What is Reichian Somatic Therapy?
Developed from Wilhelm Reich’s pioneering understanding of the human experience, Reichian Somatic Therapy is a body-centered psychotherapy that explores the profound link between emotions, breath, and muscular tension. It recognizes that chronic emotional holding patterns are imprinted or 'written' into our physical structure as muscular armor, often restricting our vitality and natural flow.
In our sessions, we use a collaborative combination of breath, movement, sound, and mindful awareness to help release these stored holding patterns. This work is profoundly gentle and systematically paced to your nervous system’s unique capacity, ensuring you always feel safe and resourced while discharging tension and finding a more authentic connection to your body.
Character Armor
Wilhelm Reich identified character armor as chronic muscular and emotional holding patterns. These physical 'shields' develop over time to protect us from overwhelm, but they often become rigid structures that limit our natural vitality and expression.
Somatic Safety & Resourcing
Our approach honors the connection between early life experiences and adult body patterns. We prioritize feeling safe and resourced in the present moment, ensuring the nervous system can gently integrate releases without retraumatization.
Breath and Energy Flow
Breath is the primary bridge between the conscious mind and the autonomic nervous system. By re-establishing deep, rhythmic respiration, we allow blocked emotional energy (orgone) to begin flowing freely through the body's seven segments of armor.
Benefits & Outcomes
Somatic Reichian breathwork (influenced by the work of Wilhelm Reich) focuses on how chronic tension in the body—sometimes called “armoring”—can restrict breathing, emotional expression, and overall vitality. By working with breath, awareness, and gentle body activation, people often report a wide range of benefits. Some of what you listed lines up well with how this approach is typically described:
Not all experiences are stored as words
Some experiences, especially early or overwhelming ones, are stored as body memory, not clear stories. This relates to how the brain encodes implicit memory (often linked to structures like the amygdala).
Talk therapy: “I know I’m safe, but I still feel anxious.”
Somatic therapy: works directly with that felt anxiety in the body
Stress and anxiety relief
Deep, conscious breathing can help regulate the nervous system, shifting it away from chronic fight-or-flight activation. Many people experience a calmer baseline and improved ability to handle stressors without feeling overwhelmed.
Emotional release and processing
Because this method emphasizes the body–emotion connection, it can bring up long-held or suppressed feelings. When approached safely, this can help people process grief, anger, or fear that may have been stored as physical tension.
Greater physical openness and ease
Participants often describe a sense of “space” in areas like the abdomen, chest, and pelvic region. This can come from releasing habitual muscular holding patterns and improving breathing depth and mobility.
Pelvic awareness and support
Some Reichian-informed practices include attention to the pelvic floor and core, which may improve awareness, relaxation, and coordination in that area.
Lightness and mental clarity
With less tension and more oxygenation, people may feel lighter, clearer, and more present. This can translate into better focus and reduced mental fog.
Reduced irritability and improved mood
As emotional pressure decreases and the nervous system stabilizes, mood often becomes more even, with fewer spikes of irritability or reactivity.
Increased access to pleasure and vitality
Reichian theory links restricted breathing and muscular tension to reduced capacity for pleasure. Releasing those patterns can sometimes increase feelings of aliveness, enjoyment, and sensory awareness.
Improved connection with others
When people feel more at ease in their bodies and emotions, it can become easier to connect, communicate, and feel safe with others.
Stronger sense of self and self-esteem
Working through embodied patterns can lead to a clearer sense of personal boundaries, needs, and identity, which may support self-confidence.
My Approach to Somatic Work
Dr. Bastable offers Reichian Somatic breathwork, rooted in the body-oriented psychotherapy of Wilhelm Reich and grounded in a trauma-informed, neurodivergent-affirming framework.
This is a bottom-up, body-based approach that works with breath, movement, vocalization, interoception, and softening chronic muscular tension patterns (“armoring”) to support nervous system regulation and emotional processing. It is particularly suited for people whose symptoms are primarily physiological, affective, or somatically expressed, and who may have limited response to insight-oriented or purely cognitive modalities.
During our clinical work, we track physical sensations and emotional energy in real-time. We use guided breathwork, gentle movement and fascial release to help the body discharge long-held tension stored in the muscles and fascia. Your consent and the specific pacing of your nervous system are honored at every step, ensuring that the work is felt as safe, manageable, and deeply restorative.
The final stage of our work is integration, where we allow the shifts in the body to settle and become part of your new baseline. By working at your body’s own natural rhythm, we move beyond just symptom relief toward a lasting sense of being grounded, vibrant, and authentically alive in your physical self.
Dr. Bastable works with adults presenting with:
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Early or ongoing relational trauma
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Complex and developmental trauma
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Religious or spiritual trauma where emotional expression was restricted
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Family-of-origin dynamics where crying, anger, or authentic expression were not allowed or were punished
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Chronic stress, hyperarousal, or shutdown states
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Somatic symptoms such as persistent muscular tension, restricted breathing, or difficulty accessing internal states
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Long-term stress, masking, or nervous system overwhelm
Patient Testimonials
"Reichian Breathwork is changing my life, allowing me to take my power back, and giving me the courage to speak my boundaries and needs with my family.[It] is a very powerful tool that everyone should consider to free themselves of whatever is holding them back from their greatest self."
— Somatic Breathwork Participant
"As a patient of Dr. Bastable, I whole-heartedly believe that I would not have made the breakthroughs I needed to in order to have a free and happy life.It is transformative and freeing, which is an understatement. I feel like I am living my fullest potential and I am excited to continue the work!"
— Somatic Breathwork Participant
"I finally feel 'at home' in my own skin. The sessions are paced so gently, following my nervous system's lead. Releasing character armor has changed how I interact with the world and myself."
— Somatic Breathwork Participant
Somatic Reflections
"The most radical thing a woman can do is come home to her body"
— Marbella Barajas
The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk
“The human body is not an instrument to be used, but a realm of one's being to be experienced, explored, enriched and, thereby, educated”
— Thomas hanna
“There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then, there’s another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity.”
— Rumi