​​​​Q&A
​​
​
Who are you and what is your background?
My name is Darius Ahmadian; most people call me Esmat. I was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria, to a German mother and and an Iranian Father.
At the age of 21, I moved to London, where I completed a BA in Fine Art, graduating in 2018. My artistic practice continues to inform how I think, perceive, and work today.
Two somatic modalities form the core of my current practice. The first is Somatic Experiencing®, in which I trained with Peter Levine, Raja Selvam, Efu Nyaki, Sonia Gomez, Dea Parsanishi, Francine Kelley and Anne Janzen. Since 2024, I am also assisting in online international Somatic Experiencing trainings.
The second core approach is Bodynamic, where I completed the Foundation Training in 2025 under Lisbeth, Ditte, Hadi and Kristina Marcher.
With a background in group facilitation and a German state license as Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie - which enable me to work psychotherapeutically - I now work as a somatic educator and somatic therapist. This framing best reflects my integration of art and somatics, and supports my work across 1-on-1 sessions, collective formats, and embodied research.
​
Can you tell me more about Somatic Experiencing and Bodynamic?
Somatic Experiencing helps to strengthen and restore functions of the autonomic nervous system, during and after periods of stress and trauma.
Bodynamic works with the psychological function of muscles and developmental character structures formed in early life. These patterns continue to shape how people relate, act, and orient themselves today, and can be explored experientially to support capacity, agency, and relational functioning.
What is the benefit of individual sessions?
Individual sessions offer a focused space to learn how your own body works. As Peter Levine once noted, most people receive clearer instructions for operating a toaster than for operating their own nervous system. In a 1-on-1 setting, you can take the time and space to become familiar with bodily signals, patterns, and responses shaped by stress, development, and experience. The work is grounded in simple orientation and presence, returning again and again to the capacity to sense: "I am here, now."
​
​
Where is the difference between a therapy session and a somatic education session?
​A therapy session is typically framed around working with personal difficulties, distress, or patterns that are experienced as limiting, and may involve clinical language such as symptoms, diagnosis, or treatment. My scope of practice operates the realm of mild and moderate symptoms. Severe symptoms are outside of my scope of practice.
A somatic education session is framed differently: It is not oriented toward fixing or treating something, but toward learning how the body and nervous system organise experience, especially in situations of stress, demand, or relationship. The emphasis is on orientation, sensing, and building practical capacity and agency, rather than on interpreting personal history or naming conditions. While the work may touch on challenging experiences, it remains focused on learning, self-observation, and skill-building that can be integrated into everyday life, rather than on therapeutic intervention.
​​
​
What is the benefit of collective sessions?
Collective sessions offer a shared space to explore embodiment in relation to others. While individual work centers on “I am here, now,” collective work is oriented around the sense of “We are here, now.” These sessions address themes that concern all of us, including collective resources, collective stressors, and how we orient ourselves within wider social, cultural, and political contexts. The focus is on sensing, learning, and building shared capacity through lived, collective experience.
Please note that these collective sessions are not therapy; they are situated within the realm of somatic education and embodied learning, with an emphasis on shared orientation, capacity building, and collective sense-making rather than therapeutic treatment.​
​
​
Do you work online or in person?
The work offered here is primarily conducted online via Zoom.
For in-person sessions, whether 1-on-1 or collective, availability varies and can be discussed on request.
​​
​
How can I sign up for the collective sessions?
To sign up for collective sessions, please send an email requesting to be added to the newsletter. Further information and upcoming dates are shared there.
​​
​
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 - people who are well enough to learn, reflect, and build capacity in themselves and with others.
​​​
​
How much are 1-on-1 sessions?
per 50-minute session:
80gbp / 90eur / 110usd - Reduced Rate
150gbp / 170gbp / 200usd - Standard Rate
240gbp / 270eur / 320usd - Supporter Rate
​
Can you give credit sessions to SE students?
I am currently approved to offer personal sessions at beginning level that can be counted toward SE training credit requirements.
​
Why the 'Infrastructures of Becoming?'
My personal and professional work has been shaped by a recurring question: 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 read literally as “healing practitioner,” a role that need not be limited to 1-on-1 work; artists, musicians, and educators can also be understood in this way. While I currently offer individual and collective sessions, much of my work happens “backstage,” imagining and developing new Infrastructures of Becoming—asking what forms of support, orientation, and collective capacity a healing practitioner might create today.
​
​