For adultsSomatic Trauma Therapy in Boston and Across Massachusetts
Body-based trauma therapy for adults, online across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
EMDRIA Certified Therapist
Somatic Experiencing
Brainspotting
Online, five states
You set the pace
No full retelling required
EMDRIA Certified Therapist Somatic Experiencing Brainspotting Online, five states You set the pace No full retelling required
Sound familiar?
Does this sound like you?
You came looking for help with anxiety. Maybe with the tight chest, a short fuse, restless and interrupted sleep, a sense of bracing for something you cannot name.
You were not looking for trauma therapy. You might not use that word about yourself at all. Plenty of the people I work with do not, at least not at first.
But somewhere along the way you started to notice that perhaps your reactions are bigger than the moment calls for. That you go quiet or numb when things feel hard. That you understand your patterns perfectly well and still cannot seem to change them.
That gap between knowing and feeling is often where earlier experience is still doing its work. Not because something is broken in you, but because your nervous system learned to protect you a long time ago and never got the message that it could stop.
The approach
Why trauma stays in the body, and how somatic therapy helps
Somatic trauma therapy is trauma treatment that works through the body and the nervous system rather than through thinking and talking alone. Instead of analyzing what happened, we pay attention to what is happening now: where the tension sits, what your breath does, what your body wants to do when the memory comes close.
The reason this matters is that trauma is not stored as a tidy story. It is stored as a state. It lives in a startle you cannot talk yourself out of, in the flatness that arrives when things get overwhelming, in a body that stays braced years after the danger has passed. Insight rarely reaches that layer, which is why so many people arrive saying some version of "I understand it, but I do not feel any different."
Body-based work reaches it because it speaks the same language.
Worth saying plainly
You do not have to retell the whole story
This is the thing most people are afraid of, and it is worth saying plainly. Somatic trauma therapy does not require you to narrate your worst experiences in detail before it can help.
We go at your pace. We work in small pieces, with plenty of time to settle in between. If something feels like too much, that is information we use rather than a hurdle to push through. Your system's protective responses are treated as intelligent rather than as symptoms to override.
Many people find this is what finally makes trauma work possible for them, after previous attempts left them feeling flooded or shut down.
Areas of focus
What we work with
Childhood trauma in adults
Early experience shapes the nervous system while it is still forming. That can show up decades later as anxiety, people-pleasing, difficulty trusting your own judgment, or a persistent feeling of not being quite safe even when everything is fine. It does not need to have been extreme to have left a mark.
Single-incident trauma and PTSD
An accident, a medical event, an assault, a loss. Sometimes one experience is enough to leave the nervous system stuck in a protective state that will not switch off.
Complex trauma and complex PTSD
When difficult experience was repeated or lasted a long time, particularly in relationships that were meant to be safe, the effects tend to be broader than a single-incident trauma. Emotional regulation, sense of self and closeness with others are all often involved. This kind of work is slower and more relational, and it responds well to a body-based approach.
Trauma that shows up in parenting
Becoming a parent has a way of surfacing things that were quiet for years. If your child's distress sets off something disproportionate in you, that is worth working with rather than white-knuckling.
The approachesHow I work
I am a trauma-informed therapist, which in practice means the work is paced by you, consent is checked as we go, and nothing is done to your nervous system without your say-so.
I draw on several body-based approaches and weave them together according to what your system responds to.
None of this is done to you. We build a way of working that fits, and you stay in charge of the pace throughout.
EMDR
I am an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant. EMDR helps the brain reprocess distressing experience so it stops carrying the same charge.
Somatic Experiencing
I am currently a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in training. This approach works with the nervous system's stress cycles, helping the body complete responses that were interrupted at the time.
Brainspotting
Brainspotting uses the visual field to access where distress is held in the brain below conscious thought. I am Phase 1 trained, with Phase 2 training in November 2026, and I often move between Brainspotting and EMDR with the same person depending on what is present that day.
Parts work and polyvagal-informed practice
Alongside those, I work with the different parts of you that carry different jobs, and with the nervous system states that shape how safe you feel moment to moment.
Over time
What can change
Feeling settled in your own body, often for the first time in a long while.
Reacting less to the things that used to send you spiralling.
Sleeping more easily, and carrying less tension through the day.
