Victoria Thompson

Somatic Psychotherapist

Our bodies are the unconscious container of everything that happens to us.  Beneath our conscious awareness our bodies are constantly adjusting to our external environment, sending messages to our brain so that we can do what we need to return to a place of homeostasis; a place of comfort, ease and safety where we don’t have to be concerned with sensations that may not feel pleasant.  Following stressful situations and trauma, this ability to return to a safe place of ease, can become disrupted and distorted and we can find ourselves living in constant tension and distress and not know how to begin to unravel this. 

Our bodies benefit from having a safe space to process, unwind, unfold and ultimately to reorganise and reorientate themselves, particularly following stressful experiences, major life transitions, and trauma. I offer a gentle, empathic and embodied therapeutic space, helping individuals heal and grow through the transformative power of embodied awareness.   As my clients speak their truth and share their experiences, I help them to become curious about how their body responds. This approach is trauma informed, intuitive, creative and helps to regulate the nervous system.

I bring many years embodied experience to my practice as a dancer, a body worker, somatic movement practitioner and for the past 16 years as a qualified Body Movement Psychotherapist.  My first training was in dance and somatic movement practices which cultivate sensitivity and receptivity in the moving body.  I worked in the pioneering field of ‘Dance in Health’ in hospitals, hospices, care homes and prisons and found I could instantly initiate connections with people in very vulnerable states and sometimes on the edge of life itself, through moving together.

I have a post graduate diploma in Trauma and Creative Arts Therapies and a Masters degree in Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP). My first role as a DMP was in an inner city early years centre with under 5’s who taught me so much about early development and trauma.  I have since worked with young people and adults with complex medical needs, learning disabilities, neurological and sensory impairment, mental health  issues and chronic pain and illness.  I now work with adults clients in private practice and supervise other therapists in their practice (I gained a Diploma in Creative Supervision in 2021).

Each client’s needs and journey are entirely different and the process is always collaborative.  I understand how trauma lives in the body so together we move slowly and with great care, creating and becoming familiar with a felt sense of safety as a touch stone.

Ways of working mindfully with the body in therapy might include one or all of the following :

Talking about your body.

Discussions about body systems and how the body and mind work.

Noticing feelings and sensations.

Guided body awareness exercises.

Guided movement activities.

Exploring developmental movement patterns.

Working with touch to enhance awareness*

These practices help people to gradually make sense of feelings, and to acknowledge how they are creating patterns of tension and holding in the body.  Changes in the body, facilitate changes in the mind, allowing painful experiences to be processed and integrated.  Over time they help people to liberate energy and increase self compassion and acceptance.

Who I work with :

I tend to work with people who want to work with their bodies.  Often these are female identifying women at all stages of life.  The common themes that unite my clients is that they want to be able to make sense of their feelings, they want to manage feelings and bodily experience better.  Often they have done their research and know that this requires being supported to work with their body in a creative process. 

I welcome you if you wish to embark on a creative process with your body as a way to support your ongoing process of becoming.  I welcome you and your body however you feel within it - if you are recovering from illness or injury, living with chronic illness, living with life limiting illness, managing reproductive or gynaecological issues, developmental and childhood trauma, neurological disorders, strokes  bereavement, loss, ADHD, ASD, OCD, low mood, anxiety, relationship difficulties, feeling suicidal or withdrawn.  

My practice combines humanistic and psychodynamic psychotherapeutic approaches and is informed by Alexander Technique, Authentic Movement, Body Mind Centring, Skinner Releasing Technique, and Somatic Movement Therapy. I am registered to practice with the Association of Dance Movement Psychotherapy (www.admpuk.org). 

Fees : £70 for a 50 minute session or £90 for 1 hour and 20 minutes (recommended as the body requires time to slow down).

As well as offering weekly sessions in an ongoing process, I offer blocks of 6 or 12 sessions.

For new clients that initiate sessions in the month of November I am offering 20% off your first 4 sessions.

For enquiries and booking, please visit my web site : www.movingandbeing,com or email me : movingbeing@yahoo.com.