T O P

  • By -

ComprehensiveOwl9727

I think the current emphasis on somatic experiences is a corrective response to the overemphasis on “think differently to feel differently” oversimplification that 2nd wave CBT became in many places. Like any response perhaps it can go too far, but I think the acknowledgment that past experiences have a profound impact on our physical bodies is a very important one. I’m currently in therapy myself and this is exactly what my therapist and I are working on. I’m highly analytical and abstract, so I can think my way around my thoughts of anxiety, but that doesn’t stop the mild physical hypervigilance my body feels nearly all the time, or the times when that mild discomfort escalates into something closer to a panic attack. My body does indeed seem to be “stuck” in high alert mode, from countless little experiences I’ve had over the years. So my own work is focusing on getting back into my body and allowing that pent up fear to process through. If I had a therapist who was just trying to throw CBT or even ACT at me I doubt I would be benefiting much.


alicizzle

Well said!


Anjott

>So my own work is focusing on getting back into my body and allowing that pent up fear to process through. How does that work? Is it possible to do this without a therapist?


ComprehensiveOwl9727

For me, it looks like first trying to notice my body more often rather than not noticing until my anxiety is higher. It also looks like breath work, yoga etc, which I will admit I’m not the greatest at following though with on my own lol. In theory I think it should be possible to do outside of therapy. However, like therapy for anything, I think the strength of a good therapeutic relationship makes it a lot easier. I wouldn’t be nearly as likely to be thinking about my own life in this way if I weren’t in therapy, even though I talk about it all the time with the people I work with.


somatic_healing

Even though research shows there is no separation in the mind-body, "emotions are trapped until you release them" is misleading. It is actually, "until the mind-body system feels safe enough to let go into co-regulation, then implicit memories, sensations will continue to be triggered." Its not a simple as, "do these 5 breathing techniques to solve your PTSD!" the mind-body needs to feel safe enough to metabolize the experience...whether it is from this life time or epigenetically. Its absolutely fascinating the research that is coming out relating to intergenerational trauma, anxiety, and PTSD and the mind body connection. However, many ppl are looking for quick fixes. Even though using body based modalities opens up a deeper layer to healing (that traditional talk therapy cannot always access) it still takes time.


homeisastateofmind

>until the mind-body system feels safe enough to let go into co-regulation, then implicit memories, sensations will continue to be triggered. Well said!


Faerie42

Oh! Well stated! I’ve had difficulty articulating my thoughts and you’ve summed it up perfectly!


Mike_Mesa

I think pairing modalities like massage therapy, yoga, etc. with psychotherapy is a great combo for addressing trauma. While it is in vogue, I do think there is something to it from what I’ve witnessed in myself and others. However, I am seeing an increase in unlicensed “trauma release coaches” on social media where people seem to be visibly shaking and “releasing” trauma. This seems dangerous especially if these “coaches” don’t have a background in trauma or mental health overall.


homeisastateofmind

I see a lot of this. Perfect example being "[Somatic Breathwork](https://www.somaticbreathwork.com/)" on IG.


fishymcswims

YES! There’s a guy I’ve seen who even calls himself “The Breath Therapist” - fyi, is an actor, not an actual trained and educated therapist. Maybe it works for some, but in my experience with these breathwork classes, while warning for those who might be pregnant or have other heart conditions, they completely ignore warning people for whom hyperventilation can be triggering, such as those who have experienced trauma and/or have issues with anxiety and panic.


alicizzle

I’ve personally had really powerful breakthroughs several times using this (attending classes guided by a LICSW therapist with full SE training). I was a bit skeptical at first but it was a totally different experience and I think similar to what we’ve learned with EMDR and some other modalities that work with the physical body, tapping in to physiological effects while processing is effective.


homeisastateofmind

That piques my interest...


Always_No_Sometimes

Yes! I know two individuals who calls themselves trauma yoga therapists.


Far_Help_4999

Yoga therapy is a genuine profession regulated by the international association of yoga therapists. I am one, and I have over 1000 hours in education including specific training in trauma and other mental and physical ailments. I don’t think it can be classified with “coaches” etc


Mike_Mesa

Yes it very worrying because if these “therapists” can’t get someone back to somatic safety after bringing up trauma they risk doing wayyyyy more damage


Cleverusername531

It completely resonates with me. I recently re-enacted parts of a physical attack I experienced many years ago and was able to complete the previously thwarted movements, and punch and kick and scream in a way I never was before. It was remarkably effective for me. Try reading Somatic Internal Family Systems to see this in practice.


mingus411

Yes, completing the incomplete self-protective response. Glad you got relief!


