Frequently Asked Questions

  • Somatic bodywork may feel similar to massage, but it is not massage. Sessions often take place on a massage table, but clients remain clothed. The touch can feel calming, soothing, or deeply therapeutic, but the intention is different:

    • A doctor works on the body.

    • A massage therapist works with the body.

    • Somatic bodywork works through the body.

    I use touch, dialogue, breath, and energy in partnership with you. Together, we listen deeply to what your body is communicating and follow that wisdom.

  • Therapy is about diagnosing and treating mental health conditions, and often centers on pathology. Coaching focuses on possibility, growth, and the future.

    • Therapists often analyze patterns through a clinical lens.

    • Coaches share observations and reflections while centering the client’s perspective and goals.

    • Both may explore past experiences, emotions, and patterns, and both can support future goals—just in different ways.

    Coaching and counseling can complement one another. Many clients work with both a therapist and a coach, either in parallel or collaboratively. Since I was trained as a therapist, that background informs my coaching, though the roles remain distinct.

    If you’re unsure whether therapy, coaching, or both would be best for you, I invite you to schedule a complimentary 15-minute clarity call.

  • Both approaches bring awareness to the body and nervous system:

    • Somatic therapy often focuses on trauma resolution and soothing survival responses.

    • Somatic coaching may also touch on healing, but goes further to build capacity for growth, aliveness, and presence. It emphasizes transformation, not just regulation.

    In my coaching, I guide clients through somatic awareness, opening, and practice—so you can reshape conditioned tendencies (in body, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors), increase emotional capacity, and feel more grounded and alive.

    • Somatic Coaching supports personal growth, leadership, and life alignment. We integrate body awareness into goal-setting and behavior change using practices like centering, grounding, and movement to build presence, resilience, and choice.

    Somatic Bodywork creates somatic openings and releases tension so the body can support emotional and energetic well-being. I use touch, pressure, breathwork, dialogue, movement, and sound to unwind holding patterns in tissues, muscles, and energy—restoring flow and ease.

  • Somatic Experiencing (SE) focuses on gently renegotiating trauma responses in the nervous system, emphasizing safety, resilience, and regulation.

    I integrate SE techniques into my work, but my approach is broader. Alongside trauma resolution, I guide clients in:

    • Somatic coaching for growth and transformation.

    • Somatic bodywork to restore balance and flow through the body.

    • Somatic practices to reshape patterns of being, expression, and presence.

  • Not at all. The most powerful sessions often weave together coaching, bodywork, and somatic practice.

    • In-person sessions often emphasize bodywork.

    • Online sessions adapt well to coaching and practices, with bodywork techniques you can learn to do for yourself.

    • A bodywork-focused session usually begins with 20–30 minutes of dialogue and coaching, followed by about an hour of bodywork. A coaching-focused session is often the reverse.

  • Practice makes presence. Somatic practices are embodied exercises repeated over time until they reshape conditioned tendencies. They help you:

    • Center and ground yourself.

    • Set healthy boundaries.

    • Make powerful requests.

    • Build connection and intimacy.

    • Access both power and vulnerability.

    • Coordinate more effectively with others.

    Somatic processes create openings, resolve old patterns, and bring insight. For example, we may work with a difficult body sensation until it feels more held, understood, or integrated.

  • Both can be valuable:

    • 1:1 sessions provide personalized guidance and allow for hands-on bodywork.

    • Group work offers shared practices, peer dialogue, thematic learning, and a sense of community.

    Many clients combine both—deep individual work paired with group connection for greater growth.

  • Yes. I’ve been teaching meditation and mindfulness for decades. These practices are inherently somatic.

    Many people believe they “can’t meditate,” but this usually comes from unrealistic expectations or a lack of guidance. True meditation is not about forcing calm or pushing discomfort away—it’s about allowing presence.

    I help clients build a strong, embodied meditation practice rooted in purpose and principle, rather than “McMindfulness.” Apps like Calm can be supportive, but they don’t replace deep guidance and integration.

