Healing Trauma Through Your Body, Not Just Your Mind.

Trauma is best described as the lasting effect of a perceived traumatic event. Note, perceived. No one can decide what is or is not traumatic for anyone else. It could be a single distressing event or prolonged exposure to stress, which can leave lasting imprints on both the mind and body.

Context is really important too. What is considered life-threatening changes drastically over time. For example, a 5-month-old baby being left alone at home for 5 hours is life-threatening, no argument, and the effects of that experience are well documented in developmental literature. It creates harmful psychological, emotional, and even physical trauma. If you left a 5-year-old at home alone for 5 hours, we could start to debate about how harmful that is, and whether or not it was a traumatic event for the child, but at the end of the day, it could be more traumatising for some children than others, depending on all kinds of nuances like their safety, access, and ability to get food, etc.

Traditional top-down therapeutic approaches often focus on cognitive and verbal processing, the ability to remember and recall traumatic memories but it is overwhelmingly evident that memory is both fickle and hard to access, particularly if the trauma has been explicitly forgotten, such as in the case of the 5-month-old baby.

We also know that a part of the brain’s survival strategy is to keep us safe both psychologically and physically both during and after traumatic events. Over time, elements of the survival patterns make less sense to us, because it is less important for us to know why we are reacting as it is to simply, react. Commonly it is difficult to recall and make sense of certain aspects of traumas, and often traditional talk therapies aiming to dig around at root causes if not accompanied by equally supportive frameworks and processes can be re-traumatising.

Incorporating modalities like Embodied Processing, Brainspotting, EMDR, and other somatic body-based therapies into trauma therapy can be powerful and effective. Having a therapist with a holistic approach and skills in these frameworks recognises the intricate connection between the body and mind, emphasising the importance of addressing both to promote healing.

A look into some of the approaches:

Embodied processing involves integrating the body into the therapeutic process, acknowledging that trauma affects not only our thoughts and emotions but also our physical sensations and movements. This approach is grounded in the idea that trauma is stored not only in the mind but also in the body, and accessing these physical manifestations can lead to profound healing.

Using embodied processing techniques such as somatic experiencing (first developed by Dr. Peter Levine. Soma means body), the aim is to follow bodily sensations associated with certain thoughts and memories.

Sharon Mann, a Psychotherapist here at SJP Wellbeing says “When working with trauma we must develop enough capacity to meet unprocessed stress within the felt sense of our physical body. In therapy, we learn to safely bring attention down into the body and meet the parts of ourselves that we have innocently learned to repress or suppress. It’s my job as a therapist to attune to a client’s nervous system and to help clients stay within their window of tolerance. In time using therapy like embodied processing, our window of tolerance grows and over time we develop the ability to meet more dense and intense levels of sensation without falling into overwhelm and becoming hijacked by our emotions. When we learn to meet ourselves with unconditional love and acceptance, our past begins to metabolise and we naturally begin to live a more present and embodied life, without the need to distract from, push down or dissociate from uncomfortable, or triggering parts of life” 

Brainspotting is a brain-body-based modality that works with the natural neurological processes of the brain by finding ‘brain spots’ and mindful noticing. 'The eyes are the window to the soul’ might be an anecdote worth more than a nice cliche. Although there are many ways to utilise brainspotting, one of the core tenets is utlising mindful noticing by finding a ‘spot’ using the eyes that creates somatic activation, or sensations in the body. Like embodied processing, brainspotting uses the felt sense to guide the process and aims to ‘process’ unhealed trauma and experiences via increasing awareness of the body, and neurological rewiring.

Shani Prideaux, Counsellor and director here at SJP Wellbeing uses brainspotting in therapy with clients and says “There are crucial differences in the way that we heal trauma and increase a person’s capacity to engage with life, feel safe and be able to make sense of their experiences in the present. When someone is triggered because of the past, the body and nervous system are going to respond as if it’s happening now, even if logically it isn’t. Brainspotting helps to circumvent the need to explicitly make sense of memories or present experiences and allows processing of the body and brain, nervous system, and limbic system. Brainspotting gives us a tool to use within this clinical relationship, to neurobiologically locate, focus, process, and release experiences and symptoms that are typically out of reach of the conscious mind and its cognitive and language capacity. Read more about brainspotting here.