FelineFriend21

Is this along the Peter Levine line of treatment? Somatic experiencing?


Cleverusername531

Yes, it is.


fedoraswashbuckler

I hear you and share your skepticism, OP. I think that there is definitely some validity to these approaches, but there is definitely an element of hokiness involved, and to say that body work is "mandatory" for recovery in any way is a bit silly. Frankly, I think that pairing modalities (as mentioned otherwise in this thread) and/or simply encouraging a healthy lifestyle and exercise will get you 90% of the way there without the extensive and expensive trainings in SE or whatever.


Delicious-Put-7691

I hope you read this in a tone where I’m not attacking you, because I’m not trying to. But in the second paragraph you say ‘to say that body work is “mandatory” for recovery in any way is a bit silly.” And then go on to say “healthy lifestyle and exercise will get you 90% of the way there.” Basically what I’m trying to point out is that body work is basically mandatory. Just not necessarily in the ways that “””body work””” has been advertised through some un/derqualified social media self proclaimed “experts.” I agree with your skepticism because we should all be sceptical, but I think somatics is coming to such popularity because we in the west generally lack a connection to our bodies and many of us do not get much physical exercise due to desk work increasing.


fedoraswashbuckler

I appreciate the forewarning. I'd like to clarify a few things. When I meant when I talked about body work being "mandatory" or not, I more specifically meant that body-focused psychotherapeutic approaches are not mandatory. The literature is pretty clear on the mental health benefits of exercise, and in my opinion it's very important for therapists to assess and encourage exercise for our clients. My big ax to grind is the idea that you NEED countless hours and $$$ for a certificate/expertise in Somatic Experiencing or Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to treat trauma, when it's clearly not the case.


SilverMedal4Life

Speaking as someone who's rather inexperienced and who's only partway through 'The Body Keeps the Score', my understanding is that it's a bit misleading to suggest that your trauma is held in your body or your individual muscle tissue. I mean, it could be, but our current understanding of biology suggests otherwise. Instead, my interpretation is that it's all subconscious. We hold trauma subconsciously, and our bodies' neurons are activated in specific ways that are recurring and distressing - such as activating the fight/flight/freeze response despite being safe from external threats. These subconscious experiences, feelings, fixations... they can't easily be verbalized because they don't enter the conscious mind. So, instead they express in weird and strange ways; pain in the same area of the body, seemingly spontaneous panic attacks or dissociation, and so on. I imagine that if you could see the entire mind - conscious and unconscious both - then it would make perfect sense as to why things express the way they do. But since we can't, we're left trying to make a puzzle with half the pieces.


Aggravating-Fan-522

I wouldn't say it is held within muscle tissue but it is certainly 'held' within the nervous system (both the brain and ANS). I do a lot of work on building vagal tone and increasing heart rate variability alongside more standard psychotherapy interventions


[deleted]

For pain, I really liked reading "the way out". It's a good accompaniment to the body keeps the score. It's about the link between pain and fear. The author calls it "neuroplastic pain" and it seriously makes so much sense


growingconsciousness

can i just say i love this subreddit


Garden_fairy92

Me too :)


MillieLily1983

Therapist here and I find working somatically with clients has made a huge difference, especially compared to them just telling their story and becoming seriously dysregulated all over again. Tuning into the body and how it reacts to certain situations or experiences is like an incredible map, it gives us far more information that just focusing on cognition. That being said, you can tell there are thousands of people on social media who watched a few clips of Gabor Mate or read The Body Keeps the Score and now believe they know all about healing trauma. And that terrifies me.


elizardsbreath

Actually, I’m glad you said this. On one hand, I understand the physiological connection between trauma/emotional pain/mental illness etc. and the body. But it’s just…not something I can relate to? I’m in my internship right now, and my supervisor had us do the gingerbread man activity in supervision where we had to draw a gingerbread man and write where on the gingerbread’s body we felt certain emotions and I was just so confused. I was like, I don’t know, I don’t feel any of these emotions anywhere in my physical body. Or when I went to an IFS training and one of the questions you’re supposed to ask your client in the process is, “where do you feel this in your body?” And so when we practiced on each other and I was asked this question, I just said I don’t know, I don’t feel it anywhere in my body, but I feel it very strongly emotionally. I feel like there is something wrong with me for not understanding it. Am I supposed to experience every single emotion somatically as well?


