Phil Enock, PhD

Somatic Therapist

If you're seeking therapy, most likely you are experiencing emotional pain. You may be in a struggle. I’d like to help.I am a somatic therapist, educated at Harvard and deeply experienced in somatic mindfulness.I offer remote sessions on Zoom to help people with mental health and emotional issues like anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, and conflict with others.Contact me or schedule a free 20-minute consultation.I warmly welcome all adults (18+) interested in somatic work to inquire.Also, see below to connect to low-cost peer support communities and somatic mindfulness and authentic relating practices. I'm a fellow patient/client.I'm also developing workshops for clinicians to add a patient/client empowerment framework to their approach and connect people to cutting-edge, Zoom-based peer practices. Contact me to join the waiting list.

About Me

My approach is primarily Somatic Experiencing and is informed by clinical psychological science (PhD, Harvard), circling, Alexander Technique and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).It does not involve any psychoanalysis or traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).I call myself a somatic therapist. The terms mental health coach, somatic mindfulness coach, or somatic practitioner are also fine.In fact, if we work together, feel free to ask me to lean toward a therapy mindset (helping with mental health, trauma, relationship issues) or coaching mindset (training you in somatic mindfulness skills for a thriving life) with you.

• Detailed training and credentials

• More about me

(Please note that from a legal/regulatory standpoint, I am not licensed, am not a psychotherapist and am not technically offering psychotherapy or treatment of any specific mental health disorders. What I do have is 5000+ hours of training over 10 years relevant to supporting you to heal and grow.)

Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy builds a new skill set centered around feeling the body and noticing the present moment. These embodiment and mindfulness skills improve one's ability to regulate oneself and meet life’s challenges including mental health, stress, and relationships.

Like traditional talk therapy, somatic therapy involves talking 1-on-1 in weekly sessions. The difference is that we bring deeper awareness to the body and enable the processing of emotions and traumas (both great and small).Our goal is that with your enhanced mind-body abilities, you will be able to self-regulate and process your issues long after you have completed therapy with me.I do integrate other practices, but we'll be on the same page that somatic therapy (mostly Somatic Experiencing) or somatic skills coaching is the main focus of our time together.A 55-min somatic therapy session on Zoom costs $275.We can discuss a discount if desired.

Somatic Therapy Sessions FAQ

All sessions are via video call (Zoom).

• What are sessions with me like?

Our sessions will involve a blend of conversation and guided awareness of your body and emotional experience.I will be authentically present, empathically attuned, listening to and witnessing you, as well as gently coaching you on somatic presence skills.We will work with manageable amounts of uncomfortable states, as well as with pleasant states and imaginings.The sessions may help you directly in healing, as the in-session experiences of somatic presence tend to help. Even more importantly, it's a learning or training process.We will grow your ability to handle and process difficult emotions and triggers on your own. Your expanded capacity will give you more freedom in responding to your issues as they arise in your everyday life.My approach focuses on Somatic Experiencing therapy by Peter Levine, which is designed to heal the emotional wounds of trauma or repeated psychological distress on the body, mind and nervous system. These wounds are the "score" described in the popular 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.I also draw on my extensive training and experience in Alexander Technique, Circling, and the science of clinical psychology.

• How is somatic therapy different from talk therapy?

We'll still be talking (on Zoom), but we focus on your present-moment experience during the session, including mindfulness of the sensations in the body. I assist you with tracking what is emerging for you (sensations, emotions, thoughts) and how to notice and make use of it.Somatic therapy is quite different from things like psychoanalysis (Freud, Jung, and psychodynamic therapies) and traditional Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which involve logical analyzing of your thought content and causes of distress, with less emphasis on feeling and experiencing the body and developing embodied skills.The somatic presence therapy that I do isn't about talking through your life events, trauma or mental health issues. Rather, it's learning new skills to handle negative-feeling states in your body that arise for whatever reason.Learning these skills will lead to insights about yourself, but we're not chasing insights, we're building up your abilities.