  • Yes. I reserve a limited number of sliding-scale spots to keep this work accessible. I encourage clients to use the Green Bottle method  to reflect on what feels sustainable. Together, we’ll find a rate that works for both of us.

  • No. This work is not therapy or massage and is very distinctive. 

    Medical insurance does not pay for this type of work. 

    • Wear soft, comfortable clothing (leggings, shorts, or T-shirts work best). Avoid jeans or cargo pants.

    • Remove jewelry or leave it at home.

    • Arrive with a sense of what you’d like to focus on in the session.

  • Yes. Please reach out for a complimentary clarity call for these before booking. 

    • Couples can use somatic work to strengthen connection, intimacy, and communication.

    • Teens can benefit from bringing somatic awareness into building self-esteem and relational skills.Teens in particular often have heightened somatic awareness due to hormones and their developmental stage. 

    • Families that seek to improve connection and coordination can benefit from collective coaching. I can work with two members at a time, or more, depending goals and desired outcomes. 

    • Teams and Work Groups

    I work with teams and workgroups on-site or at The Charbonneau Activity Center in Wilsonville. Somatic work can help improve connection, build team effectiveness, enhance productivity, engagement, and working together skills. These are custom program or service designs. Fill out a contact form, or contact me directly at dana@somasolidarity.com to explore. Somatics can be incorporated into team/organizational retreats, board retreats, teambuilding, and team effectiveness work.

    This can be highly experiential and incorporate other leadership development curriculum and activities, and group facilitation.  We design in partnership.

    I work with couples when both people are equally committed, and with teens when they have personally chosen to engage in the work. 

  • Yes. Here are 4 examples:

    • 90-minute experiential presentation for 50 San Francisco public health nurse practitioners at their annual retreat. Somatic Wisdom & Pracice for Patients and Practitioners. 

    • “All Hands” panel moderation/experience and presentation broadcasted globally to hundreds of high-tech leaders in a Fortune 500. Developing Somatic Resilience to Navigate Constant Change.

    • Keynote to 200 people and workshop for 25 people for a national non-profit organization’s annual conference that provides support to families experiencing chronic illness, caregiver burnout, and systemic barriers. Rising in Resilience: Finding Inner Strength and Making Change through Somatic Presence.

    • Annual conference workshop for realtors. Groups of 20-50. Developing Your Presence through Somatics. 

    Reach out to explore more. 

  • YES. 

    Somatic practices and processes are extremely helpful for leaders, both individually and collectively. Developing executive presence and influence, building gravitas and confidence, learning to lead more collaboratively and inclusively, developing a more engaging style, increasing quality and speed of decision-making, softening or strengthening presence are just some of the leadership capabilities that can be addressed with individuals and groups. In addition, somatic work is very helpful for increasing trust and effective collaboration with teams. 

    Somatic practice enhances capabilities such as: setting boundaries, making and responding to requests, persevering through challenges, working in sync, handling ambiguity and rapid change, and developing a collective vision. 

    1:1 somatic executive coaching and group development are both offered. 

    I blend over 25 years of development work with senior leaders and deep somatic training and practice with groups to offer development programs, workshops, and classes. At this time, group work with leaders is customized. Look for “off the shelf” programs in the second half of 2026. Executive coaching and group work is priced differently than work offered for personal development. Reach out for a clarity call to explore. 

  • The cornerstone of my somatic training is the Strozzi Institute for Somatics methodology. The following thought and practice leaders influences the theoretical and practice basis: Elsa Grindler, Wilhelm Reich, Doris Breyer, Randolph Stone, Ida Rolf, Magda Proskauer, and Moshe Feldenkrais. The martial art of Aikdido, from the lineage of Morihei Ueshiba has also deeply influenced Strozzi methodology and practices; as have Indian and Tibetan meditation and spiritual paths of enlightment. Additionally, psychological, linguistic, and neuroscience thought and practice leaders such as: Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy), the Lomi School, Jungian Psychology, J.L. Austin, John Searle, Fernando Flores, Bessel van der kolk, Daniel Siegel, Candace Pert have helped shape Strozzi methodology. More recently, the work of Staci Haines and Generative Somatics has influenced an understanding of what is known as “politcized somatics”. Leaders in this branch, such as Staci and Prentice Hemphil, were Strozzi-trained and influenced, and have influenced and shaped Strozzi methodology. 


