Somatic and embodied psychotherapy with survivors of gender-based violence in India: embodied resistance

Gender-based violence (GBV) generates profound psychological and somatic trauma, leaving survivors’ bodies as sites of both injury and resistance. This paper introduces embodied resistance as a framework for understanding how somatic and embodied psychotherapy facilitates healing and agency among GBV survivors in India. Drawing on feminist, trauma-informed, and phenomenological perspectives, it presents a practice-led synthesis of three anonymised case studies from community-based therapeutic work. Findings show that recovery unfolds through micro-acts of bodily reclamation—breath, posture, movement—that restore physiological safety and social dignity. Ritual, rhythm, and collective practices emerge as culturally resonant pathways for regulation and meaning-making. By framing somatic psychotherapy as feminist praxis, the paper situates care as both therapeutic and political: a process of re-inhabiting the body to challenge systems of control. Implications are outlined for integrating body-based healing within trauma-informed GBV services, community training, and policy frameworks in India.