If you're looking for a faster way to relieve your pain, muscle tension, spasms,  and other disturbing issues, you've come to the right place!

Whether of somatic (physical), emotional, or idiopathic origin, pain, tension, and spasms are always real and disturbing. Although they can be a predictor of many diseases, the classic model associating a somatic (physical) origin to any painful sensation or spasm has evolved in recent years. Pain and other physical and emotional feelings are always intertwined and often carry deep emotional meanings.

The process of perceiving pain has a similar neurological path and activates similar brain regions as the perception of the somatic component of emotion. Pain is perceived as a feeling by the emotional brain, and the outcome is jointly negotiated and decided with the cognitive brain. Thus, the feeling of pain is created by the brain. This means that if you are in pain, you are not necessarily physically ill or hurt. And if you are physically ill or hurt, you will not necessarily be in pain. This is why the term "idiopathic," meaning "uncertain or unknown cause," is often used to describe various disturbing, often unexplained, feelings or pains.

Whether you are dealing with acute, chronic, somatic, neuropathic, idiopathic, or emotional pain, an emotional component of your pain is always present. Therefore, a broken heart or a broken leg is all the same to your brain. Thus, persistent migraines as well as headaches, back pain, persistent post-surgical pain, pain related to cancer treatments, atypical pain or also all kinds of chronic pain are among the types of pain that respond very well to Somatic Hypnotherapy. You can thus relieve all kinds of pain and disturbing feelings, whether they are of somatic, psychosomatic, neuropathic, emotional or "without known reason or cause" origin (commonly called idiopathic).*

Here is a list of disturbing experiences of idiopathic or emotional nature, whose main symptoms are pain, tension, spasms, jerks, or tics, and several other disturbing manifestations. The Somatic Hypnotherapy approach relies on, and validates Dr. Antonio Damasio's “Somatic Marker Hypothesis", recognizing how emotions express themselves through the body as feelings, in almost mysterious and non-structural ways. The issues listed below have no clear structural cause and are often associated with emotional roots or correlates, either directly or through somatic expression.

• Emotionally-driven body discomfort: Persistent pain, tightness, or spasms with no clear injury. It is the non-verbal way in which the body most often expresses repressed emotions or unresolved emotional content – ​​through physical sensations blocked inside.

• Functional movement reactions: Involuntary twitches, jerks, shaking, or difficulty coordinating movement. Often triggered by emotional overload, stress or chronic anxiety.

• Stress or anxiety-held muscle tension patterns: Chronic tightness, especially in the back, shoulders, neck, or jaw. These areas often hold repressed emotions like anger, grief, or anxiety.

• Whole-body increased sensitivity states: Widespread muscle tenderness, tension, or fatigue that doesn't respond to typical physical treatments. Often associated with high emotional sensitivity, long-term stress, or nervous system dysregulation.

• Deep exhaustion patterns: Fatigue, heaviness, and body pain after minor exertion. Emotional burnout, long-term override of body needs, or post-traumatic depletion.

• Shaking, jerking, or collapsing episodes: Sudden body movements, tremors, or collapsing episodes not tied to a medical condition. Often a somatic (physical) expression of unresolved trauma or emotional overload.

• Tension from high-alert states: Muscle twitching (e.g., eye, arm), cramps, or jaw clenching. Often, subconscious expression of hypervigilance of the nervous system, often due to untreated trauma, fear, or the anticipation of it.

• Nighttime jaw tension and clenching, tendency to grind teeth (bruxism): Waking with sore jaws, headaches, or clicking in the face area. Often linked to repressed expression, unspoken needs, or internalized pressure.

• Feeling of carrying too much on the back (shoulders): Chronic upper back, shoulder, or neck tension. Often, projections of over-responsibility, or of carrying emotional burdens.

• Chronic back pain (without somatic cause): Upper back: Feeling of lack of emotional support; fear of carrying others or financial fear (insecurity). Mid-back: Guilt, unresolved grief, feeling stuck, or repressed power/anger. Lower back: Likely sign of job or family dissatisfaction.

• Twisting or tightening movements: Uncomfortable pulling, tension, or twisting of muscles without cause. Somatic (physical) signs often associated with inner conflicts, the need to protect oneself or difficulty in aligning oneself.

• Restlessness, constant need to (urge) move states (especially in legs): Unsettling sensation in the legs, often at night, with an urge to move. This can be a sign of nervous energy, emotional restlessness, or unmet desire for change/movement.

• Pain, tension, discomfort in the pelvic region, without somatic (physical) causes: Tension, discomfort, or hypersensitivity in the pelvic region. Often linked to sexual emotions, un-respected boundaries, or deeply rooted and disturbing memories.

