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SOMATICO: How we de-armour the body

SOMATICO is a group experience designed for manual therapists, healers and coaches with an interest in the psychosomatic elements of the work of touch and relationship.*

Day 1 (3rd October 2026)

10:00–11:30 Opening, check-in, body scan, introduction to the Reichian concept of armour
11:30–13:00 Eyes, jaw, tongue, throat
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00–15:30 Breath, neck, and chest
15:30–16:00 Check-out and integration

Day 2 (4th October 2026)

10:00–11:30 Check-in, body scan, cervical armour and de-armouring
11:30–13:00 Abdominals and gut
13:00–14:00 Lunch
14:00–15:30 Deepening process into the pelvis
15:30–16:00 Final check-out and closing

 
This is a blended, integrated and evidence based course, providing the foundational pre-requisite for what will ultimately become a full-length psychotherapy training.
 
With how far our understanding of the neuroscientific principles of touch, learning and relationship have come, shouldn't we be integrating these amazing, moving findings into the already wise frameworks laid out to us? 
 
*This is not a medical treatment, but it is a therapeutic and educational space for those who want to explore the meanings, adaptations, and embodied patterns that may sit beneath their symptoms.

Location: 26D Tower House, The Strand, Bideford, North Devon, EX39 2ND

Group size: up to 10

Accessibility: The space where SOMATICO will be held is situated at the top of a Grade II listed Tower House, with no lift access and two flights of narrow stairs.

An offer: For anyone signing up to a LIVE event, course or training, you get completely free access to The Somatic's School for 365 days. This will automatically be applied. 

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) was a psychoanalyst and physician who fundamentally reshaped how we understand the relationship between mind, body, and emotional life. Working initially within Freudian psychoanalysis, Reich observed that psychological defences were not only expressed in thought and behaviour, but were literally organised in the body as chronic patterns of muscular tension, breath restriction, and postural holding. He termed this phenomenon character armour.
 
Reich was an anti-fascist political revolutionary, creating free clinics for the poorer people in Germany and America who needed help, and trying to break down the walls of race, gender and class. Without Reich’s fundamental work on creating body psychotherapy, we would not have such movers and shakers like Gabor Maté and Bessel Van der Kolk.
 
This work matters today because many contemporary clinical presentations like chronic tension, medically unexplained symptoms, voice and swallowing difficulties, anxiety, shutdown, and burnout are functional rather than structural. They do not show up clearly on scans, yet profoundly affect quality of life. Reich’s segmental model provides a non-pathologising, body-based framework for working with these patterns safely and relationally.
Facilitated by Stephen R. King MSc (BACP accred)

Stephen is the founder of Body Psychotherapy UK and holds an MSc in Body Psychotherapy, is accredited with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and a member of the Body Psychotherapy Network.

He is a published researcher in the field of psychosomatics, functional neurological disorder and the psychology of functional voice problems.Â