Bioenergetic analysis is more than talk therapy. A conversation with your whole self.
Developed by psychiatrist Alexander Lowen in the mid-20th century, Bioenergetic Analysis is a body-centered form of psychotherapy built on a simple but profound understanding: our emotions, experiences, and unresolved pain do not only live in our minds. They live in our bodies. When we go through difficult or overwhelming experiences, the body responds by bracing – tensing muscles, holding the breath, armoring itself against what feels threatening. Over time these protective patterns become habitual. We carry them without knowing it: in a tight jaw, raised shoulders, a chest that doesn’t fully open. Bioenergetic Analysis works with both words and the body – bringing awareness to where tension lives, breathing into what has been held, and gently helping the body release what it no longer needs to protect.
It is not about pushing through or forcing anything. It is a slow, respectful, and deeply human process of coming back to yourself. Sessions weave together talk, breath, movement, and body awareness. You are always fully clothed and always in control of what happens. Together, we notice where tension lives – in the jaw, the shoulders, the chest, the hips. These areas often hold emotion that words alone can’t reach. Gentle exercises, postures, and conscious breathing help energy move through the body – not as exercise, but as a way of listening and responding to what the body needs. What arises is then connected back to your story, your relationships, and your life. Insight becomes embodied – not just understood, but felt.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Questions we often asked
Q1: Who can benefit from Somatic therapy?
Anyone who senses that something is held in the body; whether they’ve been in therapy for years or are coming to this kind of work for the first time. If you’ve done talk therapy and still feel the tension, the contraction, the emotional distance physically, this works at that next layer. If you’ve never been in therapy but have always felt something unresolved in your body, a chronic bracing, a flatness, an explained pain or tension.
No direct experience required.
Q2: How long does therapy usually last?
The length of therapy varies based on your goals and needs. Some clients benefit from short-term therapy, while others choose ongoing support.
Q3: What happens in a typical session?
Sessions focus on understanding your concerns, developing coping strategies, and working toward meaningful, personal goals at your own pace.
Q4: Is everything I share confidential?
Therapy is confidential, with limited legal exceptions related to safety, which your clinician will explain during your first session.
Q5: How often will I attend sessions?
Most clients begin with weekly sessions, though frequency can be adjusted based on progress and individual needs.
Meet Viviane Hens
Therapy with Viviane is more than just talking—it is an invitation to safely reconnect with your body’s innate wisdom. As a dedicated somatic practitioner in Atlanta, Viviane brings a deeply compassionate, grounded, and warm presence to every session. She believes that true, lasting healing happens when we stop treating the mind and body as separate, and instead listen to the stories stored within our nervous system.
As a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Certified Bioenergetic Therapist (CBT), and Certified Trauma & Tension Releasing Exercises (CTREP) Provider, Viviane specializes in helping clients move out of chronic stress, trauma, and survival mode. Her integrative approach blends traditional psychological insights with body-based somatic practices, giving you concrete tools to release deep-seated physical tension and restore emotional balance.
Working with Viviane allows you to gently untangle old emotional patterns, rebuild a profound sense of internal safety, and step back into a life of authentic vitality and connection.
The Bridge - From Bioenergetics to TRE
At the heart of Bioenergetic Analysis is a concept Alexander Lowen called vibration — the natural, spontaneous aliveness that runs through a healthy body. When we are well, grounded, and free, the body hums with a subtle inner movement: a tremor in the legs when standing, a quiver in the breath, a gentle pulsation that signals the nervous system is at ease.
Lowen saw this vibration as the body’s language of life. A body that vibrates freely is a body that feels — that can experience joy, grief, anger, and love without shutting down. A body that has lost its vibration has usually done so in response to pain: it learned to hold still, to brace, to not feel.
Much of Bioenergetic work involves restoring this natural tremoring quality. Long before therapy existed, the body already knew how to discharge stress — and it still does, if we let it. Watch an animal after a frightening experience. It trembles, shakes, and then settles. That shaking is not weakness. It is the nervous system completing its stress response and returning to balance. Humans have this same capacity. But most of us have been taught to suppress it. We tense up, keep it together, and the energy of stress has nowhere to go. Over time, it becomes chronic tension, anxiety, or a vague sense of being stuck.
This is where TRE begins. Your body knows how to let go.