At Chroma Wellness, healing begins not only in the mind — but in the body. For Kat Turner, a somatic therapist whose work bridges trauma, identity, and recovery, the body holds both the imprint of pain and the key to restoration. Kat’s approach helps LGBTQIA+ clients reconnect with themselves in ways that go beyond traditional talk therapy, offering a deeply embodied path to healing.
Understanding Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy recognizes that trauma lives not just in memory, but in the nervous system. As Kat explains, “Story follows state. Everything that happens in our minds begins with what’s already happening in the body.” This “bottom-up” approach helps clients tune into sensations, movement, and breath to understand how their nervous systems respond to stress and safety.
Rather than labeling physiological responses as “bad,” clients learn to listen to their bodies with compassion. “The first step is never to override the body’s wisdom,” Kat says. “If your body learned that being here isn’t safe, it’s because it was protecting you. Our work is to reintroduce safety gently, through co-regulation and awareness.”
Using models like Polyvagal Theory, Kat teaches clients to track their states — whether they’re activated, shut down, or regulated — and to develop self-regulation tools. Somatic work often begins with simple awareness exercises: feeling the weight of one’s feet on the ground, noticing breath, or exploring how proximity to others affects comfort levels. Over time, this reawakens trust in the body’s signals and fosters stability, resilience, and self-acceptance.
Healing in Motion
At Chroma, Kat facilitates both individual and group somatic sessions, using creative movement, mirroring, and boundary exercises that help clients explore safety and agency. “We might do a simple exercise — one person approaches, the other signals when to stop,” she explains. “It’s a practice in consent and self-trust. Clients begin to feel where their ‘yes’ and ‘no’ live in their bodies.”
Through such experiential work, clients develop an embodied sense of self — learning not only to notice their triggers, but to find the counterbalance of resource in the body, which can regulate them. “Healing happens when the body is invited back into the conversation,” Kat says.
A Queer-centered Approach to Safety and Identity
For LGBTQIA+ clients, whose identities have often been invalidated or politicized, somatic therapy provides an especially affirming framework. “We start by acknowledging that for many queer and trans individuals, the body hasn’t always felt like a safe place,” Kat explains. “At Chroma, safety is built into every layer — from our inclusive spaces to the way we pace treatment.”
By offering affirming clinical care, and specialized groups, Chroma ensures that clients can focus fully on healing without the added burden of defending who they are. This level of inclusion, Kat says, “is what sets Chroma apart from other outpatient programs.”
Why Somatic Therapy Matters
Somatic therapy helps clients move from survival to presence — from disconnection to integration. At Chroma Wellness, this work aligns perfectly with the center’s mission to create an inclusive, trauma-informed environment where LGBTQIA+ individuals can reclaim safety, identity, and joy in their bodies.
“Healing isn’t just about talking through what happened — it’s about learning to feel safe enough to live fully in your own skin.”
Kat Book Recommendations: Somatic Healing
- My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem
- Call of the Wild, Kimberly Ann Johnson
- The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
- Waking the Tiger, Peter Levine