Client Experiences

What an amazing journey it has been with Allison! We have been working together since 2019, through COVID when we started doing our sessions virtually and have continued since. It’s great to be in the comfort of my home as I work through challenges and various situations with Allison. It hasn’t been a deterrent at all and I actually prefer doing them virtually as it saves me precious time. I wouldn’t have considered myself someone who needed a therapist but I have benefitted so greatly from it and can’t recommend Allison enough. I have, in fact, recommended her to a few friends who love working with her as well. Who I am today and who I was when we started working together feel like two incredibly different people yet the same. I am a better version of myself and I feel the difference! I have grown so much from processing the trauma and pain that I didn’t even realize I had been harboring. We have worked through so many layers of my past and present that have come up. As a mother, she has helped me navigate the guilt that we moms seem to never shake. As a daughter and sister, I am continuing to chisel away at these complex relationships for a healthier connection. As an individual, I am coming into my own, setting boundaries, recognizing triggers, and feeling more empowered daily. I am grateful for Allison and the gift that she shares with me each month. I think anyone would benefit from working with her.

Somatic Experiencing with Allison has been a total game changer. Allison holds safe space to touch on fear and anxiety, then guides you back to a feeling of safety, helping you connect pathways that you may not otherwise have access to on your own. As someone who often intellectualizes feelings, it’s been an important step in my healing journey to be guided into fully feeling. I have been dealing with attachment anxiety throughout my life and have worked with a variety of practitioners. Working with Allison has helped me find a deeper, more embodied healing than I have with traditional talk therapy.

I’m a 64-year-old single male with some very traditional beliefs. 3-1/2 years ago, I mentioned to my chiropractor that I wanted to start exploring a more intensive journey and learn more about Yoga. My goal at the time was to increase my flexibility so I could expand my weight training.

Dr. Josh Vickers connected me to Allison Benner with this quote, “be open-minded, Allison will teach and help you with far more than just yoga.” I can confidently say he was so right!

Allison and I have spent an hour a week together online on zoom over the last 3-1/2 years not only working on expanding my Yoga experience/journey but so much more. The practice with Allison now spans from helping to navigate challenging life situations, relationship dynamics, day-to-day stress, injury recovery, and how all of this impacts our mind and body. I’ve gained awareness, the ability to manage very challenging life events, expanding physical and mental health, as well as emotional growth.

Recently, my youngest daughter left for college and we moved to a new home. While all pretty normal territory for most people, it was different for me. I raised my daughter as the primary care parent until she was 13 and then became a full-time parent. She was my purpose! I knew her going off to college was going to be harder for me than it was for her. The challenging role at work on top of everything else could have been very overwhelming and I risked missing some very positive awakening.

Through the work Allison and I have done, this event ended up being an amazing growth opportunity for both my daughter and I. I see, feel, and experience so much more of what life has to offer. I’m so very grateful for all Allison has done for me and look forward to continuing to explore, expand, and grow my practice with her.

I’ve had the gift of working with Allison consistently for over a year. I initially sought out Rolfing body work to aid in fully healing from a cesarean birth. At my first session Allison explained that before addressing physical symptoms, it can be even more helpful when we address what is happening emotionally and then observe how that affects the nervous system. Then, we can then do the work of inviting the nervous system to a place of calm and rest and more helpful patterns emerge for processing emotional energy. Subsequently she explained, when addressing physical sensations in the body, shifts we desire can come more quickly and with ease. Physical treatment is then able to prompt lasting positive change.

Along this journey together I also found great support in Allison’s deep knowledge of the body and pathways of healing. I had very particular challenges in my body at different points that required detailed attention. I have been truly amazed, time and again, at how her attention and intuition led her to help resolve long-standing causes of pain and discomfort or imbalance in my body. This has ranged from addressing sore abdominal fascia, the painful after-effects of inflammation from a case of Shingles, an ankle sprain, and general body mechanics and alignment that have been extremely helpful with the physical demands of mothering my toddler. I have had medical providers and other body workers address some of these issues in part, but no one was able to view them with a holistic lens, which is what Allison does and what makes her work so effective.

I can describe Allison’s work as comprehensive, intuitive, compassionate, and engaging. She has walked with me through some very challenging experiences, all the while prompting me to discover more of my innermost self and access the strength I already have. I have gained significant internal transformation through having done this work. I recommend everyone find a healer as gifted as Allison!

I started seeing Allison two years ago for somatic therapy when I didn’t know how else to manage my chronic back pain. Through talk and movement we uncover past thoughts and traumas. Her work is systemic and profound. Allison has helped me process and respond to deeply rooted family patterns alongside situations in everyday life. Most importantly through our work she has changed my relationship with pain and has facilitated ongoing dialogue within my body. Allison holds space beautifully and I always leave my sessions feeling lighter and more empowered.