• Who is somatic therapy for?

Somatic therapy is suitable for the vast majority of people.It provides valuable life skills of emotional processing, being mindfully present, and being in touch with one's feelings and needs, which all help clients address problems and augment progress in any personal growth over time.It's okay if it's hard for you to find sensations within your body and verbalize them. I myself struggled enormously when I began learning somatic practices at age 34.This type of work was transformational for me to gain an embodied presence. It rapidly grew my ability to sense and name my sensations, emotions, thoughts, and see and change my patterns of relating to myself and others.Somatic skills inherently help with mental health and emotional issues like anxiety, depression, trauma, conflict with others, work stress, relationship issues, chronic pain, life transitions, and general muscle tension. We can work directly with whatever issue you bring in.Somatic therapy can help with most issues that are treated by various psychotherapies including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness-based therapies, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).For your reference, other somatic therapy approaches (which I don't practice) include: Hakomi Method, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, AEDP, Focusing, Gestalt therapy, and psychedelic-related approaches.There are no prerequisites for somatic therapy with me (nor is anyone too advanced for it). You don't need any particular abilities to begin and to benefit.

• What if I'm more of a thinker and analyzer?

Yes, somatic therapy is still for you. In fact, I specialize in people who are strong analytical thinkers like me.If you worry that you can't currently feel your body sensations very much, you're not alone. I started that way too, living up in my head.The reason why somatic therapy can work so well for Thinkers is that it creates fresh, complementary skills to add to your robust intellectual skills. It isn't based on analysis or logic.The process is about mindfully honing your emotional antennae to tune into what's going on inside you. Then, your emotions can process through your body on a feeling and sensation level, a "felt sense", and not through more verbal analysis and explanation.For more info, see the Thinkers page of my website.

• What if I'm a "highly sensitive person" (HSP)?

Well, me too. And working with other highly sensitive people (HSPs) is a specialty of mine.If this is a new idea to you: Don't worry, it's not another diagnosis, just a common trait that may illuminate some things if it fits you.For more info, see the Highly Sensitive People page of my website.

• Is this "psychotherapy", and can I use my health insurance's mental health benefits?

What I offer is technically not "psychotherapy" from a US legal standpoint, and thus I would expect no insurances to cover our sessions.What I offer is different from things like psychoanalysis (e.g., Freud and Jung) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which involve logical analyzing of your thought content and causes of distress.The somatic mindfulness that we work with isn't about talking over your life events, trauma or mental health issues. Rather, it's learning new skills to handle negative-feeling states in your body that arise for whatever reason.Learning these skills typically leads to insights about yourself today and your past. But we're not chasing insights about your past. Instead, we're building up your embodied abilities to process issues and live your life right now.

• How much do sessions cost?

Your initial 20-minute consultation is free.A 55-min somatic therapy session on Zoom costs $275. Open to discussing discounts.For lower budgets, and for everyone regardless of budget, consider low-cost peer support and non-treatment practices below, to do alongside or instead of somatic therapy.(I can't accept insurance, and I don't believe any insurance will reimburse you for sessions.)

Peer Support and Non-treatment Practices

For a limited time (October 2025), I'm offering free consultations to anyone curious about joining low-cost peer support communities (such as Inner Compass Exchange) and peer-to-peer somatic and mindful relating practices (such as circling). We can talk about an array of options.I'm also developing workshops for clinicians to add a patient/client empowerment framework to their approach and connect people to cutting-edge, Zoom-based peer practices. Contact me to join the waiting list.As I was a patient of psychiatry for 18 years before moving away from that approach and finding somatic mindfulness and non-treatment peer practices, we're all in this together.Contact me for a free consultation with me as your fellow traveler, over email or Zoom, about these practices (call length: as long as we want, deciding together).

Contact

Schedule a free 20-minute consultation with me to see if I'd be a good fit for you to address issues of mental health, emotional problems or relating to others in your life.

