Integral Somatic Psychotherapy (ISP), developed by Raja Selvam, is a transformative somatic approach designed to enhance emotional embodiment. By addressing trauma, chronic physiological symptoms, and psycho-emotional challenges, ISP offers a powerful pathway to trauma resolution, personal growth, and improved relationships. This method supports the development of emotional capacity, mental clarity, and empowered decision-making in all areas of life.
The Impact of Unintegrated Emotions on Trauma and Health
Emotional embodiment is a key doorway to holistic well-being, encompassing body, mind, heart, and spirit. Unintegrated emotional experiences often underlie chronic physical symptoms and unresolved psychological trauma. When we suppress difficult emotions, we activate physiological defenses that not only diminish emotional experience but also dysregulate the brain and body. Cultivating the ability to fully embody emotions—even challenging ones—restores balance, enhances self-awareness, and strengthens our capacity to navigate life authentically and powerfully.
Expanding Capacity for Emotional Embodiment
The intensity or numbness associated with certain emotions arises because they are often confined to limited areas of the body. Expanding the bodily space available for these emotions—like distributing weight evenly between both hands—makes them more tolerable and accessible. This expanded capacity enables deeper understanding of emotions, their contexts, and their connections to past experiences, while also fostering greater choice in responding to situations rather than reacting impulsively.
The Three Pillars of Healing: Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior
Neuroscience shows that cognition, emotion, and behavior are not only processed in the brain but also throughout the body—and they are deeply interconnected. By using the ISP approach to expand the physiological and psychological capacity for processing difficult emotions, individuals can gain greater clarity about related situations and triggers (cognition) and make more intentional choices in those situations (behavior).
What to Expect in an ISP Session
ISP is a holistic modality that facilitates clients in expanding their emotional experience throughout the body. Sessions incorporate tools such as awareness, intention, imagination, self-touch, movement, and verbal or non-verbal expression to deepen the emotional experience and anchor it in the present moment. Practitioners guide this process by attuning to the client’s physical and subtle bodies, as well as the surrounding resonant field, while supporting nervous system regulation. Clients often leave ISP sessions feeling more vital, energized, calm, and spacious. They gain new clarity about their experiences and a renewed sense of empowerment in navigating life’s challenges.
When we expand the body by working with defenses against emotions to expand the painful emotions in the body, it can help the body to get regulated and remain open and connected to the brain as well as to the other people and the environment. In that way, our symptoms can resolve. — Raja Selvam
Are you ready to begin your healing journey?
Schedule your first session today, or reach out with any questions to explore how we can work together.