Recently, I was working with a client who was struggling with a tendency to override her intuition whenever she needed to make important decisions. She was ruminating about whether to go to a dinner party she was invited to because her ex-husband was going to be there. She really didn’t seem to want to go, but couldn’t say no. The following week, she texted me, cancelling our next session, stating, “The morning of the party, I threw out my back. I guess the answer was no!”
Stories like this unfold daily in psychotherapy, highlighting the fact that the mind and the body are not separate entities. Mind and body are intricately interconnected and in constant communication with one another. When you have an emotion, multiple body sensations occur before you’re even conscious of what you’re feeling. A lump in your throat, a tight stomach, are signs that something is brewing internally before you can name it.
Most of us were not trained to notice this connection, and our world perpetuates this disconnect between mind and body. Health care commercials often present messages encouraging us to “push through the flu” or other conditions. Newscasters are often highly distressed while reporting about traumatic events, passing on their unexpressed trauma symptoms to us. Suspenseful television shows overstimulate us, leaving us unaware as to why we can’t fall asleep after watching them.
Similarly, when someone is depressed, meds are often the first response, when there may be other ways to understand the heaviness connected to a deep heartache. When we ignore the mind-body connection, we learn to treat body symptoms as problems rather than as signals to look deeper. Our bodies send valuable cues all the time about stress, emotional overwhelm, or unmet needs. When we learn to listen rather than rushing to diagnose or fix, we open the door to more effective, meaningful, and compassionate healing.
One of the ways that somatic therapy (therapy that addresses the mind -body connection), works differently than other therapies is by using what’s called a “bottom up” approach, In a “bottom up” approach, we work first with the body and then with thoughts as opposed to a “top down” approach which addresses thoughts first, as in cognitive behavioral therapy. The theory behind a “bottom-up” approach is explained by Dan Siegel in his book “The Whole Brain Child”. He gives an example of a child screaming in a restaurant when he doesn’t get to eat what he wants. If his parent first tries to reason with him about why he can’t have the food he wants, this will backfire because the child’s limbic system (his emotional brain) has put him into a state of high activation, making any reasoning with his pre-frontal cortex (the rational part of his brain) difficult to access. The best approach is to first soothe his dysregulation through touch and/or calming words and then discuss rationally what happened and why. A somatic approach often works when other therapy approaches don’t because we are working on helping the body feel safe, even when the mind does not feel that it is and can’t be convinced logically.
One of the most meaningful moments in therapy happens when a client begins to recognize their bodily sensations as information rather than as obstacles. David came to therapy with chronic insomnia. He had been given medication by his PCP, who assumed that his sleep disturbance was an isolated issue. Over time, we learned that he was chronically stressed and unable to shut off his nervous system, not just at night, but ever. Growing up, he had been placed in the role of caretaker for a sibling who had health issues. As a result, he had never learned how to access his parasympathetic nervous system response, the “rest and digest” branch in the body. As he saw that his system was stuck in the “on” position and that his job (ironically, in a demanding health care setting) also perpetuated this overload rhythm, he was able to use simple somatic exercises such as deep breathing to slow his body down. This improved his sleep and his overall sense of well-being. This also opened up awareness for him about his need to establish clearer boundaries at work when the stress was feeling like too much, which he could now track through recognizing body sensations that accompany his anxiety.
The mind–body connection is also very relevant for children and adolescents. Headaches, sleep problems, irritability, or behavioral changes can all be expressions of emotional distress. If parents focus exclusively on fixing the physical symptom without exploring the emotional context, children may learn to disconnect from their internal experiences rather than understand them. This can lead to struggles with or confusion about anxiety later in life.
Children also learn how to relate to their bodies by watching how the adults around them relate to their own physical sensations. When caregivers dismiss physical complaints, ignore stress signals, or push through exhaustion, children learn that their body’s signals don’t matter. On the other hand, when adults name feelings, model rest, and respond with curiosity—“I wonder what your body is trying to tell us”—they learn that their internal experiences are valid and worth listening to. This offers them a foundation that can shape how they manage stress, emotions, and health well into adulthood.
Teaching children about the mind–body connection can be practiced in small moments: helping a child notice how their breathing changes when they’re upset, encouraging movement after long periods of sitting, or validating that worry can feel uncomfortable in the body. These practices help children develop emotional literacy and resilience, teaching them ways to regulate themselves rather than feeling overwhelmed by sensations they don’t understand.
Our bodies are not betraying us, even when they feel uncomfortable or out of control. Learning to listen to our symptoms—instead of fighting them—is not just a therapeutic skill but a lifelong practice of awareness and connection.
