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Inside an Integrative Therapy Session: How Talk Therapy, the Body, and the Nervous System Intersect
Traditional talk therapy centers on verbal reflection and cognitive understanding of emotions, experiences, and trauma to build insight and meaning. However, this approach does not work for everyone. In fact, research suggests that up to 50% of people may not respond adequately to talk therapy alone, highlighting the need for more integrative and innovative approaches that address both mind and body.
Compared to traditional talk therapy, integrative approaches take a personalized and holistic view of care, using a wider therapeutic toolkit. Integrative therapy uses traditional modalities such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and talk therapy, but adds other methods like:
- Somatic approaches
- Mindfulness
- Breathwork
Focussed on supporting mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), integrative therapy focuses on a process of awareness, acceptance and change.
Dr. Carolina Estevez, Psychologist at Soba New Jersey, explains that integrative therapy sits at the intersection of talk therapy, the body, and the nervous system, and is centered on the understanding that emotional trauma and chronic stress are physically manifested in our physiological architecture.
“Talk therapy facilitates a top-down approach where cognitive processing helps the prefrontal cortex regulate the emotional centers of the brain, while the body and nervous system represent a bottom-up influence where physical sensations and autonomic states dictate our sense of safety,” says Dr. Estevez.
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The Role of the Nervous System in Mental Health
When we’re stressed, anxious, or emotionally distressed, our sympathetic nervous system can remain activated in fight, flight or freeze mode, where the body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.
This means that our trauma can be stored in our body, as the body retains the impact of the initial trauma or stress long after it has passed. This could manifest as chronic muscle tension, hyperarousal, or dissociation. When stuck in this state for long periods of time, it can contribute to physical and mental tension, an increased heart rate and can downregulate the processes of important bodily functions such as our immune system.
When the body stays in this stressed state for long periods of time, it can potentially lead to physical illness. Additionally, when our nervous system is chronically stuck in fight or flight mode, it can also lead to mental health conditions such as anxiety or, in some cases, depression.
Dr. Estevez says that when a person discusses an upsetting memory in traditional talking therapy, their sympathetic nervous system may trigger a “fight or flight” response, manifesting as a rapid heart rate or muscle tension.
“By utilizing somatic awareness and regulated breathing within the therapeutic space, a patient can signal the parasympathetic nervous system to initiate a state of “rest and digest”,” says Dr. Estevez.
“This creates a feedback loop where the mind can eventually reframe traumatic narratives because the body is no longer trapped in a state of high-alert survival, allowing for an integration of the self that addresses both the story the mind tells and the signals the body sends.”
How Integrative Therapy Works With The Nervous System
Stephanie Lee Hayes, Founder and Somatic Educator at Roots & Rituals, highlights that traditional talk therapy works through the conscious, thinking brain, helping people understand their experiences, process emotions, and build awareness.
However, she emphasizes that emotional patterns do not live only in thoughts: “they live in the nervous system and the body.”
“When someone has experienced chronic stress or trauma, the body learns survival responses such as tension, shutdown, hypervigilance, urgency, or emotional numbness,” says Hayes.
“These reactions happen automatically, outside of conscious control. A person can intellectually understand their triggers in therapy and still feel overwhelmed because the body has not yet received the message that it is safe.”
By utilizing nervous system work, integrative therapy helps support the body to shift into the parasympathetic nervous system — out of fight, flight, or freeze mode and into “rest and digest” mode.
This nervous system state supports relaxation and recovery and can help improve the functioning of systems such as digestion and immune regulation.
“This is where the nervous system becomes essential. Regulation allows the body to shift out of protection so the brain can actually use what therapy is teaching,” says Hayes.
“Without that physiological safety, insight alone often feels frustrating because change does not “stick.”
“The intersection happens when cognitive understanding and somatic awareness work together. Therapy names the story. The body holds the imprint. Nervous system support creates the conditions that allow both to integrate.”
What Happens in an Integrative Therapy Session?
To support somatic and nervous system work, integrative therapy utilizes techniques such as mindfulness, breathwork, yoga, self massage, and grounding.
By helping people to connect with their bodies, a feeling of safety in the body can be created so that emotions and feelings can be processed verbally.
Research shows that somatic work facilitates improved emotional connection with the self and emotional processing. Research also shows that connecting with the body in this way can support nervous system function and consequentially support emotional processing.
Celine Vignal, Founder at Seesaw Health, explains that talk therapy, the body, and the nervous system are just three ways of touching the same experience — “how safe you feel inside your own skin.”
“When they work together, you are not only changing your thoughts about stress or trauma, you are gently teaching your body that it does not have to stay on high alert all the time.
Vignal highlights that, in therapy, being “truly heard” can soften the brain’s alarm system, while your body may still carry patterns such as tight breathing, a racing heart, or tension from years of pushing through.
“Body‑based tools such as breathwork, gentle movement, or grounding give your nervous system new, kinder experiences like slower exhales, softer muscles, steadier heart rhythms, that slowly widen your capacity to handle life without shutting down or burning out,” adds Vignal.
“The focus is on making that mind–body link feel practical and compassionate, especially for women who have been “holding it together” for a long time.”
In Vignal’s sessions, guided breathwork and biofeedback — teaching people to control automatic functions like the heartbeat — is utilized to help people understand how their nervous system is doing in real time .
