about
who are you and what is your background?
My name is Esmat. I am a somatic facilitator, therapist, artist and researcher.
I was born in Bavaria. My mother is German, and my father was born in Iran. I moved to London, where I completed a BA in Fine Art. My artistic practice continues to inform how I think, perceive, and work today.
There are two somatic modalities that form the core of my current practice. The first is Somatic Experiencing®, an approach that helps strengthen and restore functions of the autonomic nervous system, during and after periods of stress and trauma.
I trained under Peter Levine, Raja Selvam, Efu Nyaki, Francine Kelley, Cécile Ziemons Selvam, Sonia Gomez, Dea Parsanishi, and Anne Janzen. I am also an assistant for Somatic Experiencing trainings.
The second core approach is Bodynamic, an approach that centres the psychological functions of our muscles and the developmental character structures we formed in the early stages of our lives. These patterns continue to shape how we relate, act, and orient ourselves today, and can be explored experientially to support capacity, agency, and relational functioning. I have completed the foundation training under Lisbeth, Ditte, Hadi and Kristina Marcher, and received further guidance by Wolfgang Brandt.
what are the branches of your work?
Somatic therapy is the space for individual sessions.
'We Are Here, Now' is a space for collective sessions.
'Centre for Somatic Research' is the space for research.
'For students in SE trainings' is for somatic experiencing students.
'On-site Somatic Work' is for organisations, communities, and professional contexts.
who do you work with?
I work with people who are actively engaged in shaping the world around them. My background is rooted in work with queer and trans people, neurodivergent people, and people of colour. Today, my work is open to anyone oriented toward responsibility, agency, and contribution—artists, activists, mediators, writers, thinkers, policymakers, business practitioners, and frontline workers.
why the 'Infrastructures of Becoming?'
My personal and professional work has always been shaped by a recurring set of questions: Where are we? Where have we been? Where could we be going?
From an early age, I experienced both privilege and oppression, moving between isolation and connection, disorientation and orientation in space and time. I understand becoming as something shaped not only by individual support, but also by social, political, and material conditions, and by those who hold power. The German term Heilpraktiker can be translated literally as “healing practitioner,” a role that is not limited to one-to-one work alone; artists, musicians, educators, and community ritual facilitators can also be understood as healing practitioners.
While I currently do offer individual and collective sessions, much of my work also includes imagining and developing new 'infrastructures of becoming', asking what forms of support, orientation, and collective capacity healing practitioners might create today.