Remembering the past without it pulling you back under.
Being more present in your relationships, and in your own life.
Healing is not about erasing what happened. It is about helping it finally feel like the past.
Getting started
What a first session is like
We start with a free 15-minute call, which is genuinely a conversation rather than an assessment. You can ask me anything, and I will be honest if I think someone else would be a better fit.
If we go ahead, the first proper session is about getting to know you and what brings you here. We will not go anywhere near the difficult material until you have some tools for staying steady, and until you want to. Most people find the first few sessions are about building that ground rather than doing the deep work.
Sessions are 50 minutes, held online by video.
5
states I am licensed in
15
minute free consultation call
0
pressure to retell the story
50
minute sessions, online by video
Meet your therapistAbout your therapist
I am Liza Detenber, LICSW, a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work.
I have worked in public middle schools, in inpatient and residential programs for children and teenagers, and in adult outpatient settings. I came to body-based work because I kept meeting people who understood their own patterns thoroughly and still could not shift them.
My belief is that nothing about you needs fixing. The work is about reconnecting to a wholeness that was there before anything happened to you, and about helping your system feel safe enough to let go of protections it no longer needs.
I work from a foundation of cultural humility, and offer anti-oppressive and LGBTQ+ affirming care.
Training and credentials
EMDRIA Certified Therapist
Brainspotting, Phase 1 trained, Phase 2 November 2026
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training
Internal Family Systems Introductory Training
ARC (Attachment, Regulation and Competency) Training with Kristine Kinniburgh
Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW)
MSW, Smith College School for Social Work
EMDRIA Approved Consultant
EMDR and Ego States Advanced Training, Trauma Therapist Institute
Ways to work together
Ways we can work together
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Weekly therapy
45 to 50 minutes
A steady, supportive rhythm for gradual, lasting change. Well suited to people who benefit from ongoing connection and want to explore, regulate and integrate over time.
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90-minute sessions
Extended session
More room to settle into the body, follow what unfolds and go deeper without feeling rushed. Longer sessions suit somatic and EMDR work, which were designed with more time in mind.
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Intensives
Two hours or more
A focused container for goal-directed work and deeper nervous system processing. Suited to people who want to work efficiently over a shorter overall timeframe, and includes a personalized workbook.
All sessions are held online through a secure, HIPAA-compliant video platform, across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
I am an out-of-network provider and do not bill insurance directly. If you have out-of-network benefits, you pay upfront and I provide a superbill you can submit for possible reimbursement.
LocationsWhere I work
I see clients online across Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
Most of the people I work with are in the Greater Boston area, including Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Arlington and Newton, though online sessions mean you can be anywhere in the states I am licensed in.
Massachusetts
Connecticut
Rhode Island
New Jersey
South Carolina
Frequently Asked Questions
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Somatic trauma therapy is trauma treatment that works through the body and nervous system rather than through talking alone. It focuses on what is happening in your body now, rather than on analyzing what happened then.
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No, not in detail and not before you are ready. Body-based trauma work can proceed without a full retelling, which is often what makes it possible for people who have found talk therapy overwhelming.
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If it still affects how you feel, react or relate now, it is worth working with. Trauma is defined by what an experience did to your nervous system, not by how it compares to anyone else's.
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PTSD usually follows a single event or a defined period. Complex PTSD tends to follow repeated or prolonged experience, often in close relationships, and affects a broader range of things including emotional regulation, sense of self and closeness with others.
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Yes, all sessions are held online by video. I am licensed to work with clients in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and South Carolina.
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It varies. Some people come for a defined piece of work over a few months. Others stay longer. We will talk about it openly rather than leaving you guessing.
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It helps your nervous system process experiences it could not fully resolve at the time, so they stop driving your reactions today. That happens gradually, at a pace you set.
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Yes. Even experiences from many years ago can be processed, often through body-based methods that reach what talking alone cannot.
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A trauma-informed therapist works with an awareness of how trauma affects people, whatever they are seeing them for. A trauma therapist actively treats it. I am both.
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Yes, EMDR is one of the most established approaches for PTSD and is widely recommended in clinical guidelines.
Ready to begin?
Book a free 15-minute consultation and we will talk about what you are looking for and whether we are a good fit.