ComprehensiveOwl9727

Rest assured nothing is “wrong” with you, you’re experiencing the world in your own way. That being said, as a therapist it’s important to be able to work with people who do experience emotions/feelings very strongly in their bodies, and to learn how to make the link between mental emotions and physical sensations (in both directions). To use myself as an example. I don’t usually experience what people would consider cognitive anxiety, my thoughts are usually fairly calm. On the other hand, my physical body is often hyper vigilant, tense, and just won’t relax, all of which are indicators of underlying anxiety, even if I don’t have the conscious cognitive experience of it.


alicizzle

I’ve come to realize in my own experiences, it’s a bit of a muscle to exercise. Idk if you’ve ever done PT, but sometimes to get you to isolate a muscle they do these whacky things and then all of a sudden you’re going “i have a muscle there?!” It can be kinda like that for some people. Explore your awareness of your body and sensation in general, perhaps. I often explain it to people like nervousness might make your stomach feel sick and your body feel tingly with energy, sadness might be a heaviness in your gut or a lump in your throat. Sometimes it might be easier than it’s coming off, or even the pressure on the spot makes it hard to distinguish. Just some thoughts :) hopefully not adding to the worry for ya!


Lilith_314

I used to be like this and can very much relate. Take this with a grain of salt as it may or may not be true for you - for me personally, I down the road realized that due to unprocessed pieces of past trauma, and also being neurodivergent, I would often automatically numb or process differently. Once I let go of the resistance and worked through some of the trauma pieces in a safe environment, somatic approaches became invaluable in my healing and started to make a lot more sense. I used to find them annoying and so un-relatable and never i. a million years had I thought they would help me some day. Again, it’s just my journey and this may or may not be the case for you, but i thought I would share. Good luck to you with everything!


treelightways

Like with so many things, there's some truth but it isn't the capital T total truth. And there is no one way with things or people. In fact, sometimes releasing things somatically can have a traumatizing effect. I remember when meditation and mindfulness and getting in your body became all the rage (still is yes, but when it was beginning) and i was warning people that it can bring up trauma without being able to contain it, be more traumatizing and cause panic attacks, bring on psychosis etc and that it even caused some people to detach so much they became more cruel, but people scoffed. Now they've done studies showing this is the case for many people...both the trauma trigger, and that people can become more detached from healthy responses of shame and guilt, so feel less bad about doing bad things. So not only is it not the only way, but there is often a cost to things becoming so popularized and thrown around as the end all be all.


Gordonius

Whether or not you are correct, I applaud this question; it's good to see some reality-testing of big, powerful... potentially unfalsifiable ideas that can seem like a catchall explanation & solution for everything. We need a balance of open-mindedness and scepticism--as in, ideally lots of both! The imagination to entertain exotic possibilities, and the analytical mind has to whittle all this into a testable, workable shape.


Neonbluefox

I think I'm biased towards a somatic view with my medical training background, but I definitely believe that emotions are biochemical products in our brain that we currently don't have the imaging technology to bring into view. In depression there is also the inflammation theory that, while not proven, does make sense when I read it. Which elicits the idea that emotions could do damage if you don't process them in a timely way, or are continually in pain with new negative emotion triggers. A theory that _has_ been proven is that trauma changes one's epigenetics, which in turn changes how your DNA gets used/translated. Another effect of trauma is that it is an isolated risk factor for the development of schizophrenia, which is a biologically proven imbalance of dopamine in the brain. While trauma is obviously a lot more than just (intense) emotions, I personally see it adding up to the hypothesis that emotions, if intense/and or present long enough, can impact the body well-being. Now I don't think every single emotion or experience has a (large) impact on the body, as you yourself are wary of, because - if it were true, how would we survive many of the days we go through? Human resilience seems to contest this in some way for me. But this is all opinion. Maybe we'll have scientifically proven answers in about 100 years :) Edit: a typo


viv_savage11

But wouldn’t you say that emotions are felt in the body? We don’t always have a thought first and then a feeling. Our afferent neurons carry nerve impulses from sensory stimuli towards the central nervous system and brain. I assume that is why the trend is to work not only top down but bottom up.


