Max Littman, LCSW
June 15, 2026
Somatic IFS has changed not only what I notice in session, but where I orient myself from. I am more tuned into and from my own body during sessions, which allows me to bring more embodied energy into the relationship between myself and my clients, and into the container we build for therapy.
By embodied energy, which in Somatic IFS we refer to as Embodied Self, I mean an aliveness, groundedness, and present-moment orientation. I mean a welcoming physical stance toward what is happening inside me and between us. Not just a welcoming thought or intention, but something more literal: muscles, tissues, tendons, blood, breath, posture, sensation. A willingness to be with what is moving, constricting, squeezing, bracing, softening, and opening. A respecting of what is here. A loving. A yielding. A working with, alongside, and within what the body is holding, expressing, revealing, releasing, resisting, guarding, or becoming.
These words are only an approximation of what I experience Embodied Self to be. As with most bodily experiences, language can only approximate.
The five practices of Somatic IFS that help expand Embodied Self are awareness, breath, resonance, movement, and touch.
In theory, and increasingly through experience, I have found that the more I bring the five practices of Somatic IFS into my sessions, the more Self I am able to embody. And when more Self is embodied in the room, more becomes possible: attunement, the feeling of being understood, clarity within and beyond words, release, an honoring of protectors, a softening of protectors, and trust between me and the client, within my own system, and within the client’s system.
Still, there are parts of me that criticize my capacity, awareness, and implementation of these practices, especially around my ability to focus on the client’s body through the five practices rather than primarily on my own body.
Questions arise: Is focusing on my own Embodied Self enough? What internal conditions make it harder for me to notice and attune to the constriction or expansion in my client’s embodied experience? Who is asking these questions, and what do they want for me?
Much of the time, I am working privately with my own awareness, breath, and movement. I notice whether I am braced or open. I notice whether I am leaning forward or back. I notice whether my breath is moving freely or becoming shallow or constricted. I notice if I am rocking, still, or have an urge to move.
I notice all of this, and then another layer is often revealed. A part of me is evaluating. Am I actually bringing more embodied Self, or am I just tracking myself and calling it embodiment? Am I using my own body as a way to be tuned in, present, and available, while ignoring or avoiding the harder task of bringing the client’s body more explicitly into the work? Am I respecting the client’s pacing, or am I too comfortable staying with my own experience?
Somatic IFS gives me more to notice, which also gives my parts more to judge me for missing. A client’s breath changes and I miss it. Their hands become still and I keep following the spoken story. Their shoulders lift when they say something supposedly casual, and I am already thinking about what their protector might be trying to do. I may be attuned verbally and emotionally and quite inattentive to the client’s body. That is hard for some parts of me to tolerate because they would like more embodiment for me and my client.
My own body is the place I can most reliably notice, and that is both useful and leaves me questioning. I know how to check my breath. I know how to feel my feet. I know how to notice a bracing in my chest or the small forward reach in my spine.
The client’s body is different. To bring attention there can feel more delicate. Observation can quickly slip into objectifying if I am not joining the client’s system with enough respect. A breath, a facial expression, a stillness, a tremor, a sudden collapse in tone. These may be important. They may also be nothing the client wants noticed out loud. They may be cues I am reading well, or cues I am organizing too much around my own impressions. Naming the body can invite contact, and the client’s system may experience that contact as dangerous, intrusive, or unwelcome.
When I have more access to Self, and when there is enough steadiness, courage, and openness in me, I might say to a client, “I noticed your breath changed as you said that,” or “Something seemed to happen in your face just then,” or “Would it be okay to notice what your hands are doing?” Sometimes these are simple invitations. They come with enough openness that the client can say yes, no, maybe, or nothing at all. Other times, I can feel something else mixed in. A part of me may want the somatic thread to matter, may want to prove I am paying attention, may want the session to deepen in a way that is easily recognizable. Then the same words can carry more pressure. They may still be clinically thoughtful, but they are not as free. The client’s system may feel the difference before I do. Something in me recoils when I notice these moments within me and between us.
There is more to work with here within me. To some of me, that is okay. To other parts of me, it is not okay at all. Some parts want this practice to feel smoother by now. They want my embodiment to be steadier, my attunement more complete, my use of Somatic IFS grounded in authenticity and spontaneity rather than performance, hesitation, and self-consciousness.
I also know I have parts that push back against the idea that focusing on my own body, my own Self energy, my own needs, my own boundaries, and my own internal conditions could be enough, or even central, to the work. Some of that pushback feels personal, and some of it feels inherited. There are cultural legacy burdens here around individualism, perfectionism, and self-sacrifice. A suspicion that attending to myself is indulgent. A fear that if I am focusing on myself, I am failing to focus on the client. A belief that care only counts when it is pointed outward.
But many wisdom traditions have understood something different. Turning inward is not necessarily a retreat from relationship. Attending to one’s own inner life is not necessarily selfishness. There are ways of tending to ourselves that make more contact and support possible, not less. The cup fills, and what fills it may begin to overflow toward others without overflow and supporting others having been the goal.
That is closer to what I am trying to trust in living out Somatic IFS in my practice. My quiet and personal attention to my own body is not separate from the clinical relationship. It may be one of the ways I become more available to it. Still, parts of me question this. They want proof that I am doing enough. They want my embodiment to be more competent, more consistent, and more obviously useful to the client. I do not want to exile those parts either. They also live in my body. They are also part of what I am learning to notice and welcome with open arms.
For feedback and comments, I can be reached at max@maxlittman.com.
I provide consultation and therapy for therapists.
Purchase my new book IFS Therapy for Gay and Queer Men here.
