Long Live Somatic Coaching (And Why AI Will Never Replace Human Relationship)
You can’t scroll more than 3 seconds without seeing a post, article or debate about AI these days.
As it continues to shape the future of healthcare, education, and personal development, it’s tempting to believe it might replace human practitioners. And in many domains, it can. AI can analyze symptoms, predict behaviors, automate repetitive tasks, and even offer scripted mindfulness exercises. Love it or hate it, AI is here to stay. But - somatic coaching doesn’t translate so well into robotcore language and coding.
This work lives in the subtle parts of the body and is experienced through our sensations, feelings and emotions. As of yet, ChatGPT and the hordes of AI bots on the horizon, simply don’t have the agility to grok.
Somatic coaching works with the intelligence of the nervous system in real time. A client may come in with a specific goal, let’s say building their confidence in public speaking or a desire to feel more grounded and centered in their own skin. The coaching itself works toward the goal, but it’s not led by it. What it IS led by is bodily signals: breath patterns, heart rate, micro movements and expressions, posture and tone of voice, to name a few.
AI can prompt you to “take a deep breath,” but it can’t sense your freeze-state. This is what a somatic coach is trained to do. Sense and respond. There’s simply no comparison.
One of my clients came in a few weeks ago saying he wanted to 'stop overthinking' but his body was showing me something very different. He had just had an argument with his partner and his jaw was clenched tight. I could sense that his breath was labored and high up in his chest. Instead of focusing on his mind’s thoughts, we focused on his breath. And he tapped into a wellspring of emotions, which led to tears as he expressed his fear of abandonment. Overthinking wasn’t the issue. Squeezing the air out of his relationship was.
When someone enters a session dysregulated, their body is searching for safety and real connection. Somatic coaching provides co-regulation through nervous system attunement. This is grounded in neuroscience: the vagus nerve, mirror neurons, and the body’s stress response all work directly in the presence of another regulated human being. AI may offer words that sound supportive, but it doesn’t have a body. And without a body, it simply can’t provide the calming, regulating presence that allows another human to downshift into safety.
Our bodies hold stories that words aren’t always able to convey. As somatic coaches and therapists, we are trained to notice what happens with our clients when their hands tremble or when they sigh and look away when confronted with a tough realization. These are subtle invitations that only a human can follow.
A somatic coach might guide a client into movement, breath, or imagery to encourage the body to do the talking. AI, by contrast, will inevitably try to analyze or redirect back into words. It can’t stay with the wordless long enough to witness what wants to emerge.
No two bodies reveal or express in the same way. In this work, we adapt moment to moment based on what the client presents. And human attunement IS the method.
Just last week, I had prepared a session for one of my clients. I had a vision for where it would go, along a specific arc of transformation, but the moment I saw her take a long, deep pause when I asked her how she was feeling that morning, I scrapped it. We followed her body instead and it took us to a place of deep remembering and realization that a template-ized meeting never could.
A client may have insights and feel deeply inspired one week and feel foggy and directionless the next. As somatic coaches, we hold space for this human experience. And as you likely already know, the human experience is not linear.
I won’t lie. AI is a powerful tool. And we need to keep abreast of where it’s taking us, because it’s not going anywhere (but more deeply ingrained in our lives!) I use it myself to offload many of my time-consuming, menial tasks, but it doesn’t (and can’t!) carry the layered, lived, human touch that somatic work requires.
This work is built on relationship, and relationship can not be replaced.
We will always need human connection - bodies with beating hearts, listening ears, warm hands and caring souls.
And as far as I know, ChatGPT doesn’t have any of the above.
Am I wrong?