Working with Allison using somatic therapy has been a true gift to heal my anxiety stemming from childhood and trauma from a bike accident. I was introduced to Allison after having a pretty severe bike accident, resulting in facial breaks, a concussion, and a very overactive nervous system.  She helped my body slowly tap into the trauma and fear from the accident in a safe and controlled way.  The process of experiencing small amounts of difficult memories at a time helped me revisit the event by focusing on listening to my body and its sensations, with the goal of relieving pain and calming my nervous system.  We have been able to take a very pivotal event in my life (ie. The bike accident) and allow that to dive far back into my own grief of my father’s passing 14 years ago.  We worked on grounding myself by using “tools” to allow my “up energy” (that’s how I experience my anxiety) to move down and out of my body, which in return gave me more stability emotionally and mentally.  

It feels important to mention we did all of this work together virtually.

I now live with a calmer nervous system and am able to tackle life in a way I have never experienced for over 35 years.  I am less charged and reactive, I am more focused, and I have healthier relationship boundaries.  Being an artist, a lot of my unhealthy childhood relationships had shaped and formed major walls that affected me creatively.  With all the work I have done with Allison for 3 years, she has helped me break down these creative walls and allow myself to fully engage and create in ways I have always dreamed.  I no longer stand in my own way of becoming my best self.

I was referred to Allison by a friend with high praise to help me with knee and heel pain that was making it hard to walk and participate in outdoor activities I love. She helped me with those physical pains, and since has guided a process of deep personal growth work to understand the connection between physical/mental/emotional experiences and heal on a much deeper level. Allison is a skilled teacher, therapist, and energy worker unlike anyone I’ve ever met. I can’t recommend working with her enough.

I found Somatic Experiencing during a period of intense burnout. Despite a successful career, I was exhausted beyond belief and deeply unsatisfied. Years of talk therapy had given me an intellectual understanding of my trauma and go-to patterns, but I wasn’t seeing the changes I was hoping for in my life. The first time someone asked me where I felt something in my body, I literally had no idea how to answer the question. I had a sense that somatic work was the missing component of my healing journey, and I was right.

If you’ve read all the books and listened to all the podcasts, but are struggling to manifest the changes you want to see, your body likely holds some additional answers. Somatic Experiencing has been a way for me to reclaim my body’s innate knowledge, with less efforting and more allowing.

Allison helped create a safe space for this next level of healing to begin. Through our work together, I have been able to build my capacity for embodied sensation; allow stuck energy charges to flow again; experience greater ease and presence; spend less time in freeze/dissociative states; and become more aware of my own intuition. Practically, these shifts have led me to change my work environment, start dating more purposefully, and to begin moving, inch by inch, towards the life I had been secretly dreaming of.

Allison is a gifted guide. I trust her wisdom comes not only from her own journey, but from her experience accompanying many others along this path. Our sessions are an amazing holistic mash-up of embodied remembering, spiritual guidance, witnessing, physical health inquiries and practical brainstorming. To be on this journey with Allison is a true gift and one that will undoubtedly lead to profound changes in your life.

My work with Allison has all been virtual. Beyond the convenience of virtual visits, I have come to really appreciate the benefits of connecting via Zoom. During our sessions, healing isn’t something that happens in a peaceful room away from my ordinary life. Healing happens in my living room, while I am orienting to my own space, using the resources I will have available to me during the week. Practicing the skills at home feels like it helps them root even deeper. There’s also the option to titrate what is done on or off screen, as needed, which is a benefit of virtual spaces. Allison is adept at picking up on all the physical cues one would notice during in-person sessions, so for me, the ability to work together in this way has been entirely positive.

Working with Allison has been a transformative experience. She has helped me to become more self-aware, action-oriented, and embodied. Allison creates a safe and supportive environment where I have felt able to fully engage and be free to address anything that comes up. She is a compassionate listener, always provides meaningful insight, and offers proactive tools that I can immediately integrate into my life.

In addition to the Somatic Experiencing work that we have done together, the attachment healing has been illuminating. Understanding attachment and the impact of my family of origin and how that plays out in my intimate relationships has allowed for differentiation, and a true, authentic connection, that’s secure.

Through our work together, I have been able to become more present and grounded in my daily life and I have noticed a significant improvement in my ability to manage stress and regulate my emotions. This has led to a greater sense of hope and overall well-being. I feel very lucky to have found Allison and this work.

