need to have the words for it.
Something feels off. Not quite right. Maybe you have felt that way for a long time. A sense of not fully landing in yourself, of carrying something you can't quite name.
Maybe your body feels unfamiliar. Or exhausting. Or like somewhere that’s never felt safe enough to stay with.
Maybe you've tried to understand, work through or think your way out of it. And yet, something remains unresolved, unnamed and quietly asking for something different.
You don't need to arrive with clarity or answers. You don't need to know what's wrong or be able to explain it. You just need to sense that somewhere beneath the confusion and discomfort, the body might be the place to begin.
So what does it mean to work with the body?
Some things can't be thought their way through. They live deeper within the body's holding patterns, in the nervous system's learned responses and in the parts of you that adapted to survive, which are still waiting to be met.
Integrative somatic counselling works with the whole of you. Not just the story you can tell, but the one your body holds. Together, we work with what lives below language, held in the patterns, the protection strategies and parts of you that haven’t felt safe, so that they can be witnessed, heard and integrated.
This isn't about fixing what's broken; instead, we focus on supporting you in expanding your capacity to be with yourself, returning to the vastness that was always present underneath.
Soma comes from the Greek word for body. Somatic counselling starts from the understanding that the body is not separate from our psychology, but instead it is where our psychology lives.
Our nervous system holds the imprint of everything we have experienced. The stress that never fully discharged. The emotions that had nowhere to go. The moments where it wasn't safe to feel. Over time, these imprints shape how we move through the world and inform how we relate, how we respond and how present and embodied we are in our own lives.
Somatic counselling works with these imprints directly by not just talking about what’s present or about experience, but by noticing - by sensing - what happens in the body as we do. Noticing where the breath shallows, the chest that tightens or the place that suddenly feels alive or numb.
By bringing gentle, curious attention to the body's signals alongside the therapeutic relationship and container, we begin to build new experiences of safety, attunement and capacity. Not just understanding what happened, but actually feeling differently within it.
No forced breakthroughs, no by-passing, simply real, grounded and embodied healing.
What is somatic counselling?
The body holds a story that is
waiting to be listened to.
This work is held with care and attention. I work with a small number of 1:1 clients at any one time to ensure the depth this work deserves.
Currently accepting enquiries for limited spaces.
Work with Me 1:1
Somatic Counselling Single Sessions
Single session — £65
60 minutes. Online or in person in Berkshire.
Ongoing monthly support — £240
4 sessions per month. For those ready to go deeper over time.
Sliding scale available for those experiencing financial hardship. Please reach out to discuss how we can work together.
To book your appointment, please email me at hello@lilyisobel.com or schedule a free 15-minute call to discuss the best options for you.
My approach is rooted in trauma-informed, somatically oriented counselling that integrates nervous system regulation, somatic psychology, parts work and embodied therapeutic practice. My training through ISOHH is accredited by the ACCPH and spans trauma processing, polyvagal theory, attachment, inner child and parts work, somatic experiencing, and the relational dimensions of therapeutic practice.
But the foundation of this work isn't just professional. It is lived. I have navigated my own long return made possible through the body, through breath, through the practices I now hold space for others within. That lived knowledge is not separate from the work. It is the heart of it.