I'm David McNamara — a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) and a Certified Addiction Recovery Coach. I created Somatic Recovery to support healing from addiction and overwhelm through a gentle, trauma-informed, body-based approach.

Most of the people I work with have already tried to think their way out. They understand their patterns and can explain exactly why they do what they do; and it hasn't stopped the craving or the reactivity, because the part of the nervous system driving those things doesn't respond to insight. It responds to safety, and safety has to be built in the body.

Alongside Somatic Experiencing, I've trained extensively in EMDR, Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP), and Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF). EMDR can loosen traumatic memories that have stayed frozen for decades. ISP builds the body's capacity to hold difficult emotions without shutting down or flooding. IRF offers a way of turning toward the parts of ourselves we've spent years trying to silence — the ones carrying the shame, the rage, the fear — and meeting them with something other than judgment. In a session these don't stay in separate lanes; what happens is one careful conversation between a person and their own nervous system.

I work slowly. I don't push people into their trauma. Pacing isn't a technique I use — it's how I understand healing to actually happen: in increments the body can tolerate, with room to come back to yourself in between.

If you're carrying something that hasn't moved no matter how much you've understood it, that's the kind of work I do.