Therapist Playa Vista | Trauma & Somatic Therapy
I offer somatic therapy and body-centered healing support in Playa Vista, CA for adults who are capable, driven, reflective, and often living with a quiet sense of disconnection from their bodies. You may be moving through grief, chronic illness, trauma, burnout, perfectionism, or a transition that has made it harder to keep performing at the same pace. My role is to offer a grounded space where you can slow down, listen to what your body has been holding, and begin practicing a more sustainable relationship with yourself.
I have served clients across the Westside of Los Angeles for years, including those living and working in Playa Vista’s planned communities, creative offices, tech spaces, parks, and neighborhoods near Silicon Beach. Playa Vista is modern, structured, ambitious, and highly connected, with a lifestyle shaped by innovation, professional drive, convenience, and constant movement. For many people here, the external structure can make internal disconnection harder to name.
In Playa Vista, the challenge is that productivity can become a way of staying ahead of what you feel. You may know how to function, achieve, and organize your life, but your body may still feel tight, tired, or far away. I offer support that moves beyond strategies and insight, helping you build presence, flexibility, and trust from the inside out.
Here’s What’s Included
Step 1: Slowing Down and Building Awareness
We begin by creating space to notice what is happening in your body, thoughts, and emotional life. Together we explore patterns of tension, sensation, and response, helping you understand how your nervous system has learned to organize itself over time.
Step 2: Developing a Relationship with Your Inner Experience
Rather than trying to fix or override what you feel, we build curiosity and capacity with what arises in the moment. This may include somatic awareness, relational dialogue, EMDR when appropriate, or gentle movement and creative exploration.
Step 3: Supporting Integration Over Time
As awareness grows, many people begin to notice meaningful shifts, more room to breathe, more flexibility in how they respond to stress, and a deeper sense of trust in their own bodies.
Explore my therapy services and specializations
Being capable, driven, and self-aware does not mean your body can keep up forever. You may be navigating grief, chronic illness, trauma, burnout, perfectionism, or a life transition that has interrupted your usual way of functioning.
You may know how to organize, optimize, perform, and problem-solve, but your body may be asking for something less linear. Fatigue, tension, numbness, reactivity, or loss of creative energy can become signals that your system needs support, not another strategy.
In somatic psychotherapy, we may explore body cues, emotional patterns, nervous system responses, movement, creativity, and the pressure to stay productive. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, creative offices, and constant optimization, this work makes space for a body that cannot be managed like another system.
Being capable, efficient, and self-aware does not mean your body can keep operating at the same speed forever. You may be navigating burnout, grief, chronic illness, perfectionism, trauma, or the feeling that your body is asking for something your mind cannot optimize.
You may know how to track goals, solve problems, and organize your life, yet still feel numb, restless, tense, or disconnected from pleasure and creative energy. Movement can help you relate to the body as a living system, not another project to manage.
In movement therapy, we may explore breath, body cues, rhythm, emotional expression, fatigue, impulse, and the pressure to stay productive. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, creative offices, and constant optimization, this work makes room for the parts of you that need presence more than another strategy.
High capacity can make trauma harder to recognize. You may know how to organize, solve, perform, and keep moving, while your body carries reactivity, numbness, fatigue, or the feeling that it is never fully off-duty.
The nervous system cannot be optimized into safety. Sometimes the most important shift is learning how to notice capacity, respect limits, and understand the body’s signals before they become symptoms or shutdown.
Through trauma therapy, we may explore body cues, emotional patterns, memory, boundaries, and the pressure to stay productive. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and creative offices, this work makes space for what cannot be solved like another system.
You may know how to solve, organize, and optimize almost anything, but memory does not always respond to strategy. Your body may still react to old experiences as if they are happening now.
Less activation can create more capacity. You may begin to notice more room between stimulus and response, less self-blame, and more trust in your own system.
In EMDR therapy, we may explore the memories, sensations, and beliefs that still feel unfinished. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and creative offices, this makes space for what cannot be processed like another task.
A mind trained to solve and optimize may struggle when depression, trauma, grief, or chronic stress does not respond to effort. Your body may need something more spacious than another strategy.
This work can support moments of insight, emotional release, or perspective that feel different from ordinary talk. The most important part is helping those moments become grounded, safe, and connected to your real life.
In ketamine therapy, we may explore preparation, sensation, imagery, emotion, and integration. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and creative offices, this makes space for experiences that cannot be managed like another system.
A mind that is good at problem-solving can get trapped trying to solve uncertainty. OCD may show up through checking, researching, analyzing, health anxiety, relationship doubt, or the need to optimize away discomfort.
The work can help you notice when solving has become the compulsion. Relief comes through building capacity to live with not knowing, not through finding the perfect answer.
In OCD therapy, we may explore intrusive thoughts, compulsions, reassurance loops, avoidance, anxiety, and body signals. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and optimization pressure, this helps you relate to your mind as more than another system to debug.
Illness can be especially difficult when the world around you rewards speed, productivity, and optimization. Your body may not respond to effort in the ways you are used to, and that can bring grief, fear, or frustration.
