Referrals Between Depth Psychotherapists and Somatic Practitioners: A Practice of Mutual Respect and Reciprocity

Abstract

Given the increasing acceptance of the whole person model and integrative health care over the past few decades, this research explored how practitioners who embody a holistic view refer clients to each other. Specifically, this research investigated how depth psychotherapists and somatic practitioners know and experience the limits of their respective roles and when they choose to refer to the other. Six participants were interviewed for this descriptive phenomenological inquiry. A general structure was established using the Giorgi (2009) method for data analysis that comprised four essential constituents: (1) Healing Modality as a Calling, (2) The Wounded Healer: Embodied Knowing, (3) A Developed Inner Capacity: Secure, Self-Aware, Self-Accepting, and (4) Healing Takes a Village. These constituents accounted for a mindset and way of practicing that allowed for mutual respect and reciprocity. Neither somatic modalities nor depth psychotherapy was privileged over the other, and these participants demonstrated a clear sense of maintaining limits and boundaries in their work with clients. Although the participants for this research were a specific population of practitioners, the hope is that their experience of making referrals can provide a positive example and inform healthcare practices that value the body-mind connection and the limits of specific modalities in providing the best care to their clients.