★★★★★ 100+ Five-Star Reviews on Google & Yelp
Somatic Coaching · West Hollywood

Somatic coaching in West Hollywood: change that lands in the body, not just the story

The work you are looking for is not clinical treatment. It is body-based coaching for patterns conversation alone has not moved. Somatic coaching at our West Hollywood studio combines breathwork, Classical Pilates-informed movement, Reiki, and intentional conversation in one session. Certified Somatic Facilitators Jaime and Yonatan Elkayam see clients at our Melrose studio or virtually across California.

75-minute sessions · Melrose studio or virtual · Certified Somatic Facilitators

Somatic coaching conversation with a Certified Somatic Facilitator at the Word of Mouth West Hollywood studio
Certified Somatic Facilitators Married practitioner team · 10+ years in LA
The Approach

What is the difference between a somatic coach and a therapist?

A somatic therapist is a licensed clinician, an LMFT, PsyD, or similar, who provides clinical treatment for diagnosed conditions using body-based interventions. A somatic coach is a non-clinical practitioner who uses somatic awareness, movement, and nervous-system tools inside a coaching, not therapy, container. Coaching does not diagnose, treat, or address clinical conditions.

What it does support is embodied awareness, nervous-system regulation, and pattern-level change for clients who are not in acute clinical need, often alongside their existing therapy. Neither Jaime nor Yonatan is a licensed therapist. If you need clinical care, we will tell you directly and help you find the right referral.

See how coaching compares to therapy

Who It Helps

Who somatic coaching is for in Los Angeles

Somatic coaching at Word of Mouth is designed for clients who are ready for body-based work in a coaching container.

Post-Therapy Plateau Clients

You have done the talk work, understand your patterns, and want embodied change rather than more insight.

Therapists & Caregivers

Your own nervous system is often depleted from holding space for others. This is a practitioner-for-practitioner container that respects what you already know.

Coaching for therapists

Creatives & Founders

Performance pressure that lives in the body under the achievement, common across LA's entertainment and tech scenes.

Over-Functioners & High-Achievers

Anxiety that lives in the doing, not just the thinking, and a body that will not stop even when you want it to.

Couples

Nervous-system patterns that show up in conflict, distance, or communication, worked with in a coaching, not couples-therapy, container.

Couples coaching

Burnout Recoverers

Too depleted to sustain purely cognitive approaches, needing the body to lead the way back.

Burnout recovery

Somatic coaching supports people moving through stress, burnout, and stuck patterns as a complement to medical or mental-health care. It is not a substitute for professional treatment.

Why It Works

How somatic coaching actually works

Somatic coaching starts with the body's signals: sensation, posture, breath quality, and muscle tension, as data. Sessions weave breathwork, Classical Pilates-informed movement, and Reiki together with conversation, calibrated to what the body needs that day.

  • Body-centered awareness

    You learn to notice and work with the body's signals rather than override them. Over sessions, this builds a different relationship with your own physical state.

  • Nervous-system regulation

    The nervous system runs patterns beneath conscious thought. Sessions work with regulation, helping the body move between activation and calm more fluidly.

  • Pilates-informed movement

    Yonatan's Classical Pilates background makes movement available as a somatic tool, reorganizing how the body holds stress and pattern, not exercise for its own sake.

  • Reiki and somatic resourcing

    Jaime's Reiki energy work can settle and resource a session, especially for a nervous system that needs an anchor before verbal processing.

Learn about holistic coaching
Body-based somatic coaching session blending breathwork and conversation at the Word of Mouth studio
Your Session

What a 75-minute somatic coaching session looks like

1

You arrive in the body

The first few minutes are somatic: a body scan, a breath, a posture check. This is not a ritual, it is diagnostic. Where you are physically tells us how to pace what follows.

2

We layer in what the body needs

If the nervous system is activated, breathwork comes first. If there is a holding pattern, Pilates-informed movement can reorganize it. If the energy feels blocked, Reiki creates a settling.

3

We talk from inside the body's experience

Conversation happens after or alongside the somatic work, not instead of it. Insights that arrive once the nervous system is regulated tend to be more integrative and easier to act on.

4

You close with something felt, not just understood

Sessions end with integration: what shifted physically, what you are taking with you, and what to notice before your next visit.

What this session is not: a talk session with a breathing exercise at the start. Breath, body, energy, and conversation are woven together inside the same hour.

