ABOUT GREG

I am a psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, author, and founder of the Centre for Somatic Resilience Training. My work focuses on helping people navigate trauma, stress, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm through a deeper understanding of the nervous system and its role in shaping our thoughts, emotions, behaviours, and relationships.

At the heart of my work is the belief that many people already possess the capacity for healing and resilience; the challenge is often learning how to recognise and work with the signals their body is already providing. While insight and self-awareness are important, lasting change frequently involves developing a different relationship with the nervous system patterns that shape how we experience safety, connection, threat and challenge.

This understanding led me to develop the StateShift® Model, a practical framework for understanding nervous system states and their impact on everyday life. Drawing on psychotherapy, somatic practice, and trauma theory, the model helps people make sense of their experiences and develop greater flexibility, resilience, and self-understanding. It also forms the foundation of my book, Why Your Body Speaks and How to Listen, which explores how the body communicates through sensation, emotion, and nervous system responses, and how we can learn to work with those signals more effectively.

The same principles underpin the work of the Centre for Somatic Resilience Training, where I teach CPCAB-accredited training programmes for mental health professionals and support practitioners in integrating somatic approaches into their work. I also assist on official Somatic Experiencing® trainings and regularly deliver workshops, lectures, and speaking engagements on trauma, resilience, embodiment, and nervous system regulation.

Alongside my teaching and clinical work, I have published several peer-reviewed articles exploring trauma, resilience, embodiment, and nervous system regulation, contributing to the growing conversation around somatic approaches to mental health and wellbeing.

Originally from South Africa, I spent more than twenty-five years living and practising in the UK before returning to Cape Town. Today I work with clients and professionals internationally as well as non-profit organisations through therapy, supervision, training, and consultation.

Areas of Work

Individual Psychotherapy & Trauma Therapy
Somatic Experiencing®
Professional Training
Workshops & Speaking Engagements
Frontline & Humanitarian Support
The StateShift® Model

Qualifications:

MA Counselling and Psychotherapy Practice
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEI / EASE)
Diploma in Integrative Therapeutic Counselling (CPCAB)
Accredited Registrant, National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS)

My Approach

I believe that many of the patterns which shape our lives, anxiety, emotional reactivity, shutdown, disconnection, perfectionism, chronic stress, relational difficulties, or a persistent sense of feeling “stuck” often have roots in experiences that overwhelmed our capacity to cope at the time. These responses are not signs of weakness or failure. More often, they reflect intelligent adaptations developed in response to stress, threat, loss, or unmet emotional needs.

Therapy offers a space to understand these patterns with curiosity rather than judgement. My approach integrates psychotherapy with somatic experiencing, recognising that our experiences are not held only in thoughts and memories, but also within the nervous system and the body itself. Increasingly, research continues to demonstrate the close relationship between emotional experience, physiological states, stress responses, and overall wellbeing.

While Somatic Experiencing® is not necessary or appropriate in every situation, attending to the body alongside the mind can be profoundly supportive in working with trauma, anxiety, stress, grief, burnout, emotional overwhelm, and relational difficulties. At the centre of my work is the belief that meaningful change happens when people feel sufficiently safe, supported, and resourced to begin relating differently to themselves and their experiences.

Why I chose to be a therapist

If you’re going to be a therapist, first and foremost you have to care. You have to care about people, and be willing and able to sit with them in their sadness and cheer them in their victories. You also have to be curious about what makes them tick, what they struggle with, what they are passionate about, what they dream about and what is making them feel stuck. You have to want to keep learning because learning never ends and with that knowledge and experience, apply it in playing a role in the empowerment and rebuilding of people’s lives and then, as if you were never there, become entirely obsolete.

Leadership, Training & Humanitarian Work

Centre for Somatic Resilience Training

Founder and lead tutor of CPCAB-accredited somatic trauma training programmes for therapists and mental health professionals.

United Nations World Food Programme

Facilitated workshops focused on secondary trauma, burnout, and nervous system regulation for counsellors who support traumatised frontline workers.

Seedtalks

Speaker and workshop facilitator for Seed Talks, contributing to public conversations on trauma, nervous system regulation, stress, resilience, and emotional wellbeing through live events and educational workshops.

Official Somatic Experiencing® Training - Cape Town

Training Assistant supporting experiential learning, small group process work, and nervous system regulation within the official SE training programme.

Domino - Durban, South Africa

Workshops aimed at the prevention and resolution of secondary trauma among social workers helping traumatised populations

Publications:

1. James, G (2025) Why Your Body Speaks and How to Listen: Discover how your nervous system holds the story of your life
and how tuning into it can change everything. Available in Paperback and on Kindle
2. James, G (2023) The psychological impact of sending children away to Boarding Schools in Britain
The British Journal of Psychotherapy 2023 (Open Access, free to read or download)
2. James, G (2024) The client perspective of Somatic Experiencing as an effective treatment for PTSD.
International Body Psychotherapy Journal (Open Access, free to read or download)

3. James, G (2026) The fear of sexual boundary violations and false allegations in male counselling practice
The British Journal of Guidance and Counselling (Open Access, free to read or download)
4. Awareness, management and resolution of secondary trauma: Existing strategies and the introduction of Somatic Experiencing as a healing and preventative modality. Preparing for print (2026) International Body Psychotherapy Journal

Faith:

My Christian faith is personally important to me but does not enter into therapy unless explicitly requested by a client.

I include this here because authenticity matters to me, and because some clients find it reassuring to know they can speak openly about spirituality, faith, or religious experience within therapy.

I also recognise that religion and faith communities can themselves be sources of trauma for some individuals, and these experiences are approached with care and sensitivity within my work.