We can talk about your overall picture, including (if desired) suggestions for getting help from other providers, various kinds of psychotherapy, self-help and mindfulness practices.Feel free to contact me below, directly schedule a free 20-minute Zoom, or send an email to "phil@" ending in "penock.com".

For Thinkers

I specialize in working with people with strong analytical minds. Let's chat.If you're such a thinker, my simple sales pitch is:

I can help you because I'm like you.

Who you are:

I think I know where you’re coming from.I imagine you're intelligent. Your mind moves fast.You may give organized, in-depth explanations in everyday conversations.You look for intellectual challenges. You might work or study in tech, engineering, science or academia.You may insist on correctness, notice details, and easily generate solutions to problems.You might be into rationalism (see e.g., LessWrong or the Scout Mindset).You don’t want to waste time in therapy, and you won’t try just any approach that someone claims is helpful. With a healthy skepticism, you see through pseudoscience.Do you want a therapist capable of meeting you at the speed and sophistication of your mind?

I can meet you there.

Who I am:

Before my arriving at embodied mindfulness practices, I was a Thinker and a Thinker alone. I pursued career fields and jobs where a strong analytical mind was the essential ingredient. For 6 years, I was a quantitative researcher completing my PhD at Harvard in the science of experimental clinical psychology, then later a data scientist and a backend software engineer.I had mental health problems of depression and anxiety that weren't getting better despite many treatments. I eventually realized that a lot of intense emotions, triggers and reactions were hidden from me, buried under numbness and overthinking. The key causal factors of my problems were outside of my awareness.And, in fact, the technical diagnoses of things like Major Depressive Disorder or Anxiety Disorder, and studying empirical data about psychiatric treatment outcomes, had given me a false sense of having sufficient understanding. In my ignorance of what was really going on in my emotional system and how to make progress, I felt hopeless for years.I finally found that my body was the key. I needed to deeply get in touch with what was happening in my body to get better. I began the personal journey from existing as a detached mind unaware of the body and my emotions to becoming a connected whole self with mind and body working together. Mindfulness practices, including one of authentically relating to others through embodied presence also brought me into deeper connection with everyone around me.

Somatic therapy for thinkers:

What I'm suggesting is not that you need to do what I did, and I certainly don't think it takes long in somatic therapy to see a noticeable benefit in your mental health, well-being, and emotional processing. But I am saying my experience has equipped me to help you, whether in the short-term with a small number of sessions or in longer term work.The reason why somatic therapy can work so well for Thinkers is that it creates fresh skills. It isn't based on the analysis and logic that are already strong--and possibly overactive--for you.The process is about mindfully honing your emotional antennae to tune into what's going on inside you. Then, your emotions can process through your body on a feeling and sensation level, a "felt sense", and not through more verbal analysis and explanation.Contact me or schedule a free 20-minute consultation.→ back to main page

For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs)

Working with other highly sensitive people (HSPs) is a specialty of mine. Because I'm one too.If this is a new idea to you: Don't worry, it's not another diagnosis, just a common trait that may illuminate some things if it fits you.The concept of the HSP is not widely known. It was first described in The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron.The greater "sensitivity" mostly consists of having more intense emotions, being sensitive and empathic to other people, highly affected by one's environment, and more alert when new situations remind you of old situations (including traumatic ones).It's common. It's not a disorder, it's a personality trait with these characteristics:

I find it more interesting and empowering to discuss and identify with being an HSP than about mental health diagnoses of "anxiety disorders" or "major depressive disorder" for example.For more info, see this summary article, this personal story, or this more in-depth article.There's a self-test, identical to the research-tested HSP-R scale. My score is a 6.Contact me or schedule a free 30-minute consultation about somatic therapy for highly sensitive people.→ back to main page

SE Training Resources from Phil

(Dear SE trainees, I offer SE-based sessions on Zoom and would love to receive SE referrals.)

Reference gdocs by Phil

SE group consultations

Other SE workshops, demos

Links up to date as of August 2025→ go to main page of this website