Jaime and Yonatan Elkayam, Certified Somatic Facilitators and Reiki Master Teachers in West Hollywood
Your Facilitators

Meet Jaime and Yonatan Elkayam

Jaime is a Certified Somatic Facilitator, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, Energy Medicine Practitioner, Relationship and Life Coach, and Certified Reiki Master Teacher, supporting therapists, creatives, and high-achievers in Los Angeles for over 10 years. Yonatan is a Certified Breathwork Facilitator, Certified Reiki Master Teacher, Classical Pilates Instructor, and musician with 30 years of vibrational study, which makes the somatic layer of sessions substantive, not decorative.

Neither Jaime nor Yonatan is a licensed therapist. Somatic coaching draws on frameworks developed by researchers including Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Pat Ogden, and Dan Siegel, applied here in a non-clinical, coaching container. It is not equivalent to somatic therapy conducted by a licensed clinician, and outcomes are not guaranteed. Many clients find it effective, results vary, and that is why every program begins with a discovery call.

Learn more about us
In Their Words

What coaching clients say

★★★★★

It's not therapy and it's not your typical relationship coaching. It gets to the source of everything, helping guide you to the conversations that really matter, the connection that really is there underneath everything.

Austin McDonald
★★★★★

I've been through a lot of coaching programs, but Jaime and Yonatan's unique combination of movement, energy work, and heart-opened feedback had a profound impact on me.

Melissa Muller
★★★★★

By combining a mix of breath, body, mind, and energy work all under one roof, in a single session, I'm able to take care of myself as a whole being rather than doing maintenance on each of the parts individually.

Eric Sagotsky
Good Questions

Somatic coaching in Los Angeles, answered

Honest answers about how somatic coaching works, what it costs, and how it fits alongside therapy.

Somatic therapy is conducted by a licensed clinician and is a clinical modality. Somatic coaching is non-clinical and uses somatic principles within a coaching container. We do not diagnose, treat, or provide clinical care. If you need clinical support, we will tell you directly and help you find the right referral.
No. Somatic coaching is useful for anyone who carries stress, anxiety, or unhelpful patterns in the body, regardless of whether that traces to trauma. Many clients come for performance, burnout, relationship patterns, or simply the awareness that insight has not changed how they feel.
Somatic coaching does not require a clinical license. Our credentials include Somatic Facilitator, Certified Breathwork Facilitator, Certified Reiki Master Teacher, Classical Pilates Instructor (Yonatan), Energy Medicine Practitioner, and Relationship and Life Coach (Jaime). We have 10+ years of applied practice in Los Angeles.
If you are in active clinical treatment, we encourage you to discuss adding somatic coaching with your therapist. We work alongside therapy, not in place of it. For very recent or acute trauma events, clinical care should come first.
We start with a body scan and breath calibration, then layer in breathwork, Pilates-informed movement, or Reiki based on what the body needs. The last portion includes embodied conversation. The ratio of each element varies by session and by what shows up. We do not follow a script.
Reiki can be done hands-on or hands-off. We ask and confirm your preference before every session. Pilates-informed movement is mostly guided verbally. Touch is never assumed and is always negotiated explicitly before contact.
Most clients notice something after the first session, usually a shift in how the body feels rather than a dramatic narrative change. Deeper pattern work builds across sessions. We do not promise timelines and will be honest with you about what is realistic for your situation.
Both. In-person sessions are at our private loft on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. Virtual sessions are available across California and for coaching programs nationwide.
Ready When You Are

Ready to feel it in the body?

Somatic coaching sessions run 75 minutes, in person at our private Melrose studio or virtually across California. Apply for a discovery call to talk through where you are and what would actually help.

More Ways In

Other coaching at Word of Mouth

Holistic Life Coaching

Our full-program approach blending breath, body, energy, and coaching conversation in one weekly session.

Holistic coaching

Nervous System Coaching

A more targeted framework for clients who want to understand and support their nervous system's regulation patterns.

Nervous system coaching

Trauma-Informed Coaching

Somatic coaching with an explicit trauma-awareness frame, for clients whose patterns trace to adverse experiences.

Trauma-informed coaching

Breathwork

Conscious breathing for nervous-system regulation, often layered directly into a somatic coaching session.

Breathwork

Not sure which is the right fit? Book a discovery call and we will help you decide.