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Why I Take a Mind-Body Approach to Trauma Recovery

 

Trauma recovery takes hard work, which survivors often wish could go faster. A new client recently asked me, “Should I be exercising? Doing yoga? Meditating? What can I be doing physically to help me heal or recover more quickly? What else can I do to get through all of this?” It was a great question, so today, I’m going to address it in case you’ve been wondering too.

Trauma impacts how we think, and how our body responds, and healing can’t be hurried. But understanding trauma’s nature can help the survivor open up to the idea of taking the time needed to resolve its deep impact on the mind and body.

How Trauma Gets Trapped in the Body

As a trauma therapist trained in many treatment modalities including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (SP), I see trauma as leaving its imprint on the body—as protective impulses that can get trapped in the nervous system.

When a person’s sense of safety has felt threatened by danger, the body does not forget that feeling. The neural network can become hyper sensitive or hypo sensitive to danger, and remains poised for self-defense or protection. Mind and body activate full-blown fight, flight, or freeze responses at the signs of familiar feelings of danger.

This unfinished urge to fight, flight, or flee can get trapped in the body and mind, remaining in suspense. It seeks expression through bouncing feet, headaches, backaches, clenched jaws, flashbacks, bad dreams, anxious thoughts, and countless other outlets. Using trauma-informed therapy that includes mind-body practices right from the beginning supports the healing process. Healing results when the survivor feels empowered to release the protective urge safely, because the danger feeling that has continued to exist long after the trauma stopped can finally be resolved (to un-trap the trauma).

Trauma’s hold on the mind and body is well described, in the title of the book by Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers. As Cheryl Eckl says in this article, “Trauma is the un-discharged energy that gets trapped in the body as a result of a shocking and/or life-threatening event in which the victim is unable to either fight back or flee the situation.

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