• Genital discomfort without somatic (physical) cause: Tingling, pain, or burning without visible signs or infections. Sexual emotional tension related to intimacy, identity, or security.

• Repetitive, compulsive movements or muscle reactions: Eye blinking, shoulder jerks, head tics, or facial twitches. These may be signs of overflow, or automatic discharges of internal, often unconscious, emotional tensions.

• Knotted or hardened muscle zones: Specific tight spots or “knots” that trigger pain when touched. Knots (nodes) are the expression of the body's emotional "storage points," of past disturbing experiences.

• Random twitching or fascial flickers: Little fluttering or twitching sensations under the skin, especially in calm moments. Often signals releases of pent-up emotional energy stored in the nervous system, or subconscious alertness.

• Sudden muscle shutdown or freezing (emotionally rooted): Temporary shaking, freezing, loss of strength, stiffness, immobility or going limp in response to emotional triggers. Often reflects dissociation, or a feeling of overwhelm or strong disturbing emotional memories surfacing somatically (physically) as a deep protective response.

• Gut muscle tension (gut-based reactions): Cramping, spasms, or bloating without documented digestion issues. It is often the somatic expression of strong intuitive feelings that have been systematically repressed, unexpressed anxiety, or fears stored in abdomen.

• Dizziness or disconnection sensations: Light-headedness, feeling “floaty,” or unsteady. Feelings of detachment from the body when facing sudden and intense mental or emotional overload.

• Sudden blockage of physical expressions, freezing: Sudden loss of speech (being speechless), involuntary clumsy movements or bizarre facial expressions during times of high stress. Often reflects a subconscious protective mechanism against the intensity of a rising emotion that threatens to overflow.

• Facial twitching, blinking, or tics (emotionally triggered facial spasms): Involuntary blinking, eye twitching, or facial pulling. Most often, it is the expression of repressed, contained emotions, or internal emotional pressure, a subconscious fear of being seen.

• Strained, raspy, tight or strangled voice (of emotional origin - called "spasmodic dysphonia" when the neurological origin is documented): Voice becomes rough, tense, or squeezed when speaking. This is frequently associated with the difficulty of expressing one's truth or with a silence on an emotionally charged issue, long imposed in the past.

• Progressively or suddenly losing the voice while talking: The voice fades or cuts out unexpectedly, especially during important or emotionally charged speeches. This is often associated with a fear of being heard, shame or a sub-conscious self-protection mechanism.

• Stuttering - when triggered or aggravated by trauma, stress, anxiety, shame, or other strongly unpleasant emotions: Sudden disruptions in speech flow under stress or emotional situations. It is often rooted in inner conflicts between the need to express oneself and the fear of being exposed.

• Tight throat or shaky voice when speaking: Voice trembles or catches, especially when emotions rise. It often reflects suppressed sadness, buried grief, or withheld truth.

• Frozen, flat facial expression (impassive, poker face) or lack of expression: Reduced movement or emotional expressiveness in the face. It is a protective mechanism, a dissociation often associated with emotional shutdown, a strong desire to hide one's emotional state or to blend into nature.

• Unstable, shaky, or unexpectedly breaking voice: Sudden shifts in tone, rhythm, or volume while speaking. Can embody surges of strong emotions buried, hidden beneath the surface of appearances, trying to surface and express themselves.

• Ringing or buzzing in the ears - emotionally driven, without somatic cause (technically called tinnitus): Persistent or fluctuating ringing, buzzing, or high-pitched sounds in one or both ears. Often linked to internal emotional overload, hyper-active nervous system. Sometimes appears after a period of intense pressure or emotional noise.

• Sudden heightened sensitivity to sounds, without somatic cause – technically called “hyper-acusis”: Normal sounds feeling too loud, sharp, or overwhelming. Is often liked to heightened emotional alertness, overstimulation, or an overwhelmed boundary system. The body may be protecting against external chaos.

• Muffled or distorted hearing in stressful moments: Temporary difficulty hearing clearly, as if ears are blocked or underwater. Often linked to dissociation, emotional withdrawal, or symbolic tuning out of something overwhelming or threatening.

• Blurry vision - when not linked to eyesight: Temporary blurred vision, especially during emotional moments or stress. Symbolic avoidance — “not wanting to see” something emotionally difficult or overwhelming.

• .Light Sensitivity in stressful moments (technically called photophobia) :  Discomfort in bright light, squinting, or headaches in well-lit spaces. Emotional sensitivity, system overload, or the nervous system seeking calm and protection.

• Visual distortions or “floaty” vision - when not linked to eyesight: Sensation of things moving, shimmering, or warping slightly in the visual field. Altered perception during overwhelm, emotional disconnection, or a shift in consciousness under stress.