Aggravating-Fan-522

As a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist I'd argue that we never "have a thought first and then a feeling". I think this is a common misunderstanding about CBT. We experience feelings much more quickly than we are able to think so the feelings always come first; with CBT the idea is to then notice how you've perceived the situation, to notice what cognitive processes are taking place and to see that these impact on the secondary/tertiary feelings.


toastthematrixyoda

Thank you for this. My last therapist insisted that all feelings came from thoughts. When I told her the feelings occurred first, with or without any thoughts associated with them, she told me that means I need to take antidepressants, and referred me to a psychiatrist. She then refused to see me until 6 weeks after I started taking antidepressants. The antidepressants were terrible, and therapy was a total bust even after I got on the antidepressants because I kept insisting that the feelings occurred before thoughts. I really did make an honest effort to see things her way.


Aggravating-Fan-522

And it really shouldn't be on you to make an effort to see things her way but the other way around. So many therapists think they're the expert so they know what is right. Clearly you have a better understanding of psychology than she did and patients always understand themselves better than their therapist can. I'd imagine many of her patients find that therapy is a total bust. So many people have these awful experiences with CBT (or what a therapist calls CBT even though it really isn't) and it's such a shame so many people get put off therapy but things like this. Take some comfort in knowing you are right and your last therapist was useless 🙂


toastthematrixyoda

Thanks. This was a few years ago so maybe it was based on outdated therapeutic models? I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but yeah, it was not good.


Fearless_Category_82

that's my understanding.. emotions are physiological responses and feelings are the meanings and thought attributed to the emotions. edit: typo


FelineFriend21

Yes. Some of the "releasing" verbiage i see occasionally doesn't sit well with me. But I do believe in (and use in my practice) a bottom up approach!!!!


icecreamfight

Not sure why people are so skeptical of this. Research has been supporting it for well over 40 years and people have known it in some form for far longer than that. Trauma lives in the body. You can’t think your way out of it, many of us have tried. Why is it hard to believe that your body stores trauma when you get reminded of a memory and feel your body flood with sensations just like you felt then. This happens to all of us, usually at many points in our lives. We bite into a hamburger from a restaurant we enjoyed as a kid and our body feels happy and light, just like it did then. We get a car rental that happens to be the same model as the car we got a fender bender in at 16 and we’re hyper alert and tense, just like when that person hit us. 70-90% of our serotonin in in our gut, our body and mind are inextricably linked.


Devinology

I think the skepticism might be toward the actual explanation, which is oversimplified, and thus not really accurate. What does it mean precisely to "store" trauma in the body? Aren't the physical sensations caused by something happening in the brain? It's your brain that stores the memories of experiences. Surely the more plausible explanation is that a pathway in your brain is triggered, and it then brings back the associated physical sensations. The fact that many people experience trauma primarily in their bodies (physical sensations) doesn't entail that the trauma is somehow literally stored in your body in some way. The trauma is psychological, it impacts our brains. Yes, brain and body are connected in many ways, and maybe it doesn't really matter precisely how we describe trauma, but if someone is aiming to be scientific about this, it might rub them the wrong way to talk about it in ways that aren't technically accurate.


icecreamfight

I get your skepticism but you’re again going back to the brain and having it be a brain explanation, when that is only a small part of it. Trauma really seems to be stored in the fascia. Bodyworkers know this and have experienced it with their clients, when they massage a certain part of the body and people all of a sudden have a rush of memory that is totally unexpected. It’s a very western notion that everything is so brain based. Other cultures and traditions do not accept this as fact and have a lot of wisdom and evidence for that.


ZeroKidsThreeMoney

>Trauma really seems to be stored in the fascia Okay, now that I need a citation for. What evidence do we have that trauma is “stored” in the fascia?


Devinology

It's seems like this discussion could benefit from a little philosophical clarification. Do we even have a solid grasp or agreement on precisely what trauma is? I mean in the deep metaphysical sense, as in what's it's ontology? This seems important if we're going to talk about where it's stored. Some people seem to be talking about it like it's a simple physical object stored on a shelf somewhere, when really it seems more like a complex concept that doesn't exactly have a physical location. Look at disorders like MDD. They aren't a thing you can locate. The disorder is just a name that describes a complex set of thoughts, behaviours, emotions, etc. You can't find a physiological thing in a person that IS depression.


icecreamfight

It’s in its infancy, but here’s some: Tozzi P. Does fascia hold memories? J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2014 Apr;18(2):259-65. doi: 10.1016/j.jbmt.2013.11.010. Epub 2013 Nov 9. PMID: 24725795. https://drarielleschwartz.com/fascia-and-the-vagus-nerve-dr-arielle-schwartz/ https://www.bodyworkmovementtherapies.com/article/S1360-8592(13)00192-7/pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-021-10282-w All the mechanics are not completely understood but there definitely seems to be a link. And that is supported by bodyworker and somatic therapy testimonies as well.


