Trauma Healing

Trauma impacts mental, emotional, physiological and behavioural states, often simultaneously.  Effective trauma treatments address each of these layers.  Today, integrated psycho-biological modalities are increasingly being applied to address trauma in a more comprehensive way.  In this month’s blog article, I introduce some of the key components that support meaningful and lasting recovery from chronic trauma.  

What is Trauma?

To heal trauma, we must first understand what it is.  What are its key characteristics, and how does it affect people?  

Trauma typically occurs when the brain registers a highly threatening or harmful event, be it actual or imagined.  This perception is subjective and can vary from person to person.  For example, a physical assault or a painful rejection can both be perceived as traumatic.  

Once the brain registers the threat, it instantly activates the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (ANS).  The purpose of the ANS activation is to energise the body to fight or flee a predator.  However, with trauma, people typically experience overwhelming responses such as numbness, helplessness, fear, or disgust.  Traumatic memories are not stored like non-distressing normal memories.  Instead, they are stored as sensory fragments of sights, sounds, smells, which are often charged with intense distress.  Concurrently, due to left brain hemispheric suppression, trauma survivors often cannot make sense of the event in a logical way, which inhibits providing a coherent narrative of trauma memories.  Additionally, trauma leaves a physiological imprint – stuck energy in the brain and body.  

What Maintains Trauma Symptoms? 

According to Emotional Processing Theory, trauma symptoms arise from perceived threat, which results in emotional and physiological distress.  This is followed by a process of meaning making (forming distorted beliefs) combined with active suppression and avoidance of distressing emotions.  Neuroscience highlights the role of unconscious reactivity to internal and external reminders of the event, which occurs due to the way the brain processes intense distress.  While German New Medicine posits that traumatic shock affects the entire biological system, altering the brain hemispheres so that they don’t work in synch but rather in a disordered way, albeit for purposes of coping and survival.  

These frameworks, backed by empirical research, highlight how trauma affects people across brain, body, emotion, and behavioural states.  While trauma is an ongoing area of research, the central role of mental and emotional processes in maintaining symptoms and causing other adverse affects is well established.  

Healing Unaddressed Trauma 

Therapeutic interventions proven to reduce trauma symptoms often focus on transforming negative cognitions and their emotional, physiological and behavioural effects.  Some of the key components of successful trauma healing include: 

1. Compassionate support: A compassionate, attuned therapist who actively supports your healing is essential.  Remember, it is the absence of compassionate support that is a key risk factor for the development of PTSD, it is therefore a pivotal part of any therapeutic process. 
2. Addressing general stress: Addressing any day to day stress and stressors prior to processing traumatic memories may be necessary.  Sometimes, this may only require thinking of a practical solution, or accessing environmental resources that can facilitate addressing any stressors.  At other times, you may find it helpful to work with a therapist to address symptoms and find solutions.  Be mindful that some general stress may stem from unresolved trauma, and so addressing the underlying issue may get rid of any daily worries. 
3. Self-regulation techniques: These methods facilitate calming the nervous system and reducing emotional overwhelm.  Some useful practices include: self-care EFT, movement or gentle exercise, grounding techniques, mindfulness and meditation, breathwork, gratitude journaling, nutritious food and hydration.  Remember, unaddressed trauma maintains a fear pattern in the brain and body and so applying self-regulation techniques regularly will help reinforce a sense of safety in the present.  
4. Processing trauma memories: There are numerous modalities for processing trauma, however following are some proven techniques that transform trauma memories and their psycho-biological effects: 

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT): A mind-body therapy that integrates psychotherapy, exposure therapy, and cognitive behavioural techniques with tapping meridian points.  This is an evidence-based treatment that has shown to effectively treat numerous conditions including depression, anxiety, PTSD and stress.  

Somatic Therapy: This body-centred approach focuses on physical symptoms of trauma.  Techniques include increasing awareness of bodily sensations, shifting attention between distress and safety, and releasing stuck energy through focusing, pendulation, movement and breathing.  Somatic therapy research is still in its early stages, however case studies and some reviews highlight improvements to trauma symptoms.  

EMDR: EMDR uses guided eye movements to process traumatic memories, reduce emotional intensity, and help integrate the trauma into a coherent narrative. It’s one of the most researched and effective treatments for trauma. 

Exposure therapy:  This entails gradual, repeated exposure to trauma reminders, aiming to reduce emotional reactivity and distress over time.  This is the most well researched of therapeutic methods.  

Final Thoughts

These therapies and techniques  are just some research based techniques proven to treat unaddressed trauma symptoms that occur at the mind-body level.  However, increasingly, therapists are utilising an integrated approach – one that incorporates a multitude of strategies that address psychological, physiological and behavioural symptoms, to facilitate more effective trauma healing.  

Keep in mind that the key components suggested are not necessarily presented in any particular order.  How we go about healing trauma symptoms will vary from person to person.  Factors like the type and severity of symptoms, and whether other mental or physical health conditions are present, all influence treatment approach.  Therefore, what is applied, and when, will very much be determined by individual factors, and thus a personalised approach is always advisable.  

I hope you found this article useful.  If you would like further information or for any other questions or queries then feel free to get in touch.  

Sadaf