• Tunnel vision or visual narrowing - when not linked to eyesight: Perception narrows, peripheral vision fades temporarily. Fight-or-flight activation, hyper-focus on threat, or mental-emotional fixation.

• Sudden trouble focusing the eyes - when not linked to eyesight : Difficulty keeping the eyes focused, especially when overwhelmed or emotionally triggered. A protective response to internal chaos or an unconscious desire to “turn inward.”

• Hearing “internal pressure” or pulsing sensations – without somatic causes: Feeling pressure in the ears or hearing your own heartbeat/pulsing in your head.  Inner intensity, stored emotional tension, or the body amplifying internal noise when external noise feels too much.

Obviously, Somatic Hypnotherapy is not the first treatment option for any of the problems listed above, especially when a potential somatic/physiological cause has been documented. However, when the cause of the problem is emotional, uncertain or idiopathic – which is the most common case for the above problems – this approach can prove very useful. Because all of the above issues can be broken down into a sensory expression - and help you rid any disturbing feelings what Somatic Hypnotherapy does best with consistent and predictable results.

Although you perceive yourself as one entity, you are composed of trillions of semi-independent cells. Each cell is an organism by itself that has its organs, metabolism, needs, feelings, and knowledge of its existence! There is a system of communication and coordination between these cells that allows them to function as one body. Thus, when a physiological imbalance occurs, you have two regulatory options: You can either address the imbalance of each affected cell, known as a bottom-up regulatory process, or you can address the imbalance by modulating the cell communication and coordination system, known as a top-down regulatory process.

Whether you perceive your painful or disturbing feelings as an object of perceptual experience or as an experience by itself, Somatic Hypnotherapy can override both bottom-up and top-down processes by enhancing the mind’s capacity to affect your bodily functions and symptoms. Thus, because the mind clearly understands the difference between the two, you can anesthetize, relieve or rid your pain or other bothersome feelings as needed. You can't go wrong by doing so, as you are triggering your innate, natural healing process and your body knows how to use its resources and heal itself. It knows what is good for you.

As pain is always a personal experience, only your perception matters in the process of healing because it is this perception that holds you back from feeling well. It is precisely this subjective perception of your suffering that you want to winnow away with hypnotherapy. In so doing, you can ease your physical pains or the so-called somatic, psychosomatic, and neuropathic pains, as well as your emotionally painful feelings. Persistent migraines or headaches, back pain, chronic pains, neuropathic pains, post-surgery or cancer therapy-related pains, and all kinds of atypical pains are among the kinds of pain that respond very well to Somatic Hypnotherapy.*

Unlike conventional hypnotherapy approaches that add new layers of positive emotions on top of old pain, thus improving its perception, Somatic Hypnotherapy focuses on the goal of eliminating pain by effectively removing the somatic and emotional components of pain as perceived. Thus, following my therapies, w hatever the nature of your pain that you clearly identify and quantify at the beginning of your therapy will gradually diminish until it disappears completely. You will notice a significant improvement from your first session.*

Somatic Hypnotherapy is a safe and effective therapy for a large variety of pains and painful feelings. Following my therapies, your pain and painful feelings that you identify and localize at the beginning of your therapy session will gradually cease and usually disappear completely. Most benign pains will greatly improve or disappear after a single session of therapy.*

The exact outcome of your therapy depends mainly on you, as the best results always come from the therapeutic approach that you trust the most. Furthermore, the result expected from a single session of therapy is lowered with each failure of the treatments used to try to resolve persistent pain or a persistent health problem. Somatic Hypnotherapy can help you significantly decrease or completely clear away your pain.

Often, physical pain is just a sign of unresolved traumas, a warning that there is still work to be done in healing emotional wounds. However, if you have consistent or long-lasting physical pain, you should consult your physician.

Whatever the nature of your pain, don't allow it to cripple your life.

The "No Satisfaction - No Pay" principle guarantees my integrity and applies to all my therapies.

Contact me and book your appointment today! Let this be the most exciting experience of your life, and I will be happy to help you on your journey.

You can reach me by filling out the contact form below.

Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects the opinion of its author, is provided for educational and general informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. I do not make any diagnoses according to recognized classifications (DSM-5, ICD-10) and I do not interfere in any way with ongoing treatments.

If you are already under medical care or treatment, follow their advice and treatment. I am not a doctor or licensed psychologist in Quebec; therefore, I cannot establish or continue a treatment based on your diagnosis. If you decide to consult me, be prepared to tell me what is bothering you and how you feel about it. 

For any medical emergency, call the Info-Santé service by dialing 811.

*The results may vary from person to person.

Somatic Hypnotherapy - 186 Sutton Pl, suite 104, Beaconsfield, Montréal, Qc, H9W5S3