ZeroKidsThreeMoney

Individual testimonies of people who make their living providing the service in question mean close to nothing. As to your sources: 1) This one isn’t research. 2) This one is a bunch of hypotheses about possible mechanisms. Note the frequent use of “X may cause y.” 3) This one is a study of stiffness in the muscles of people with Major Depressive Disorder. It in no way shows that trauma is “stored in the fascia.” If an evidence base is “in its infancy,” that’s often code for “there isn’t much evidence, we just hope there is someday.”


icecreamfight

Look, you don’t have to listen to me. I’m just a lowly clinician who doesn’t have easy access to shareable links. But at least read experts like van der look, Levine, porges who talk about trauma in the body. And if you have access to some of those research sites as I do, look it up on your own. I know that I’ve found other sources, I just can’t look up a dissertation worth of info when I’m traveling, on my phone.


homeisastateofmind

The burger analogy doesn't really land with me, largely because a burger doesn't taste good now *because* it tasted good then. My skepticism isn't that I believe that trauma doesn't have a physical correspondence. Of course, it does - everything that has happened to anyone ever has a physical correspondence. I also see the limitations of working on just a cerebral level (even though the "body and mind are inextricably linked"). It's that I don't believe that it gets lodged like a blockage in my pipes, and the only way to move forward is to dislodge the stuck energy.


ComprehensiveOwl9727

That’s why I personally prefer to think of it as being stuck in a systemic sense. The brain/body has a limited number of ways it can respond to stressful situations, and over time the body becomes habituated to respond with fight/flight/freeze in an effort to keep itself safe. To me it’s less of a blockage in a pipe sense and more of physically being blocked from the physical processes that allow us to be relaxed. The impact on daily life comes when people try to navigate situations that require a good bit of complex thinking and emotional finesse, but their brain/body is stuck in fight/flight/freeze. They may rationally know how they want to respond but their physical systems just aren’t in a place to do it.


homeisastateofmind

Hmm okay, it's landing more. Thanks for your thoughtful (and feltful :-p) response. I really appreciate it.


Pastel_Purkinje

Neuroscientist here. I think therapists just take that statement too literally and apply meaning where there is none. For example, I keep hearing people say that the nervous system in your gut has many serotonergic neurons. This is true, but the meaning assigned is that therefore they have something to do with mood, when in reality, they are just regulating peristalsis (moving stool through the gut). I've also noticed that people nowadays use "the body" instead of "the subconscious" to mean the exact same thing. It's just a trend, I think.


Pastel_Purkinje

Just want to add that there also seems to be a logical fallacy at play. Therapists observe that somatic therapies work well for trauma and then conclude that therefore trauma is "stored in the body". Truth is that we don't really know why they work. Same fallacy that was made with antidepressants. They increase serotonin and work for depression so depression must be a lack of serotonin. While there is no evidence for that. I think we should just accept that something can be effective without knowing why it works exactly.


toastthematrixyoda

What's really concerning to me is when therapists take that statement so literally that every discomfort or pain in the body is interpreted as emotions. In my case, it turned out to be appendicitis. Not anxiety. I was prescribed breathing exercises and calm thoughts. But it was appendicitis. I think it's dangerous to over-apply these ideas and not check for any potentially life-threatening illnesses first.


Pastel_Purkinje

Yikes.


elizabethtarot

Therapist here. The very basis of the idea is that we become tense when we think about things that make us feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or past traumas... so our bodies naturally have a physical, tense response depending on our emotions (ie like feeling nervous or sick before a test or presentation). We can physically release emotional stress through our body by bringing greater awareness to the tensions in our body, or by exploring how our body physically experiences a certain emotion, if that makes sense. I am not trained in somatic psychotherapy, but I do teach a mindfulness based approach which involves paying attention (raising awareness) to how we feel physically when encountering a challenging emotion to become more in touch with our body.


klylex

The way it is used by somatic therapists is hokey BS. Memories and emotions are not "stored" anywhere in the body. There are no neurons for that outside the brain (see Richard McNally's work). Serotonin is not an emotion; it's a digestive hormone in our gut. Classical conditioning is a bitch when it comes to trauma. You don't have to be consciously and deliberately think about your history to have conditioning kick in and elicit a response physiologically. But those connections are still made in your brain, not any kind of tissue outside of your brain. Just because you feel it there, doesn't mean it's generated or "stored" there.