    My coaching work incorporates and is influenced by IFS (internal family systems), as well as a variety of coaching and human development theories and methodologies that include: systems-based coaching, polarity theory, developmental coaching, axiogenics, complexity theory and the cynefin framework, the science of habit forming, positive psychology, 

    Jennifer Garvey Berger, Richard Schwartz, Peter Demarest, David Rock, James Clear, 


    I have training in massage basics (The Oregon School of Massage), Manual Cranial Sacral therapy (Marion Wolfe-Dixon), and Reiki (Joei Siaz, Reiki Master). In the fall of 2025, I will complete an intensive at The Monterey Bay Rosen Method Center with Jane Malek and Kate Shea, and in 2026, I will begin a 3-year certification in Somatic Intuitive Healing that will deepen my practice of cranial sacral therapy by adding biodynamic practice to my toolkit. In addition, it will deepen my current practice of polarity therapy and other energy-related and intuitive techniques. 

    My primary meditation, mindfulness, and buddhist lineage is Theravāda. The majority of my study and practice over 30 years has been in the Western Vipassanā, Burmese, and Thai Forest traditions, although I have also studied and practiced in other traditions such as Zen and Shambhala. My root/guiding teachers have included Rodney Smith, Steve Armstrong, Kamala Masters, Ajahn Nishabo, and Tuere Sala. Some other non-root or guiding teachers that I have studied and practiced with in person include: Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Noah Levine, Eugene Cash, Sharda Rogell, Phillip Moffit, Ayya Anadabodhi, Ayya Santussika, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Sudanto, Ajahn Goeff, Ajahn Kovilo, Tim Geil, Keri Pederson, Deborah Helzer, Narayan Liebenson, Carol Moffit, Sylvia Boorstein, Rebecca Bradshaw, Heather Martin, Guy Armstrong, and Adrianne Ross. 


    I apprentice with/am mentored by Master Bodyworker, Madeline Wade, who has over 20 years of experience in somatic coaching and bodywork, 20 years of leadership in the corporate world, and has guided over 12,000 bodywork sessions. She is rooted in the Strozzi methodology, and her work is informed by training, study, and practice of many other bodywork modalities from Strozzi to Maori, and she has developed her own training methodology called Wisdom Bodywork.

  • I trained and worked as a mental health therapist earlier in my career, but I no longer practice therapy. While I have studied massage techniques, I am not a licensed massage therapist, and the work I do is not considered massage.

  • I do one-on-one bodywork & coaching sessions mainly in my home office in the beautiful, tree-lined District of Charbonneau in Wilsonville, OR. We might also use my backyard garden area, the park next door, or my living room with vaulted ceilings for practices.  5 minutes away, we have access to an Activity Center with a boardroom, a dance facility, and a variety of other rooms. Each space allows for a different atmosphere and set of activities. 

  • For those outside the area, I offer sessions over Zoom and adapt practices and bodywork to the virtual format. Virtual sessions are primarily coaching, although some bodywork can be done. Virtual bodywork is different than in-person bodywork, but can work well. It allows you to practice on yourself. I can work with clients anywhere.

  • My house has 2 steps leading to the front door and an ADA handrail. My office is on the second floor, where there is also a bathroom. For those who need first floor access, I have a stair lift that can be used with advanced notice given.

    For in-person coaching only, and not bodywork, we generally meet on the second floor, but it is possible to meet on the first floor, or at The Activity Center, which is completely accessible.

  • I have a 24-hour cancellation policy unless there is an emergency, which we determine together. With at least 24 hours’ notice, sessions can be rescheduled. Sessions missed with no notice or canceled in less than 24 hours are not refundable or reschedulable.

  • Please find fees for specific offerings on those pages:

  • Yes, we offer gift certificates for single bodywork-focused sessions and 3- session packages.

  • I generally do not offer refunds for sessions or packages. In cases of emergencies or life impacting events, exceptions are considered.

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