SOMATIC PRACTICE

with MD Bloch-Hansen, MSW, RSW

Body centered and politicized healing arts + care work for a more livable future

MD offers GLoW sessions Tuesdays, Thursdays and some Saturdays. Sessions take place at their office @ 715 Bloor St. W (Cedar Christie Wellness Centre).

MY APPROACH

I am passionate and dedicated to supporting others in finding a way back to their bodies with a gentle, trauma-informed and relational approach. I will meet you where you’re at by taking a collaborative and holistic approach that fosters curiosity, self-discovery, attuned presence, increased awareness and insight. I hold space that upholds values rooted in intersectional feminism, harm reduction and abolitionism. I maintain my own practice that keeps me questioning and understanding the ways I can continue to deconstruct or move away from upholding values of white supremacy culture and colonialism. Feel free to ask me more about this! To learn more about who I am and my approach, check out my website, www.somaticpractice.ca

OFFERING DETAILS

1) Somatic Counselling/Psychotherapy: A body-oriented, talking therapy that recognizes the importance of the therapist-client relationship, and incorporates the body into clinical practice as an avenue for discovery and healing. I will take an approach that builds on traditional psychotherapeutic understanding but includes the body as central. Sessions include both ‘top-down’ (talk) and ‘bottom-up’ (body) processing of relational wounds, emotions and cognitions, informed by my training and practice in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Body-Mind Centering, polyvagal theory, Parts/IFS, Narrative Therapy, and Emotion-Focused therapy. Through a collaborative approach to treatment planning, sessions may include mindful movement experiments, guided visualization, intentional breath, the use of consensual somatic touch, and expressive art.

2) Somatic Movement & Embodiment Coaching: Personalized guidance and support in your journey of belonging with your body-mind. These sessions focus on supporting you in building your own practice for embodiment through guided somatic movement exercises and explorations. These session offer a place for diving into your own embodied practice, in a supportive container, to explore the body systems (nervous, endocrine, fluids, fascia/ligaments, bones, muscles, senses & perception, etc) and to increase neuroception and the felt sense. These sessions aim to help you foster a new way of relating to your body-mind, one that is slow, present and attuned to support nervous system regulation. Through a collaborative approach to treatment planning, sessions may include gentle movement, yoga, breathwork, visualization, mindfulness, psychoeducation, guided self-touch, and consenual/boundaried somatic touch.

3) Deep Listening Session/Soundbath: In these sessions, sound is the primary means of facilitating relaxation and healing. The consistent and repetitive nature of the sounds can help the brain shift from a state of high-frequency brainwaves (like beta waves associated with active thinking) to lower frequencies (such as alpha, theta, or delta waves), which are linked to relaxation, meditation, and deep restorative sleep. Instruments used in sound baths create a range of frequencies that resonate with different parts of the body and mind, potentially bringing them into balance. Instruments your practitioner will use in these sessions include crystal singing bowls, tuning forks, chimes, and other resonant tools. During the sound bath you will lie down or sit comfortably while the facilitator plays the instruments, creating layers of sound frequencies that wash over the body and mind.

For questions please email marydorabh@somaticpractice.ca

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