Somatic Therapy: Releasing Gay Trauma and Shame Through the Body

Somatic Therapy: Releasing Gay Trauma and Shame Through the Body
Stress isn't always something we can think our way out of. For many gay men, years of navigating rejection, concealing parts of their identities, and questioning whether it's safe to be themselves can create patterns of tension that affect both emotional and physical well-being. Somatic therapy offers a way to explore these experiences by looking beyond conscious thoughts and paying attention to the relationship between the mind and body.

Sean Hershey, a licensed psychotherapist and somatic practitioner, specializes in helping people address chronic pain through emotional and psychological approaches. Drawing on his own experiences with chronic illness and his work with clients, Hershey offers a different perspective on how stress, internalized shame, and emotional suppression may influence the way people experience their bodies.

The Mind-Body Connection: Understanding Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy focuses on the body as we experience it from within. While traditional talk therapy often examines thoughts, behaviors, and the circumstances contributing to emotional distress, somatic approaches also pay attention to physical sensations, emotional responses, and patterns that may operate beneath conscious awareness.

As Hershey explains, anxiety isn't simply something to eliminate. Our emotional responses often develop in response to our experiences, and learning to understand those responses can be more helpful than continually fighting against them.

Rather than asking only how to make an uncomfortable feeling disappear, somatic work encourages people to explore what they're experiencing and how they relate to it. This can involve recognizing physical tension, making room for difficult emotions, and examining the beliefs that influence how we respond to ourselves and others.

Somatic therapy isn't a replacement for other therapeutic approaches, and not every problem has an emotional explanation. However, for people whose stress and emotional experiences contribute to their difficulties, exploring the mind-body connection may offer another avenue for understanding themselves.

Queer Identity, Internalized Shame, and Chronic Stress

Growing up LGBTQ+ can mean learning early on that certain parts of ourselves aren't always welcomed or understood. Whether through family expectations, religious teachings, bullying, or broader cultural messages, many queer people encounter situations that make self-expression feel risky.

Hershey describes experiencing this conflict while growing up gay in a Catholic school environment. Even when circumstances aren't overtly hostile, feeling that our natural personality or identity isn't celebrated can teach us to suppress parts of ourselves to gain acceptance.

Over time, those experiences can influence how we relate to our emotions and needs. We might question whether we're allowed to express anger, feel guilty for wanting more from our relationships, or worry that being fully ourselves will lead to rejection.

When these patterns become ingrained, the effort of monitoring our behavior and anticipating other people's reactions can be exhausting. Stress can also affect physical well-being, contributing to difficulties such as muscle tension, headaches, and disrupted sleep. Chronic pain is more complex, but psychological stress can be one factor influencing how some people experience persistent symptoms.

Hershey's work explores how emotional suppression and a learned sense of threat may contribute to certain chronic pain conditions. His perspective challenges the assumption that physical symptoms must always be explained by a structural problem at the site of the pain, while recognizing that medical evaluation remains essential.

Hypervigilance: When Safety Never Feels Guaranteed

For many LGBTQ+ people, reading a room becomes second nature.
We might pay close attention to how someone reacts to a conversation about sexuality, adjust our behavior around unfamiliar people, or carefully consider whether an environment feels safe before revealing personal details. These habits can be protective when discrimination or rejection is a real possibility.

The challenge arises when those responses carry over into environments where we have more freedom to be ourselves.

Hershey describes how early experiences can shape our expectations of future relationships. When children learn that expressing themselves leads to disapproval, they may carry a deeper fear of rejection into adulthood, even when they're no longer in the same circumstances.

This can make it difficult to relax, trust others, or recognize what we genuinely want. Instead of looking inward to understand our preferences, we may rely on external reactions to determine how we should behave.
For gay men who have spent years trying to fit in, this pattern can become particularly draining. Constantly monitoring other people leaves less energy for understanding our own feelings, desires, and boundaries.