Allison’s work blossoms in a digital space, she has completely mastered this experience. I once thought having physical distance would create a disconnect. What has actually opened up is a space in my own home (literally and figuratively) that would not have had the chance otherwise. There is something so special about having the opportunity to drop into these processes, outside office walls, and somewhere more intimate… the work can suddenly touch “the outside world”. Some days I have been in massive physical discomfort and she still efficiently brought relief to my body. The zoom experience is so effective, I find myself choosing online zoom sessions often to this day even when we don’t have to. Allison has become an innovative force with technology in her field.

Being a professional athlete of 15+ years, I had injuries and traumas head to toe. I hobbled into Allison’s multifaceted work with what I thought was just debilitating chronic back pain. I walked out the door more comfortable than any other modality I had tried in years. A world beyond the face value of my diagnosis was revealed. Strikingly, I felt something much deeper in me was healing, stretching me to reassess the way I approached “fixing and getting over an injury”.  

What’s most fascinating to me is how Allison’s work can touch all levels of body, mind, spirit, and soul… effectively and masterfully. Her work touches the interconnected underlying subtleties of our life experience. She has shown me a place where I can walk alongside my pain, grow and heal with it, and listen deeply.

Allison’s melting pot of offerings are a remedy for transformation that flow together effortlessly. Through Rolfing and yoga therapy we address pain and work structurally to reshape the way I use and move my body. The Somatic Experiencing helps by renegotiating past traumas in the body like injuries and other violating experiences for my body mind and heart, not only from athleticism but childhood as well. Utilizing DARE work, we reorganize how I am wired and respond to relationship, attachment and boundaries, evolving the ways I interact.

Allison’s work is the true definition of Wholistic. It’s a great privilege to work with her, and by far the most profound and sophisticated work I have ever come across. Her office has become a temple, that now also resides inside of me.

Engaging in Somatic Experiencing work with Allison has dramatically changed the way I move through and experience life. I met Allison in midlife while navigating transitions of menopause, parenting, and loss. I aspired to embrace aging with acceptance and increased strength and flexibility of body and mind. I have experienced that in ways I had not imagined.

While being a long-time swimmer, yoga practitioner, and someone oriented towards personal awareness and growth, I hadn't realized the extent to which embodiment was missing from my equation. Becoming more embodied has taken many forms. My body has become more of a friend and a guide. I am learning how to listen to what it has to tell when my system gets thrown. I have learned that if body awareness is in the driver’s seat, I am able to move through autonomic nervous system states with greater clarity, trust, ease, compassion and resolution.

As someone who experienced an eating disorder in high school, my relationship with my body has been complicated. Though I considered myself mostly recovered from the disordered thinking and behavior, it has been a delightful surprise that somatic experiencing has further liberated me. Increasingly, I see my body as an ally and a healer.

Allison has been a wonderful facilitator and champion of this process. She brings tremendous knowledge and intuition to the work, and transmits that to the individual. Her ability to compassionately witness and encourage engenders trust in the process.

The effects on my life have been numerous. My intuition has gotten exponentially stronger and louder. My body and mind are learning how to settle and rest. Through befriending my body’s wisdom, fear and anxiety have less of a hold on my life. I feel more balanced. As my somatic knowledge and reflexes continue to awaken, I feel a greater sense of agency, and life feels more expansive. I look forward to continuing to learn how I can meet challenges with curiosity and resilience.

I first saw Allison Benner at the suggestion of a friend to help me with some chronic pain issues. I had already sought help with my pain from several more conventional health providers to no avail and was growing desperate to find a more effective treatment. As it happens, at the time, I had recently retired from an unsatisfying and at times very stressful career as an attorney and was unable to find the fulfillment that I had expected upon leaving my work life. After a session or two, Allison was able to see how years of stress and confounding circumstances were contributing to my discomfort. She suggested that to properly heal my “pain” I needed to get to its source and to do that, treatment with a technique that dealt more with the relationship between body and mind with a neurological perspective might be the best way to proceed. Having already gained my trust, I agreed to try Somatic Experiencing. Her analysis was spot on and, with her expertise and wisdom along with her knowledge of ayurvedic medicine, yoga and mindfulness I came through the process not only rid of the pain for which I initially sought her help, but also as a happier and healthier person far more aware of the keen relationship between body and mind and therefore more adept at knowing myself and at dealing with the “pain” that is an inevitable part of living . Her approach to the treatment was forceful and effective and at the same time gentle and compassionate. Only someone as talented as Allison Benner can merge those qualities successfully. Allison Benner is the most empathetic person I have ever known. She is a genuine healer in every sense, and I will always be indebted to her for all she helped me accomplish.

I’ve worked with Allison for several years now. She has helped me transform old traumas into opportunities to find my strength as a man, becoming more self aware, self loving, and self transcending in the process.

