Conceived and developed by Sonia Gomes, PhD, SOMA Embodiment
offers diagnostic skills, touch and movement tools, and haptic awakening to transform emotional, developmental and shock trauma.

The SOMA-Embodiment includes technical aspects of the Structural
and Movement Integration of Dr. Ida Rolf, as well as Tonic Function
and Movement Analysis from Hubert Godard. Soma-Embodiment is
infused with psycho-physiologic understanding of trauma from Dr.
Peter A. Levine, supported by the Polyvagal Theory of Dr. Stephen
Porges and the contributions from Ecological Psychology as set
forth by Dr. James Gibson. The work of Henri Wallon, Donald
Winnicott and André Bullinger also shape the program.

In order to work with traumatized clients, therapists need to offer their own embodiment as a model. This embodied presence enables clients to re-navigate trauma territory in safety. A state of presence and orientation that allows for relaxation, alertness and awareness at the same time.

SOMA EMBODIMENT training in each module creates a metacommunication with the theory and practice of all topics covered. It encourages the participant to increase the ability to identify immature traumatic memory and to find the right tool and support for the client to access the body's natural movement so that it can find a way out, a completeness of response. 

SOMA EMBODIMENT offers participants supportive and guidance protocols that promote structural reorganization, facilitating the body’s orientation in relation to gravity and space. This results in restored perception and proprioception, with increased stability and grounding – pre-conditions for the negotiation of emotional trauma. Participants work on self-regulation and learn to use resonance and intuition with greater confidence in the clinical setting. 

The support and safety bonds developed through SOMA EMBODIMENT helps the therapist to initiate the release of the shock caused by trauma; in this way, clients can become aware of and open to feelings and sensations that were previously silenced by the freeze response. Fixating developmental elements that are not fully mature can lead the client's body to present a postural defensive pattern, revealed by early developmental movements or emotional attitudes that provide clues for the therapist to perceive where and how the body, mind and the nervous system are trapped in the freeze response. Participants learn how to apply specific procedures to different
types of trauma, learning to uncouple the distorted perceptions of
the emotional layers that have been internalized and repressed in the past. By exploring the haptic system, it is possible to assist those affected by trauma to exit their internal conditioned environment
and explore elements of the external environment through the senses. By touching and being touched by the therapist in mutual resonance, a natural internal movement of the body's innate intelligence is evoked. Thus, it may transform the symptoms of shock or chronic trauma and/or complex diseases like syndromes, changes in the physiology of freezing, reversing the disease and shifting to a YES to one´s body, a YES to the inner child and to LIFE!

A SOMA introductory course (Intro) is an integral part of the training.

Next SOMA Intro in English with Sonia Gomes:
October 23 - 25, 2026 in Zurich