Services
Individual Counseling and Somatic Therapy
Somatic Experiencing is a psycho-biological trauma resolution model that is a potent method for resolving trauma symptoms and relieving chronic stress. This view of the impact of trauma on individuals greatly influences Mariah’s counselling approach.
"Mariah is truly a gifted Somatic Therapist! I wasn’t sure what to expect at our first session – but I showed up to it with an open heart and was met with her warmth and guidance. Sessions with Mariah are structured, flow well, and end with me noticing some very tangible internal shifts. As someone who regularly engages in talk therapy, I feel SE provides a beautiful bottom-up approach to my healing journey which was missing previously." – L.F.
Why Somatic Experiencing?
Viewing trauma symptoms as the inability to complete sympathetic nervous system responses when facing threat to one’s safety, SE provides a facilitation of change through body-based interventions that help to aid completion and regain internal equilibrium:
“SE is designed to direct the attention of the person to internal sensations that facilitate biological completion of thwarted responses, thus leading to resolution of the trauma response and the creation of new interoceptive experiences of agency and mastery” -Payne et al., 2015.
As SE views the individual as the best expert of their own body, it encourages a collaborative rather than hierarchical therapeutic relationship, which is essential for individuals who have experienced trauma. Viewing the client as already in possession of the innate tools to heal themselves and the therapist merely a facilitator for these tools, SE aims to empower a client to listen to their body in a way that has often been denied within other contexts.
“By slowing down and titrating these subtle physical and mental processes sufficiently that they can be noticed, followed, experienced, and survived, the person discovers—in a fully embodied knowing—that the survival-threatening situation has passed, and relative safety has been found” -Taylor and Saint Laurent, 2017.
References:
Payne, P., Levine, P. A., & Crane-Godreau, M. A. (2015). Somatic experiencing: using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 93. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00093
Taylor, P.J., & Saint-Laurent, R. (2017). Group psychotherapy informed by the principles of Somatic Experiencing: Moving beyond trauma to embodied relationship. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 67(sup1), S171–S181. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207284.2016.1218282
To learn more about Somatic Experiencing:
https://traumahealing.org/
Consulting
Alongside my clinical work, I bridge my passion for critical disability theory by serving as an accessibility consultant for organizations and events that wish to create accessible systems and spaces for all bodies. This has included both pragmatic guidance on how to create physical spaces that are more inclusive of bodies with diverse needs, along with looking at ways to structure services to be more trauma informed and more accessible and equitable for all.
Having served on qualitative research teams at both the University of Calgary and University of Toronto which examined themes of disability justice, I am passionate about creating a more inclusive world. If you would like to explore a consulting opportunity with me, please email me for more details.
“Mariah brought embodied wisdom to her role as Accessibility Consultant for our show’s production process. Her grounded confidence stems from her breadth of personal and professional knowledge about access needs, disability justice and community care. She is a generous collaborator who worked gracefully with our group to cultivate resources and identify areas for growth.” – Allergic to Water production team.