Expressive therapies, such as art, music, and dance/movement and play therapy, offer unique avenues for working with trauma and the nervous system. Like embodied processing and brainspotting, expressive modalities recognise that trauma does not just affect cognitive and verbal domains but also permeates the body's physiological responses. Even the way we perceive our physiological responses is impacted, for example, a colleague frowns at you, maybe because they were deep in thought, or something else and your mind and body perceive potential rejection or danger, or both, and before too long you have a migraine and need to go home. By engaging in creative and expressive activities, individuals can access and release stored emotions, allowing for a non-verbal exploration of their trauma experiences. The inherent sensory and rhythmic qualities of expressive therapies provide a means to regulate our nervous systems, making us more able to relax, over time reducing the hyper, or hypo-arousal often associated with trauma.

Hafizah Syed Alwi , Psychotherapist and Play Therapist at SJP Wellbeing speaks about the importance of these approaches with young people and adults alike because commonly the symptoms presenting for adults were actually adaptations to childhood experiences. She says that “creating art, using colour, playing music, engaging in dance, or building characters allows clients to externalise their internal experiences, giving a certain freedom to explore and foster meaning without being so triggering. This helps to foster a sense of safety and control. In my work with with people from different cultures, displacement, and wounds from separation from family, home and associated traumas are common. It’s important to use flexible approaches so that people can choose to bring in elements of their culture, to honour themselves and their identity. There are often competing and polarising demands on people who have immigrated, such as pressure or opinions from their community or families. Such as, they moved here for more opportunities and so should be grateful, however, more than one thing can be true, traumas and other struggles can still be alive. I like to weave in a narrative therapy approach because as people start to build new narratives around themselves, maybe via drawing or other means, people can learn to make room for it all to heal. It’s both less confronting, and more expressive than talk therapy alone. Expressive therapies offer a profound way to integrate fragmented aspects of traumatic memories, promoting self-discovery and empowerment as individuals reconnect with their creative capacities while simultaneously addressing the intricate relationship between trauma and the nervous system.

Takeaways and things you can start to explore on your own:

1.    The Body as a Storehouse of Trauma: Traumatic experiences often result in the dysregulation of the nervous system, leading to heightened states of arousal or numbing. These physiological responses become imprinted in the body, creating patterns of tension, discomfort, or dissociation.

Find ways that feel good to you to express or move these physical sensations through your body when they are triggered.

2.    Mind-Body Connection: The mind and body are intricately connected, with each influencing the other. Embodied processing techniques, such as somatic experiencing, yoga, and mindfulness, aim to bridge this gap. By paying attention to bodily sensations and movements, you can gain insights into emotional states and facilitate the release of stored trauma.

If it’s happening in the mind, it’s probably happening in the body.

3.    Breathwork: Conscious and controlled breathing can be a powerful tool for regulating the nervous system. Techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing and breath awareness help individuals connect with their breath, promoting relaxation and reducing anxiety associated with trauma.

Look up the Wim-Hof method or any other yoga breathing.

What you should expect (& deserve) from any trauma therapy:

1.    Holistic Healing: Therapy (& therapist) that recognises that trauma affects the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. By addressing the physical aspects of trauma, therapy becomes more comprehensive, leading to a more complete and lasting healing process.

2.    Empowerment and Agency: Therapy (& therapist) that empowers you to take an active role in your healing journey. By connecting with your body and learning to regulate your physiological responses, you can gain a sense of agency over your own well-being.

3.    Integration of Traumatic Memories: Cognitive understanding and ‘making sense’ of things is important, but it needs to allow for the integration of traumatic memories at a somatic level. Rather than being stuck in a cycle of re-experiencing trauma, you can gradually process and release the stored energy associated with distressing events.

 Shani, Sharon, and Hafizah work with a range of people from 10+ in clinic in Salisbury and Gawler, SA, and online around Australia.

We work on the ethos of Therapy . Education . Person First .

You can fill in the waitlist/referral form in the get started button and our team will be in touch to help you make an appointment.