Therapist Westwood | Somatic & Trauma Therapy
I offer somatic therapy and body-centered healing support in Westwood, CA for adults who are thoughtful, intellectually engaged, and often living with a gap between what they understand and what they can actually feel in their bodies. You may be navigating grief, chronic illness, trauma, anxiety, academic pressure, professional intensity, or a life transition that has made your body feel tight, distant, or hard to trust. My role is to offer a grounded space where insight, sensation, emotion, and lived experience can begin to integrate.
I have worked with clients across the Westside for years, including people connected to UCLA, Westwood Village, nearby medical centers, apartments, professional offices, and neighborhoods between Brentwood, Beverly Hills, and Century City. Westwood has an intellectually driven rhythm shaped by education, medicine, research, ambition, and constant movement. Many people here are deeply capable and self-aware, but still feel braced or disconnected beneath the surface.
In Westwood, many clients come to this work because thinking through things has helped them survive, but has not helped them fully inhabit themselves. You may know how to analyze your patterns and still feel your body react before you can choose. I offer support that begins where explanation ends, helping you build nervous system awareness, pacing, and embodied self-trust.
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
If you are intellectually engaged, self-aware, and able to explain your patterns, it can be frustrating when your body still reacts before there is time to choose. You may be navigating grief, chronic illness, trauma, anxiety, academic pressure, professional intensity, or a transition that has made your body feel tight, alert, or hard to trust.
You may spend much of your life thinking, studying, caring, researching, explaining, or solving. Those capacities can be meaningful and necessary, but they can also pull you away from sensation, emotion, rest, and the quieter intelligence of the body.
Somatic psychotherapy can help us explore the gap between what you know and what you feel. For people shaped by UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, research, study, caregiving, and high expectations, this work makes room for the body when life has asked you to live mostly from the head.
If much of your life is shaped by thinking, studying, researching, caregiving, or solving, it may feel unfamiliar to let the body lead. You may be navigating anxiety, grief, trauma, chronic illness, academic pressure, professional intensity, or the frustration of knowing what is happening but still feeling tight, alert, or disconnected.
Movement can help bridge the gap between what you understand and what you can actually feel. You may begin to notice how your body responds before thought arrives, where you brace, and what becomes possible when sensation is given time and attention.
In movement therapy, we may explore breath, weight, posture, emotion, nervous system cues, pacing, and the quieter intelligence beneath analysis. For people shaped by UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, research, study, care work, and high expectations, this work makes room for the body when life has asked you to live mostly from the head.
Insight can be powerful and still not enough when trauma lives in the body. You may be able to explain your patterns, trace their origins, and understand your responses, while your nervous system still reacts before thought can catch up.
For people shaped by study, research, medicine, caregiving, and high expectations, it can be hard to let the body have a voice. Trauma therapy can help bridge the gap between what you know and what you feel.
We may explore sensation, memory, nervous system responses, emotion, and the pressure to live from the head. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, academic intensity, and care work, this gives the body room to be included.
Insight may be strong, but your body may still react before thought can catch up. Academic pressure, medical environments, caregiving, trauma, or grief can leave your system alert long after the moment has passed.
The work can help bridge what you know and what you feel. Less reactivity, more clarity, and a stronger sense of internal safety may become possible.
In EMDR therapy, we may explore memories, sensations, beliefs, and nervous system responses that still feel unresolved. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, study, research, and care work, this makes room for the body to be included.
If your life asks you to think, study, care, research, or solve, it can be painful when depression, trauma, or grief does not respond to understanding. You may know a lot and still feel far from relief.
This process can support experiences of perspective, emotional movement, and connection that are not purely cognitive. The integration matters because the body needs time to make meaning from what opens.
In ketamine therapy, we may explore preparation, sensation, imagery, emotion, memory, and post-session grounding. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, study, research, and care work, this gives the body a place in healing.
When your life values thinking, research, care, and precision, OCD can be especially convincing. The mind may turn doubt into a problem that must be solved before you can move on.
The shift often begins when you learn to recognize the loop without obeying it. More clarity, less reassurance seeking, and more tolerance for uncertainty can create real relief.
In OCD therapy, we may explore intrusive thoughts, compulsions, health anxiety, checking, avoidance, and the body’s response to doubt. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, study, research, and care work, this helps make room for life beyond analysis.
Medical spaces, research, and information can be helpful, but they may not fully hold the emotional experience of living in a body that is changing. You may know a lot about what is happening and still feel scared, angry, or disconnected.
Support can help bridge the gap between medical management and lived experience. There may be more room for grief, pacing, uncertainty, and a less adversarial relationship with your body.
Through chronic illness therapy, we may explore symptoms, body signals, medical trauma, fatigue, identity, and nervous system overwhelm. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, study, and care work, this makes space for the person inside the diagnosis.
Study, analysis, and new information can help you understand religious trauma, but your body may still carry fear, shame, or the reflex to obey. Knowing something was harmful does not always make it stop living inside.
Support can help bridge what you understand and what still feels unsafe. The work can support agency, boundaries, and a slower return to your own voice.
Through religious trauma therapy, we may explore shame, certainty, authority, grief, sexuality, identity, and body responses. Around UCLA, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, research, care work, and high expectations, this makes room for knowledge and embodiment to meet.
I serve clients in Westwood 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 Westwood
I am the founder of Space Takes Practice, a somatic psychotherapy practice for people who understand themselves deeply but still feel that understanding has not fully reached the body. My work grew from movement, creative practice, clinical training, and lived experience with survival, grief, illness, and the need for pacing. I support intellectually engaged and reflective adults navigating trauma, OCD, health anxiety, chronic illness, grief, religious trauma, and transitions, helping insight become something more embodied and sustainable.
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.
