exploring your voice in therapy
voice exploration in therapy
an embodied, relational, trauma-informed approach to expression and connection
embodied voice, movement, and relational awareness
Your voice is not separate from your body.
Your body is not separate from your voice.
Your voice - just like your thoughts, feelings, and sensations - can teach you about how you’re meeting your current situation.
When we pay attention to how our voice is showing up, we can learn more about what we need and what we already know.
In therapy, your voice can become a doorway into deeper awareness of your sensations, emotions, relationships, and sense of self. Exploring your voice in a therapeutic context is not about singing well, sounding a certain way, or managing or fixing anything. It’s about listening inward and discovering how your voice already carries meaning, history, and possibility.
This work invites curiosity about how you speak, breathe, sound, and move, and how these tendencies reflect the ways you’ve learned to be in the world.
Note: This is still therapy. All topics are welcome. There will be some days where your voice is more present, and we start there. Other times, your experience of your voice may be background to something else that’s going on. By inviting your embodied voice into our awareness together, we are simply adding yet another way to more precisely understand and make sense of what is going on for you in your life.
Why Explore Voice in Therapy?
Many people arrive in therapy noticing that:
their voice feels tight, muted, strained, or effortful
they struggle to speak up, take up space, or be heard
their voice changes in moments of anxiety, conflict, or vulnerability
they feel disconnected from their body or from their aliveness
Voice exploration in therapy offers a way to meet these experiences from the inside, with awareness and support, without pressure to change anything or perform a certain way.
When we bring voice into the therapeutic container, more choice becomes available. The whole field of your experience - sensation, movement, feeling, thought, story, and relationship - can be explored together.
How Trauma Can Affect the Voice
Trauma is experience that lives in our bodies.
And because your voice is your body, trauma can shape how your voice emerges, sounds, and responds in relationships.
Many people notice that their voice changes depending on how safe or threatened they feel. This innate response is an intelligent, protective process that is shaped by your lived experience.
Trauma may show up in your voice as:
difficulty speaking or finding words
a tight, constricted, quiet, or shaky voice
sudden changes in volume, tone, or breath
a voice that disappears under stress
fear of being heard, seen, or taking up space
holding back expression or emotion through sound
These patterns often developed to protect you, to reduce risk, avoid conflict, or stay connected in environments where it didn’t feel safe to speak freely.
Exploring Your Voice Gently and Safely in Therapy
In therapy, voice exploration is never about pushing, performing well, or making sound before you’re ready.
Instead, we move slowly and collaboratively, attending to:
sensations in your body
breath awareness and pacing
bringing attention to moments of ease or constriction in yourself
how you respond to impulses to make sound, pause, or stay silent
relational cues between us in the room
Sometimes this looks like very subtle sound-making, such as humming, sighing, noticing your breath, or simply paying attention to what happens when you imagine speaking. Silence itself can be an important and meaningful part of our process.
Voice exploration happens only within your window of tolerance, with choice and consent at every step.
Voice as Information
Rather than asking “How do I make my voice stronger/better?”
we might ask:
What is my voice protecting right now?
What does my body need in order to feel ready to make sound?
What happens when I don’t force anything to change?
As our awareness grows, many people discover that their voice begins to shift naturally, becoming clearer, steadier, more flexible, or more available - not because it was trained, but because our body feels more supported.
Reclaiming Choice and Expression
Exploring your voice in therapy can support:
rebuilding trust in your body’s signals
expanding choice around expression and silence
reconnecting with your sense of vitality, agency, and aliveness
experiencing your voice as something that belongs to you
Our work together is about listening: allowing sound, words, or silence to emerge in a way that honours your whole experience.
Voice, Movement, Embodiment & Gestalt Therapy
My approach weaves together:
embodied, relational Gestalt therapy
Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy (DSP), developed by Ruella Frank
Alexander Technique and Wholeness in Motion principles
somatic voice and movement exploration
sensory awareness and present-moment attention
Gestalt therapy invites us to notice how experience unfolds in the here and now, rather than trying to fix or analyze it. DSP deepens this awareness by attending to developmental movement patterns and relational processes that shape how we orient, reach, respond, and express ourselves.
In our work together:
your voice is understood as an embodied process
movement and sound are ways of sensing and making meaning of your experience
awareness comes before interpretation
integration happens over time, not as a goal or right away
Sessions are experiential rather than didactic. We begin with your experience, allowing understanding to emerge naturally, in a way that helps you to make sense of yourself more clearly. If theoretical underpinnings seem like a support, we go there together, but your inner knowing is paramount and that is what guides our work together.
In-Person One:One Sessions (Toronto)
Exploring our voices in a shared space allows for opportunities to feel vibration and resonance in community.
In-person sessions allow for embodied exploration through:
movement, gesture, and spatial awareness
sound and voice exploration
Meeting in person allows us to work with everyday activities such as sitting, standing, walking, breathing, and exploring these activities as doorways into awareness and choice.
Virtual One:One Sessions (Ontario)
Voice and embodied work translate easily to online formats.
Virtual sessions support you to explore voice and movement within your own environment, using simple, familiar activities. We may work with:
self-touch and guided movement
sound-making and vocal exploration
attention to sensation, breath, and impulse
Online work often deepens self-trust by inviting you to receive information directly from your own body, in the security of your own familiar space.
Who This Work May Support
This approach may speak to you if you’re curious about:
your relationship to speaking, sounding, or being heard
anxiety, self-consciousness, or inhibition around how you use or experience your voice
reconnecting with vitality, ease, or expressiveness
exploring communication beyond words
sensing yourself more fully in relationship
This work is not just for singers (we’re all singers!)
The only requirement for inviting voice exploration into therapy is curiosity about your relationship with your own voice.
frequently asked questions about voice and therapy
Do I need to sing in these sessions?
No. Singing is not required. Sound-making may be explored gently, but only if it feels appropriate for you.
Is this voice therapy or speech therapy?
No. This is psychotherapy which can include embodied voice exploration. It is not clinical speech or voice rehabilitation.
Will this help with anxiety or nervousness around speaking?
It can. Rather than training you to sound confident, we explore what happens in your body when anxiety arises, building awareness, choice, and support from the inside.
Is this work trauma-informed?
Yes. We move slowly, collaboratively, and with respect for your capacity. You are always in control of what we explore.
Can this be combined with other therapy work?
Absolutely. Voice exploration often weaves naturally into broader therapeutic themes like boundaries, relationships, identity, and self-expression.
If you’re curious about exploring your voice as part of therapy, and building awareness around listening inside to your body’s signals, we can begin exactly where you are.