“We also utilize three to five minute practices that calm the body before, during or after emotionally charged moments, including in therapy sessions,” says Vignal.
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Why the Body Matters in Healing
While understanding our feelings may provide some progress towards improving wellness, experts say that without including the body in the equation, it can be difficult to move out of survival mode.
Research shows that traumatic experiences can be stored differently from ordinary memories. Instead of being integrated as coherent, narrative memories, they are often fragmented and encoded more strongly as sensory and bodily (sensorimotor) elements, which can contribute to ongoing symptoms such as poor mental health or chronic pain.
Dr. Jason Winkelmann, a Chronic Pain Specialist at True Health Centers, says that our thoughts and emotions are not isolated from the rest of our body.
“They are directly intertwined into your physical and biochemical physiology,” says Dr. Winkelmann.
“We like to think that emotional experiences are stored solely as thoughts or memories, but in reality, they are encoded in the nervous system through autonomic dysregulation, muscle tension, aberrant breathing patterns, inappropriate stress hormone signaling, and even physical pain.”
Hayes adds that when we learn to notice these physical reactions such as breathing patterns, muscle tension, and emotional shifts in real time, therapy becomes “embodied instead of purely intellectual.”
“That is often when deeper and more lasting healing occurs,” says Hayes.
“In simple terms: you cannot talk your way out of a body that still feels unsafe, but when the body feels supported, therapy becomes far more effective.”
Dr. Vincent Halbrook, a Clinical Psychologist and Addiction Counselling Specialist explains that emotional wellbeing lies at the “intersection” of talk therapy, the body and the nervous system, noting that prolonged exposure to stress or trauma puts the nervous system in a heightened state of alert.
“While Talk therapy provides language and meaning, the body offers real-time feedback with the nervous system determining whether a person feels safe enough to process the emotions,” says Dr. Halbrook.
“Ideally an effective therapy must align all three so patients can move beyond mere intellectual understanding and towards regulation, learning not just why they react, but how to calm their system in the moment.”
From Insight to Integration
Talking therapy can help us to understand an experience or trauma, and using somatic approaches alongside it can support the nervous system in becoming more regulated, making it easier to stay present with difficult emotions.
By building a toolkit to regulate the nervous system and reconnect with the body, integrative therapy supports people to build up emotional resilience and reframe and update responses to emotional triggers over time.
Research shows that body-based therapies can help improve mental health symptoms from conditions such as anxiety depression, as well as reducing stress and bodily dissociation.
Further research suggests that body-based therapies can help people integrate insights from psychotherapy on a deeper level, improving PTSD symptoms and an individual’s sense of inner security, and facilitating the psychotherapeutic processes, for example.
Who Can Benefit Most from This Approach?
Integrative therapy can help with a range of issues stemming from mental health conditions to addiction and low-self esteem, for example.
People who have been in psychotherapy for a number of years and are not seeing any therapeutic progress may benefit from considering integrative therapies.
This holistic approach to mental wellbeing can support those who are stuck in fight,flight, or freeze mode, are experiencing burnout or who may suffer with chronic stress or anxiety that shows up in the body.
Speak with your healthcare practitioner about whether integrative therapy is right for you if you are seeking a more personalised approach to care, or seeking an approach to your wellbeing that incorporates the mind and body.
Conclusion
While psychotherapy can help us gain a clearer understanding of mental health conditions, trauma and emotions, integrative therapy takes a holistic approach to mind and body care that aims to support long-term mental and physical wellbeing.
An integrative approach enables the body to move into a relaxed state, creates a sense of safety that enables people to process difficult emotions, can help build long-term emotional resilience and provides a deeper sense of connection to our body.
Through breathwork, body movement and breathing exercises and utilizing behavior therapies such as CBT, integrative therapy sees wellbeing as a process of reconnecting with ourselves and moving toward long-term wellbeing.
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FAQ
How does integrative therapy differ from traditional talk therapy?
While talking therapy focuses on discussing and understanding an emotion, experience or trauma, integrative therapy takes a personalised and holistic approach to mind-body support in order to facilitate emotional resilience and long-term wellness.
Why are the body and nervous system an important focus in integrative therapy?
The body and the nervous system are a vital focus in integrative therapy as long term-stress, trauma or distress can put the body and nervous system into a “fight, flight, or freeze” state, potentially leading to physical or mental illness.
Integrative therapy helps the body and nervous system to move into a more relaxed state in order to support emotional processing and build long-term emotional resilience and wellness.
How do body-based and mindfulness techniques support emotional processing?
Body-based techniques, such as movement, yoga or self massage, as well as mindfulness techniques such as breathwork and meditation, can help the body feel safe and move into a relaxed state, enabling vital processes such as our immune or digestive systems to function properly.
Who might benefit from an integrative approach to therapy?
Those who have seen limited progress in traditional talk therapy or who are looking for a more holistic approach to their wellbeing may benefit from integrative therapy.
Expert Board Member
Lasting therapeutic change relies not only on insight but on nervous system regulation and embodied integration. In a mental health landscape where talk alone often falls short, this article offers a clear and timely introduction to how somatic and cognitive approaches work together to support deeper healing.
