Most people assume therapy is the only way to heal from narcissistic abuse.
But what if I told you it isn’t?
Now, before you X out of here and bash me all over the internet…
I’m not here to badmouth therapy!
Because therapy is great, it will always have its place.
But if you’re still stuck, still triggered, still feeling like your body’s working against you…
Therapy alone might not be enough to get you to the finishing line.
This is where somatic coaching comes in…
Because the difference between somatic coaching and therapy is more than just talking versus not talking.
It’s about how you heal.
And I’ll explain them both, so you can understand which one’s right for you…
Understanding What Somatic Coaching and Therapy is
You know when you rehearse a conversation in your head a thousand times, trying to find the perfect words?
But the moment you actually go to say it, your throat tightens, your chest feels heavy, and your heart starts pounding?
That’s both your mind and body at play.
So therapy helps you analyse why you were overthinking in the first place—maybe past experiences made you fear saying the wrong thing. Or you’ve learned to seek approval from others.
Whereas somatic coaching picks apart that physical reaction—the tight throat, the heavy chest, the racing heart. So it looks at what reactions your body’s having with that experience. And why you react like you’re in danger when you speak up.
So the main difference between somatic coaching and therapy comes down to what they focus on.
But that was just a little taster definition; we’ll be going into further deets below. So you can see which one speaks to you more.
What’s somatic coaching?
Somatic coaching is a holistic, body-based approach to healing. It comes from the word soma, which literally means ‘body’.
So it’s all about working with your nervous system to process your automatic stress responses, your triggers and the felt experience of trauma. Like what’s keeping you stuck and stopping you from feeling safe in your own skin.
Which means that somatic coaches work with whats effecting now, in the present, and support you to take action. So you can get unstuck and move forward with your life.
The goal is to cultivate a better mind and body connection. So that you notice and sense what’s happening in your body and know how to return it to safety again.
Because typically what happens after trauma is your brain becomes overly sensitive to danger—that’s your fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. And it causes these big, visceral reactions, like a fast, beating heart, or restricted and shallow breathing.
So somatic coaches are guiding you to retrain your body to stop reacting as if you’re still in danger.
How does somatic coaching work?
It works by helping you tune into your body’s sensations and regulating your nervous system. So it’s a bottom up approach that goes beyond just talking. And you’re feeling and processing your emotions physically, instead.
So expect an active and engaging session (as well as practicing in your own time) with things like:
- Breath-work to calm anxiety and regulate your nervous system.
- Body awareness exercises to notice where you hold tension or stress.
- Guided movement to release stored trauma and shift emotional blocks.
- Grounding techniques to help you feel safe and present in your body.
The aim is to build your capacity to be with your feelings rather than in them. So you can feel more in control and know how to manage your reactions.
What’s therapy?
I should state here, that when I’m referring to therapy, I mean talk therapy—like CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). Which is still the most mainstream type of therapy, now in 2025, at the time of typing this (therapy is just quicker to type)!
So therapy focuses on your mind to unscramble your thoughts, better understand your patterns and make sense of your past. It’s addressing the root cause of your issues, to help you gain insight and awareness of your behaviour.
And you do that through talking about your emotions. Therapists are challenging your beliefs to help you reframe your way of thinking. So you can gain clarity and understanding of your issues.
Like why you stayed, why you ignored red flags, and why you’re struggling to let go.
How therapy works
Talk therapy is your top-down approach and works by helping you change the way you think. Which then changes the way you feel and act.
A session might look like this:
- You talk through your emotions, experiences, and struggles with a therapist.
- They help you identify negative thought patterns and challenge them.
- You work on reframing your beliefs, so they’re more rational and less self-destructive.
- You develop coping strategies to manage stress, anxiety, and emotional triggers.
So therapy is more about understanding your trauma.
Similarities Between Somatic Coaching and Therapy
At first glance, somatic coaching and therapy seem totally different—one focuses on the body, the other on the mind. But they actually have a few things in common too:
Help with emotional regulation. Whether through body practices (somatic coaching), or cognitive techniques (therapy), both aim to help you manage emotions more effectively.
Provide a safe space for healing. You’re guided by a trained professional who supports you through your struggles.
Help you rewire patterns. Therapy challenges negative thought patterns, while somatic coaching rewires automatic body responses.
Can work together. Somatic coaching and therapy aren’t either-or choices—you can use them together for a more complete healing approach.
Now, let’s talk about where they differ—because that’s where things get interesting.
Differences Between Somatic Coaching and Therapy
While somatic coaching and therapy share some common goals, the way they get you there is completely different.
Here’s how they differ:
🧠Mind vs. Body🫀 Therapy focuses on thoughts, beliefs, and past experiences. Somatic coaching focuses on body sensations, nervous system regulation, and physical responses to trauma.
🗣️Talking vs. Feeling😮💨 In therapy, you process emotions verbally. In somatic coaching, you process emotions physically, like through breath-work.
🔙Past vs. Present⌚️ Therapy often explores childhood wounds and past experiences. Somatic coaching is more focused on the present and future—how your body holds onto trauma today, and how you want to feel moving forward.
👩⚕️Diagnosis vs. No Diagnosis🙎♀️ Therapists diagnose and treat mental health conditions. Somatic coaches don’t diagnose, treat, or cure—they help with emotional regulation and body awareness.
💊Medical vs. Non-Medical🙅♀️ Therapy is a clinical practice that can involve medication and treatment plans. Somatic coaching doesn’t involve medical treatment and it’s not a replacement for medical, or mental health care. It’s an alternative modality that supports and enhances healing.
