SOMATIC THERAPY

Zach Kalatsky

I’m Zach, a Somatic Therapist and the founder of The Forest Haven, a community and event space devoted to healing, connection, and rewilding.

I’m trained in Somatic Experiencing and in long-term study and facilitation under Luis Mojica with Holistic Life Navigation (HLN), ongoing private practice, and years of holding group and one-on-one containers focused on nervous system regulation, consent, touch, and embodied presence.

I am also a core coordinator with the Hudson Valley Psychedelic Society (HVPS), where I support education, integration, and community care around altered states and healing work.

My orientation is relational and steady. I prioritize safety, pacing, and respect for the intelligence of the body. I work with adults of all genders and identities and hold particular care around trauma, boundaries, and consent.

-Somatic Therapist

Schedule A session

What Is Somatic Therapy?

Somatic therapy is a modality of therapy that works directly with the nervous system, sensation, and lived experience in the body. Rather than focusing only on story or insight, we listen to what the body is already communicating and allow change to emerge through awareness, pacing, and regulation.

This work often includes tools that support the nervous system in renegotiating past experience, not by reliving it, but by updating the body to what is true and available in the present moment.

Orienting To A Session

Somatic therapy recognizes that the body holds memory, survival strategies, and intelligence. Many responses we feel as a struggle with were once a helpful, adaptive, and protective strategy. In this work, we approach these strategies with respect rather than urgency.

We move slowly, Track sensation and impulse & notice when the nervous system settles, tightens, or drifts.

Healing happens through relating with these sensations and updating our system to the present moment, all while not needing to relive or overriding the past.

This approach is especially attentive to timing, consent, and choice, allowing the body to guide the process rather than the mind trying to manage it.

There is no expectation to perform, explain, or arrive anywhere specific. Some sessions are more quiet and internal, others involve more dialogue and exploration.

Scope Of Support

People come into somatic therapy for many different reasons. This work commonly intersects with experiences such as trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, emotional overwhelm, relational patterns, identity transitions, wanting to experience more pleasure, body image, worthiness, and difficulty feeling safe or at ease in the body.

Rather than categorizing or diagnosing, we stay close to lived experience and what wants attention.

Schedule A Session With Zach

Let me know a few days and times that work for you and I will get back to you with my availability.

Session with Zach Virtually or in person at The Forest Haven (Saugerties, NY). They are booked about 1-2 weeks in advance. If you have questions before scheduling, you’re welcome to reach out.

Rate:

• 25 minute optional first session: $100

• 50-minute individual sessions
: $185

Featured

TESTIMONIALS

  • After 15 years of therapy with no real shifts in behavior or thinking, working with Zach has finally moved the needle towards more embodiment, self-compassion, and acceptance. As a companion and a guide, Zach brings curiosity, dynamism, an occasional giggle, and tenderness to what has previously felt too shameful to be witnessed. His investment in my wellbeing is palpable and he never fails to meet me exactly where I am. The results of working with Zach are both subtle and seismic; with his guidance, I am cultivating a deeper sense of trust and safety in my body and in the present moment. Thank you, Zach.

    Eloise S.

    Connecticut, United States

  • My search for an appropriate therapist went on for so many years it's hard not to want to set off fireworks in honor of finally being rewarded for my persistence with the very thing I needed. So: For me, working with Zach has been a gentle,p supportive & clarifying window into old, tangled & painful emotions & sensations I'm unable to access on my own. When these feelings & sensations come up in the presence of such a witness it is SO much easier to recognize, accept & honor them for what they can teach me, which allows them to settle. After so long a time of fighting the feelings, it is such a relief for them to be held by someone who understands.

    Camas L.

    New Jersey, United States

  • There is a depth to Zach’s compassion and understanding that supports and magnifies his therapeutic practices. In his presence I can go deep and with his support I can hold more. He has the ability to flow into another in a way that allowed me to feel deeply seen and held. I can’t overstate the value of being seen at this deep of an energetic level. It is profound. It is transformative. I can now hold and nurture myself much better because of our work together. In our sessions I know nothing is off limits and everything that emerges is welcome. Overall it is a beautiful experience to work with Zach and very effective for healing, progress, and growth. Thank you Zach.

    Jared R.

    Utah, United States

  • I had a transformational session with Zach where we worked with my intimate boundaries. Having never really had solid boundaries in relation to sex, there was a vast amount of activation that I carried with me. Zach's presence, compassion and understanding, including that any direct touch would be too much for me, allowed me to feel safe and release more sorrow and stress than I could have imagined, all the while he supported me in being present. There are few people I trust enough to work with on this topic and I'm grateful beyond words to have had the chance to do so with Zach.

    Niklas B.

    Sweden

  • Working with Zach has brought a profound sense of calm into my life, something I hadn’t realized I was missing until I experienced it. His intuitive, attentive, and kind approach creates a space where I feel truly seen and supported. Through our work together, I’ve been able to gently release long held, trauma based patterns that I had struggled to move past for years. Zach’s presence and skill have been deeply healing, and I’m incredibly grateful for the growth I’ve experienced with his guidance.

    Susanna D.

    Florida, United States

  • Zach is a brilliant somatic therapist. He has this incredible ability to read between the words and the body language and tap into the trauma. He has given me the ability to begin identifying when I'm about to go down that rabbit hole. I was a victim of the Palisades wildfire.  Before working with Zach, IZach is teaching me to feel the trauma, acknowledge it and then be able to regulate. Zach is kind, he’s intuitive, and he's an amazing somatic therapist. He is the angel I had been praying for..... 

    Rochelle C.

    California, United States

  • In Zach’s men’s group I’ve felt an incredible sense of safety and support. He brings a bold, grounding presence that encourages people to open up, and it’s helped me become more aware and connected to myself.

    Seb C.

    England, UK

  • Looking for someone who is 100% attentive, caring, nurturing, open and willing to spend very valuable time with you, then look no further than Zach. He's a really great teacher, mentor, and friend. If you were ever thinking about spending any quality time with somebody to help your own spiritual journey, look no further than Zach.

    David S.

    Florida, United States

  • Being relatively new to somatics, I do have experience in multiple other typical therapeutic settings. With Zach, he heard my stories, as most of my traumas were still linked to stories, which then reactivated parts of my body as if I were still in the trauma. Zach watched me, learned me, and knew how to interrupt the story to bring me to the ‘now’. Eventually, while working with Zach, I could identify in myself when I was stuck in story and would interrupt the story myself before he would. I credit that recognition in myself all as a credit to the gentle way in which Zach went through those stories with me and helped me to find myself, my soul, and my body as present forms rather than stuck in past stories of failure.

    Mark I.

    New York, United States