Thomas Hanna defined Somatics as “The field which studies the soma: namely, the body as perceived from within by first-person perception.” Somatics pioneer Don Hanlon Johnson writes that Hanna
was inspired in that definition by the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, who at the turn of the century set out an agenda for what he called a “somatology,” a study of the relationships between knowledge derived from direct bodily experience and scientific studies of the body.
Somatics is an umbrella term used to cover a wide range of practices that share this direct focus on bodily experience, including Hanna Somatic Education, the F. M. Alexander Technique, Rolfing, Moshe Feldenkrais’ Awareness through Movement and Functional Integration, Sensory Awareness, Authentic Movement, and the various offshoots of Wilhelm Reich’s Bioenergetics.
Click HERE for a list of online resource links.