How Somatic Coaching and Therapy Can Support You to Heal From Narcissistic Abuse
When you’re healing from narcissistic abuse, you’re dealing with trauma. And trauma hijacks your mind and your body. It leaves you ruminating, anxious and hypervigilant, for example.
That’s why healing needs to address both the mind and the body. Because if you only tackle one, you’re only fixing half the problem.
So you need to be able to cognitively understand what happened to you (therapy). But also learn how to feel safe after what happened to you (somatic coaching).
And this is why both somatic coaching and therapy serve their purpose, just in different ways.
Why trauma bonding needs both approaches
If you think about breaking a trauma bond, you’re facing the problem of knowing your ex was toxic, but you still miss them.
So you’ve got the knowledge they’re bad and unhealthy for you. Yet if they try to hoover you back after a discard, the urge to go back to them is undeniably strong.
Your stomach might flip, your heart might race, you might even be sweating at the possibility of getting back together with them.
So trauma bonding isn’t just a thinking problem, but a feeling problem too. Which is why survivors often need a combination of both somatic coaching and therapy.
How therapy supports you
Let’s think about how talk therapy can support you first. Because I personally believe you need to be able to make sense of what happened to you before. So that you have the words, the validation, and the clarity to understand why you stayed, why you feel the way you do. But also why breaking away from them was so difficult.
So therapy is helping you process things cognitively.
But here’s the thing….
Just knowing what you experienced doesn’t always stop your triggers. Because you can tell yourself he was bad for you, but your body might still crave them. That’s where therapy can sometimes fall short—because it just focuses on your mind, and not your body.
How somatic coaching supports you
Somatic coaching is really important too, because it helps you embody what happened. So once your mind gets it and your brain’s rewired how you think about your trauma. You need to work on the nervous system part and how it’s still responding to your triggers.
Once you understand the dynamics of your relationship. But more importantly, what part you played in it—like your patterns and vulnerabilities that kept you stuck—you then need to learn how to change that. Especially if you keep ending up in abusive relationships.
And that’s where somatic coaching comes in…
It helps you break free from old patterns, manage your triggers, and build the resilience to move beyond them.
Unlike therapy, which often focuses on unpacking the past, somatic coaching is future-focused—it’s about creating real change in the present.
It does this through facilitating your awareness and challenging your way of thinking. So asking you how and what questions, instead of why questions.
Somatic coaches also provide you with accountability to take action and meet the goals you set. So the client-coach relationship is collaborative and not a hierarchical dynamic. They’re working with you, rather than sitting opposite you keeping secret notes hehe!
How to Decide Between Somatic Coaching and Therapy
It’s clear from the above that both are needed to make a speedier recovery. So it’s not so much a decision of this one, or that one. And rather which one is right for you, right now.
If you’re fresh out of a relationship with a narcissist, and you’re in a lot of shock about what you’ve just discovered, then therapy will be your best starting point.
Because you’ll be in dire need to vent and talk about your experience. And it’s really important that you get that validation and understanding of your trauma, so you can begin to process it.
It’s also worth noting that if you’ve not had talk therapy after narcissistic abuse, it can be really challenging to work directly with a somatic coach. Because you’ll be desperate to discuss your relationship and what they did to you (rightly so too).
And somatic coaches won’t want to dwell on the past. And rather just honour it and focus on how things are affecting you in the present. So you won’t be ready to think about your future yet—and that’s totally ok!
When to pick somatic coaching
- If you know the relationship was toxic, but still feel drawn to them.
- If you keep repeating the same patterns and have a history of toxic relationships. And you want to learn how to change that and move forward. Or you’re struggling to take action despite knowing what needs to change.
- If you feel like talking isn’t getting you anywhere and you’re still stuck.
- If you struggle with feeling unsafe, emotionally numb, or you’re easily triggered and want to feel more regulated.
When to pick therapy
- If you feel stuck in your head, constantly overthinking and analysing every little detail.
- If you want coping strategies to manage your obsessive thinking and rumination.
- If you’re not ready to think about your future yet.
- If you’re dealing with severe depression, PTSD, or other diagnosed mental health conditions, therapy (or a combination of both) is likely the best choice.
A Few Things to Note Before Picking a Somatic Coach, or a Therapist
Unfortunately there are a lot of practicing professionals out there who aren’t trained in understanding abuse—it’s not compulsory learning.
So they’re often giving out the wrong advice and not giving you the empathy and validation you need and deserve. And therefore causing you more harm than good.
So when you’re looking for support make sure they’ve:
✅ Had personal experience of narcissistic abuse.
✅ Done enough healing work on themselves, so that they’re equipped to support you.
✅ Had sufficient training in their approach, and
✅ A deep awareness of how trauma affects the body, the brain and relationships (meaning they’re trauma-informed).
Which One Helps You Heal Faster?
The million dollar question all survivors want to know!
One isn’t faster than the other—they’re more powerful when combined. Because the real magic happens when your mind and body work together. It’s knowing you’re safe and feeling safe too.
And obviously the speed at which you recover is a deeply personal thing. So it’s very dependent on a lot of things, like your willingness to put the effort in and how vulnerable you are too.
But even though it’s hard work, it’s very rewarding too. And I say that from having done a lot of healing work myself; I feel stronger and wiser for it.
To be honest, I think life is one big healing journey. And we’re never finished with growing and bettering ourselves.
The challenges we face might be different, but the process is always the same. We learn, we unlearn, we heal, and we keep pushing forward—one step and one breakthrough at a time.
Additional research:
The Relationship Recovery – I’m Dealing With Relationship Trauma is Coaching Right For me?
Dr Rangan Chatterjee #478 – A New Model for Solving Anxiety with Dr Russell Kennedy