Sensorimotor Psychotherapy vs Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
A side-by-side comparison: mechanism, evidence, the conditions each treats, philosophical roots, and where they actually disagree clinically.
At a glance
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Tradition
- Somatic
- Founder
- Pat Ogden (1981)
- Evidence
- Emerging evidence
- Focus
- Somatic + Relational
- Format
- Individual
- Duration
- Medium to long-term
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
- Tradition
- Somatic
- Founder
- David Emerson / van der Kolk (2005)
- Evidence
- RCT-supported
- Focus
- Body-Based + Stabilization
- Format
- Group or individual
- Duration
- Variable (typically 10-week group format; individual adaptations exist)
How they work
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Core mechanism: Mindful tracking of sensorimotor experience reveals trauma-encoded body patterns; completing interrupted defensive responses and discovering new physical actions reorganizes both body and meaning
Ontology: Trauma is encoded in the body as incomplete sensorimotor sequences and procedural patterns that repeat automatically; the body is a primary information processing system, not merely a container for psychological content
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
Core mechanism: Repeated practice of noticing and making choices about physical experience within a safe relational context restores interoceptive awareness and the capacity for self-regulation that trauma disrupts
Ontology: Trauma as disruption of the body's capacity to be inhabited safely. Healing requires restoring the relationship to bodily experience through titrated, choice-based somatic practice.
Conditions treated
4 shared · 0 Sensorimotor Psychotherapy-only · 2 Trauma-Sensitive Yoga-only
Both treat
Only Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
What each assumes — and misses
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Philosophical roots: Ogden (body as primary processor); Kurtz (Hakomi — mindfulness in therapy); Siegel (window of tolerance, interpersonal neurobiology); van der Kolk (body keeps the score); Piaget (sensorimotor intelligence); Bowlby (attachment); Janet (action systems)
Blind spots: Limited RCT evidence compared to PE or CPT; training is expensive and lengthy; body-focused work requires careful titration for highly dissociative clients; lacks the manualized structure that makes protocols teachable
Therapeutic voice: I notice your shoulders just pulled up toward your ears when you mentioned your mother. Can you stay with that? What wants to happen in your body right now?
Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
Philosophical roots: van der Kolk (body keeps the score); Merleau-Ponty (embodied subjectivity); Levine (somatic experiencing); Porges (polyvagal theory)
Blind spots: Certification standards vary; quality of instruction is highly variable outside certified programs; not a standalone treatment; limited RCT replication
Therapeutic voice: Notice if there's anything happening in your body right now. You might try this shape, or something else entirely, or just stay still. Whatever works for you.
Choosing between them
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga both sit within the Somatic tradition — they share a worldview about what suffering is and how change happens. Differences are more often about technique and emphasis than about underlying theory.
For deeper coverage: see the full Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga pages, or use the interactive comparison tool to add more modalities to this comparison.