There may be relief in seeing symptoms and limits as information rather than failure. The work can help support pacing, boundaries, and a more sustainable relationship with ambition.
Through chronic illness therapy, we may explore body cues, fatigue, medical stress, identity shifts, and the pressure to stay productive. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and creative offices make space for a body that cannot be optimized into ease.
A high-control religious past can leave you trying to optimize your way into safety. You may seek the right answer, the right identity, the right belief, or the right healing path while your body stays tense.
Support can help you move away from perfection as protection. The shift is toward agency, consent, embodied choice, and the ability to live without outsourcing your inner authority.
Through religious trauma therapy, we may explore fear, shame, certainty, identity, sexuality, grief, and nervous system patterns. Around Silicon Beach, Runway errands, tech culture, and optimization pressure, this makes space for a body that does not need to be managed into worthiness.
I serve clients in Playa Vista and nearby areas
Testimonials
“Danielle is a wonderfully intuitive practitioner who knows how to listen and empathize at a very deep level. She also has a deep, spiritual presence and understanding that can only be attained through real life experiences - In other words she gets it. She really helped me gain clarity on my goals and feel more grounded. I’d recommend her to anyone looking for a blend of intellect and intuition.”
Client
"What I valued most about working with Danielle was her genuine curiosity. She made a real effort to understand me rather than fit me into a framework, which helped me build more self-compassion and trust in myself. I always felt like a partner in the process, never a patient being managed. I'm so grateful I found her."
Client
“The space Danielle creates could only come from someone who has done deep excavation work and returned with the medicine of her soul. She is exquisitely embodied, attuned, and holds a torch for others to safely inhabit their bodies and express themselves – no matter where they are on their journey. No matter where I am inside of myself when I enter her classes, I leave feeling more connected to myself and my own expression.”
Student
Hello, I’m Danielle Wiggins, a somatic therapist serving Playa Vista
I am the founder of Space Takes Practice, a somatic psychotherapy and movement-based practice for people who are capable, self-aware, and often used to pushing past their own capacity. This work emerged from my own shift away from survival, urgency, and over-functioning toward pacing, embodiment, and a more honest relationship with the nervous system. I support adults navigating trauma, grief, chronic illness, OCD, religious trauma, and life transitions with an approach grounded in sustainability, presence, and choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get started?
The first step is scheduling a consultation. This gives us a chance to briefly connect, discuss what you're looking for, and see whether the work feels like a good fit.
What happens in a somatic psychotherapy session?
Sessions include conversation as well as attention to the body’s sensations, emotions, and nervous system responses. Together we explore patterns of tension, bracing, emotion, and expression in a way that supports awareness and integration over time.
Do you offer virtual sessions, in-person sessions, or both?
Sessions are offered virtually and in person in Santa Monica. We can discuss what format works best for you during the consultation.
Do you accept insurance?
Space Takes Practice is an out-of-network practice. Payment is due at the time of service, and a superbill can be provided for potential reimbursement through your insurance provider.
Do you offer sliding scale options?
A limited number of sliding scale spots are available. If cost is a concern, you're welcome to ask about availability during your consultation.
What if I need to cancel or reschedule?
Please provide at least 48 hours' notice for cancellations or rescheduling. Sessions cancelled with less notice will be charged the full session fee.
What are extended sessions or therapy intensives?
Extended sessions allow us to work together for a longer period of time (90 minutes to several hours). These can be especially supportive for EMDR work or when exploring experiences that benefit from additional space and depth.
How often do people usually meet for therapy?
Most people begin with weekly sessions. The consistency of meeting regularly creates a kind of practice — a rhythm that supports awareness, integration, and nervous system change over time.
As the work evolves, we can always adjust the pace of sessions.
How is somatic therapy different from traditional talk therapy?
Somatic psychotherapy includes the body as part of the therapeutic process. Rather than working only with thoughts and stories, we also pay attention to sensation, nervous system patterns, and the ways the body holds experience. This can allow insight to become something you actually feel and live, not just something you understand.
How do I know if this work is right for me?
Many people who find their way to this work are thoughtful and self-aware but feel something in their experience hasn’t fully shifted despite years of insight or reflection. If you’re curious about working with the body, nervous system, and emotional life — not just thoughts alone — this approach may resonate with you. A consultation is a good way for us to explore whether it feels like a supportive fit.
Do I need to have a specific problem to start therapy?
Not necessarily. Some people come to therapy during a specific challenge such as grief, trauma, illness, or major life transitions. Others come because they feel stuck, disconnected, or curious about understanding themselves more deeply. Therapy can be a space for exploration, integration, and growth — not only crisis.
What if I’ve already been in therapy before?
Many of the people I work with have already spent years in therapy or personal growth work. They often understand their patterns intellectually but still feel tension, overwhelm, or disconnection in their bodies. Somatic psychotherapy offers a way to include the body and nervous system in the process, allowing insight to gradually become something that is lived and felt.
Good Faith Estimate
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical and mental health care will cost.
Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the expected charges for medical services, including psychotherapy services.
You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency healthcare services, including psychotherapy services. You can ask your health care provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule a service.
If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill. Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate.
For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises or call (800) 985-3059.