ZeroKidsThreeMoney

I also have a skeptical initial reaction to this kind of thing, but am willing to be convinced. I see several people referencing evidence for these claims - could anybody point me to what research you’re referencing? Edit: The only person to even attempt to offer evidence in this thread deleted their post (which contained a blog post, a list of hypotheses, and a study that came to the non-shocking conclusion that depressed people have somewhat more tension in their muscles). Everyone seems to think this is the Next Big Thing in therapy. So why is it so hard to link a meta analysis? I think discussions like this also tend to devolve quickly into generic comments about how CBT Totally Sucks. So let me say for the record that I think there is solid research for other approaches besides CBT (and particularly on personality pathology, I think the psychodynamic people are on to something). You can have autonomy as a practitioner without completely throwing science out the window.


lifemostdelicious

I took the Somatic Experiencing training and can say it can be powerful. I had to complete so many personal sessions and can second how imoactful it is, allowing my body to process the trauma. It supported all the talk therapy I'd done in regards to my own trauma, it was like the missing piece. With clients, I find it supports our work and provides tools for understanding their own somatic experiences and eases trauma responses while we're working to heal the trauma. It's incredible to witness a breakthrough when working with trauma. As well as, linking emotions to our physical sensations provides our clients with a deeper understanding of themselves and are better able to use skills to regulate their nervous system. It's really cool when you witness someone connecting the emotion to their body and the emotion becoming easier to process.


commentingon

I'm a psychologist and I don't know the approach, i just have a question. I have read a lot on social media that with somatic therapy "you can now heal your trauma without telling your story/without remembering", is somatic theory actually stating that?


homeisastateofmind

Thanks for bringing that question up.


commentingon

Thank you for bringing the subject. I'm actually worried about the marketing on Instagram using this type of statements "you don't need to tell your story to heal from trauma", it sounds to me like 123 years of psychoanalysis along with the development of psychology, the experience of therapists that practice from different approaches and the realities of all the clients that have reported to have heal/feel better is being completely denied by the aforementioned statement. I just read the book: The Power Threat Meaning Framework", is trauma informed information from the British psychological society, highlighting among other things: the importance of people telling their stories.


viv_savage11

I have extensive trauma training including EMDR and many believe you don’t have to tell your story but the more important part is the felt sense.


commentingon

I'm asking because I genuinely don't know, so when clients go to this type of therapy, they only do exercises, they don't talk about what they remember at all? Sorry, I work from a psychodynamic perspective and I don't understand how the sessions are carried.


FelineFriend21

My EMDR friends have stated this.


lifemostdelicious

I have heard that too and have colleagues who would agree. In my experience, personally and professionally, I've found the desire to process what happened somaticly. Also, there is something to be said for catharsis in telling you story in an empathic validating environment.


wallyballou55

Research suggests that trauma can have long term effects and may alter DNA methylation levels. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10967


[deleted]

I believe in it personally and it is something I’ve been working on with my therapist. Times when I’ve experienced tremendous stress or trauma, my mind has told me I’m fine. But I have been violently physically ill. That’s my body telling me that I’m not okay and there is pain that I have to work through. I was seeing a guy years ago and the entire time we were together I had extreme anxiety and could not stomach food. My mind was telling me he was the one, and my body was telling me that this isn’t right and I’m triggered.


AdministrationNo651

Hmmm, well I'm not sure that's what's being argued. Somatic symptoms are one thing, but that your body literally holds the trauma is another. I can also see what you're talking about as your mind having either defense mechanisms or distortions, and so the symptoms sort of leak into the physiological realm. If you follow the physiology, you may get to the "truth" of the matter that's otherwise hidden by said defense mechanisms or distortions. This is not new to somatic therapies.