I came to work with Allison on my meandering journey to heal and build my system back up from a state of total burnout. In many ways my life has always tended to head towards burnout, but with two young children when the pandemic hit my ways of coping with stress were either unavailable or no longer enough. The cracks already present in my system were blown wide open…I was exhausted and completely disconnected from my ability to regulate in what felt like endless moments of overwhelm. For myself and my family it became increasingly clear I needed help finding my way back and I have spent the better part of the last two years trying to build myself back up.

I began my journey with traditional talk therapy which helped my mind, but didn’t get deep into my body. I then journeyed down the path of learning about the nervous system and how to more appropriately nourish myself through how I ate, moved, and structured my life. All these things helped, but it wasn’t until I began the Somatic Experiencing work with Allison that all the pieces really started to come together. It has been through my sessions with Allison that I have been able to radically change how I experience moments in my life, especially the moments that are full of overwhelm and intense emotions. She has helped me begin to repair my traumas, from the separation my daughter and I experienced after her birth, to my own attachment wounds that are being exposed as I parent my own children. In our time together, I have softened with myself and begun to learn how to differentiate whether I am embodying an experience of the present moment or an experience from my past.

In our sessions we don’t go searching for things to “fix.”  What needs to heal or repair has its own way of coming to the surface when ready. It’s been striking to me how much the work we do in each session weaves into my life. Experiences (including total shit-show breakdowns with my 5 year old, surprising relevant yoga classes, and eerily on-point podcasts and writings) keep showing up taking me deeper into it all.

In one of our early sessions, I shared with Allison that I had gone up in my closet and kicked a plastic box to smithereens after experiencing a really difficult interaction. I was worried it was wrong to have this kind of anger in me. Allison asked me, “What if kicking that box until you were done, breaking it into pieces, was nothing more than just that? Your body was following an urge until it was complete. What if it says nothing about you? Nothing is wrong with you; you are a woman who had an urge and you followed it. That is it.”  This blew my mind. For days since the incident of destroying the box I had done nothing but wonder aloud and in my head, “What is wrong with me? Why can’t I keep it together?” For the first time that narrative shifted and now said, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I experienced a really challenging moment and had a lot of energy built up in my body. I let it out and it’s done. No one was hurt. I felt better. I got what I needed in that moment. We can move on.” And what I believe to be the most powerful part: every thread of my being believes this new narrative; my body believes this message from my brain and is settled by it. My body was not settled by the narrative my mind was previously playing on a loop about that moment. I have realized your mind can tell you stories but it’s your body that allows you to gauge if the story is true and informs you of your needs, past and present. This is what Allison has helped, and continues to help, me find. I will forever be grateful for our work together.

I started my treatments with Allison as a Rolfing patient where she is an accomplished professional. But it’s the mind body therapies over many years that have lessened my bipolar challenges. Learning how to leverage the body’s responses to trauma, anxiety, and other mood issues has greatly expanded my ability to manage the diagnosis. While naturally different for each situation, these tools and strategies work effectively for me in both the depression and mania phases of the bipolar disorder. Allison has my full respect, is a pleasure to work with and has supported my life with significant positive impact

Working with Allison has been incredible! I spent 7+ years in talk therapy and I felt that this was an important part of my journey to be able to have a space to be able to express myself and be self reflective. However, I always felt like there was a missing piece to my struggle with anxiety and depression. Being able to work with the body and also with my attachment patterns has changed everything for me.

I have worked with Allison for less than a year and instead of having to cope with my anxiety and depression and stressors in relationships, I have noticed a shift towards my body finding a new reality. Relationships and situations that typically are incredibly stressful for me are starting to become more easeful and even enjoyable; it isn't because I am convincing myself with my mind to be different, but because my body has found more safety and in turn more expansiveness in all parts of my life. I have even seen relationships with family that have been a challenge for my entire life begin to move towards more safety and health. I couldn't recommend Allison enough!

I found Somatic Experiencing with Allison at a time when anxiety had reached an all-time high for me. It was disorienting, I felt panicked much of the time, I was so afraid of the anxiety, and yet, I existed in it all of the time. I had been to therapy at other times in my life, dabbled in all kinds of body work, and even worked as a therapist myself. And yet, working with Somatic Experiencing with Allison felt wildly different than any other approach I had ever taken or been trained in. We started by actually not  focusing on the anxiety. I remember being taken aback the first time Allison redirected me towards the regulation that actually did already exist in my body. I noticed how strong the pull was to keep focusing on the anxiety, and then I noticed something new- that there was actually access to just neutrality. Allison worked really slowly with me to relearn how to feel safe & calm in my body, something that I didn't even realize I hadn't felt in a long, long time. I learned how to address the chronic stress in my life, slow down, and got to explore unprocessed trauma from years before. In all my experience in talk- therapy and training as a therapist myself, SE with Allison was the most effective approach to actually rewiring my nervous system and changing my life