Recognizing hypervigilance doesn't mean dismissing legitimate safety concerns. Rather, it can help us distinguish between situations that require caution and those in which we may have room to feel more comfortable being ourselves.

Emotional Healing and the Body

One of the central ideas in Hershey's approach is learning to develop a different relationship with physical sensations and emotions.
When pain or anxiety appears, the instinct may be to make it stop immediately. While seeking relief is understandable, continually treating our internal experiences as threats can add another layer of distress.

Somatic approaches may help people explore these responses by focusing on three areas: feeling safer in the body, allowing emotions to be experienced without immediate judgment, and developing a greater sense of safety in being themselves.

The emotional component can be particularly challenging. Many people find it easier to acknowledge feelings that are socially acceptable while suppressing those that seem inconvenient or uncomfortable. Anger toward someone we love, resentment about an unfair situation, or sadness about an experience we thought we'd moved past can all be difficult to confront.
But acknowledging an emotion doesn't mean we have to act on it. We can recognize anger without lashing out, experience anxiety without assuming disaster is imminent, and admit that a relationship isn't meeting our needs without immediately knowing what to do about it.

This kind of awareness can also help us recognize where boundaries may be needed and which relationships allow us to feel accepted.

Somatic therapy and related mind-body approaches are not guaranteed treatments for chronic pain. Persistent symptoms can have many causes, and emotional exploration should complement, rather than replace, appropriate medical care. For some people, however, addressing stress and emotional patterns may be a valuable part of a broader approach to well-being.

From Self-Criticism to Self-Understanding

A recurring theme in Hershey's perspective is the importance of curiosity and self-trust.

It's easy to become frustrated with ourselves for feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or physically uncomfortable. We might treat these experiences as inconveniences that interfere with our responsibilities, relationships, or plans. But constantly criticizing ourselves for how we feel doesn't necessarily help us understand what's happening.

Approaching ourselves with curiosity creates room for different questions. What has been weighing on us lately? Are we ignoring our needs to keep other people happy? Have we been pushing ourselves beyond what feels manageable? Are there situations in which we're still trying to earn acceptance that should never have been conditional?

These questions won't explain every physical symptom, but they can help us identify emotional patterns and make more informed decisions about our lives.

For queer people who have internalized messages that their identities or feelings are unacceptable, this process can be particularly meaningful. Learning to recognize our emotions without automatically judging them can help us separate other people's expectations from our own values and desires.

Therapy, journaling, and other supportive practices can provide opportunities to explore these patterns. The goal isn't to blame ourselves for the experiences we've endured, but to understand how those experiences may continue to influence us and identify where change is possible.

Reconnecting With Ourselves

When we feel overwhelmed, our bodies often feel the effects, too. Whether we're dealing with challenges in our personal lives, navigating professional pressures, or trying to meet the expectations we place on ourselves, stress can build up before we realize just how much we're carrying. For gay men, these feelings can be compounded by the pressure of navigating a world that doesn't always feel safe for the LGBTQ+ community. Years of rejection, internalized shame, or feeling the need to monitor how we present ourselves can make it difficult to relax, express our emotions, or trust that we can simply be ourselves.

When we're used to pushing forward, it can be easy to overlook what our bodies are telling us. We might ignore our anxiety, dismiss our discomfort, or convince ourselves that we just need to try harder. But as we explored in this conversation about somatic therapy, reconnecting with ourselves starts with paying attention.

Rather than treating every uncomfortable feeling as something to silence, we can approach it with curiosity, ask what we need, and begin to understand the patterns behind our stress. Learning to listen to our bodies isn't about having all the answers. It's about giving ourselves the space to understand what we're feeling, recognize what we need, and build a greater sense of safety within ourselves.

And remember: every day is all we have, so you've got to make your own happiness.

For more information on this topic, listen to Episode 182, Releasing Gay Trauma and Shame Through Somatic Therapy (with Sean Hershey).

Tune into your favorite podcast player every Tuesday for new episodes of A Jaded Gay.