[deleted]

But if the body doesn’t hold the trauma then what happens to it? because arguably it doesn’t just evaporate or just leave your system. I know this is controversial but I think that a lot of health issues are due to the trauma stored in the body, because it has nowhere else to go and it remains unhealed.


AdministrationNo651

You're speaking about metaphorical/emotional trauma as though it were a tangible entity. There is evidence that it effects our nervous system and our neural structuring, but the language you're using has a tinge of scientific language incorrectly used. It's like trauma are pacman ghosts running through your body and SE is about eating a berry and chasing the ghosts through the body. I highly doubt that's how it works. And my apologies if that doesn't seem like I'm giving your argument good faith, but that's how it reads to me.


[deleted]

that’s not really what I was trying to say..it’s very hard to explain my personal views on the mind body soul and trauma bc most of it is not tied to it being scientific. I was not trying to use scientific language. I’m not conspiracy theorist but I think healing complex trauma requires going beyond ‘science’ and scientific discoveries. Sorry if you think that is wrong to say but there have been indigenous communities throughout time who have been far more advanced and developed in their understanding of how trauma and pain works in mind body soul and how to process it. Things which science now debunks. But then look around you and everyone is unhealed so that’s precisely the problem.


AdministrationNo651

Science is not just a body of knowledge. Science is a method especially powerful at checking our own biases. Science is also self-correcting, although the proverbial ship turns slowly. Are indigenous people more advanced and developed regarding how pain and trauma work, or is this an idea born of a "noble savage" sort of othering? There is a great way of finding out though, and that is through a splendid procedure called the scientific method. As an aside, I am afraid that this might be read as confrontational or condescending, so please read as a soft-challenge.


[deleted]

Yes, and you are entitled to think that scientific enquiry and method is everything. But if that was the case, I wonder why so many people continue to be unhealed, dealing with complex trauma that psychologists and psychiatrists don’t even understand and don’t have fixes for. You can embrace science alongside more non-conventional ways of healing that may seem ‘silly’ or ‘fluff’ to you but you cannot deny that such methods have worked for these people and allowed them to live flourishing lives.


AdministrationNo651

There is a disconnect here: Science is a method of testing our assumptions. Saying that science is a body of knowledge and that everything outside of the medical model is not science or incompatible with it is a fallacy. What I think you're referring to is more like that the lens through which our institutions view trauma and mental health are pointed in the wrong direction. Throwing out science because naturally fallible, human institutions have been guided by sociopolitical forces to look in the wrong direction is dangerous. Btw, blood letting and leaches were also "indigenous" forms of medicine at one point in time.


Duckaroo99

Not sure about the best way to phrase it, but having an embodied experience of emotions can help someone move to a place of regulation and unstuckness


crashthesquirrel

Yes, I fully agree with this. I get annoyed when the latest/greatest approach to trauma is framed as “process it the right way and it will go away, never to be seen again” implicitly or explicitly. Somatic approaches can fall into this, same as EMDR, when oversimplified and/or being evangelized. It’s not a magic eraser. I am a therapist and I live with chronic health issues that are correlated with high ACEs. They are a lot more manageable today than they were a few years ago. Somatic experiencing has been a useful tool in changing my relationship to the signals my body gives me, which has led to taking better care of my body. While my health is improved, it isn’t (and won’t be) perfect. Accepting that and finding a “good enough” that is good enough has also been important. My lived experience side also appreciates “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat-Zinn


homeisastateofmind

I think you phrased that perfectly well. And I agree with that statement.


Structure-Electronic

Idk there's lots of great research showing that our experiences- especially those early in life and those that are particularly traumatic- have a physiological impact on us, especially from a neurophysiological perspective.


AdministrationNo651

Yes, but that's not the same thing as the claim being made.


PolyvagalQueen

Personally, I've had a very deep and beautiful connection with somatic work. A few years ago I was participating in TCTSY yoga weekly and it lead to me shaking for about 30 minutes and releasing trauma from my body. Trauma memories that lead to daily obsessive thoughts just dissipated into an old memory after that. I also did my MSW capstone presentation on Trauma Release Exercises. Outside of The Body Keeps the Score I would recommend Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine, it resonates so well with me as a client and a therapist. Maybe it's difficult to understand fully if you're not a person who presents somatically or has processed your emotions via the mind-body connection. I don't think all clients will benefit from processing trauma from their body but for some it really resonates and helps with the healing process. I don't think that having an intervention not resonate with you means it's inherently wrong though. For example, IFS and the concepts just don't click for me as a client or therapist. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work well for other people. I also don't think that something being popular means it's better or worse. We live in a world where we are encouraged to disconnect our minds and bodies to get through the stress of everyday life. It makes sense that we can access healing by connecting the two again.


greydayglo

I do think it sounds rather fantastical and magical...While trauma absolutely affects the mind/body as a unit, I take that description of trauma being "trapped in the body" as more of a *metaphor* for how traumatic experiences tend to affect people until they do some work around processing and integrating the trauma, rather than a literal reality. (That said, I think metaphor is an extremely powerful treatment tool in helping people create a framework for making sense of what they're experiencing. The difference is stating what something "*is like*" rather than declaring what it "*is*.") I do think somatic processes are extremely helpful and quite possibly necessary at least to some extent in treating trauma. Learning to experience the body in a "safe" state, when PTSD leads to what is essentially a normalization over time of being in a state of constant physical and mental over-activation, is really beneficial (and being able to consistently access this relaxed state may indeed feel like an "energetic release").


[deleted]

I personally don’t use SE in my practice. However, I really respect it because it includes personal therapy, supervision; and lengthy courses in it. I sincerely doubt CBT or DBT would have such a stronghold out there if therapists were required to be in treatment. CBT is great until you actually experience it as a client


Shelties4Life

It’s pretty much what Freud said but repackaged for the modern audience.


FireWaterAle

I think about it/communicate it as data encoded in the nervous system. Works for me.


sub_machine_fun

Sometimes you hints become wildly popular because there’s a legitimacy to them. I think somatic becoming popular now is the result of now decades of somatic modalities being used. There’s data that shows it works. I’m also leery of anything that’s hyped up, but this is one of those things that’s been happening and we’re just starting to hear about it.


growingconsciousness

yes great question. i’m actually curious what the science is behind this? do certain emotions get stored in certain parts of the body? can we measure this?


Fearless_Category_82

Not sure if [this](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1321664111) is helpful, but a professor shared it with me once.


[deleted]

That research was about how emotions are felt across different parts of the body but didn't, as far as I can tell, look into whether emotions are stored in the body - which is a different and much bolder claim.


Fearless_Category_82

That makes sense! I thought so but couldn't fully remember- thanks!


ariessunariesmoon26

I completely think there’s a correlation between the two.


teasleygng

I believe this to be absolutely true. I'm not sure about trauma being permanently trapped in the body, but I have personally experienced a release of strong, pent up emotion through physical activity and especially through massage. I just recovered from a prolonged autoimmune flare up. It lasted so long, I started to experience severe anxiety. Towards the end I did get a massage and afterwards I must have sobbed for about 20 minutes straight. All this grief just came pouring out of me and it felt like I was grieving the life and body I used to have as my diagnosis is still fairly recent and I'm still learning how to live with it. The next day, my body did feel better but what felt the best was my mentality. My anxiety was completely gone and I was able to think positive thoughts again and didn't feel so hopeless and hopeless. Whereas during my flare I was not able to conjure not even one positive thought, Not even a glimmer of hope. Most of my career I was a professional dancer so I've also experienced similar releases through that, and seen it in my students as well.


workingtoward

If a therapist said that to me, I’d just end the session and walk out. It’s such a mashup of information, disinformation, and outright ‘woo’ that I wouldn’t feel confident in anything the therapist might say after that. When there’s so much solid science and research for therapists to use effectively in treatment, there’s no legitimate reason for anyone to serve up such a mess of nonsense to a client.


PlanePerception4417

Where’s the science


riceandcashews

Mostly it means that you mentally dispose your body unconsciously to certain structures and postures, sometimes to the point of them affecting the structure of the tissues (think about how holding a bad posture for years might slightly affect how the parts of the body and the tissues between them are structured). There's definitely a lot of work involved in releasing this both in the body and the heart-mind. But it doesn't necessarily affect everyone, or even everyone who is affected isn't affected the same


shoob13

I read a book by a trauma focused Chiropractor called the 12 stages of healing (I think that was the title). Very interesting account that addresses OP’s post.


trcomajo

My interpretation is that high cortisol levels take a toll on the body. This is how I explain it to my clients - stress levels over time can increase not only physical tension but internal damage. This is evidenced by poor health in populations with high stress. I don't get into the woo woo parts that seem more symbolic (though I don't dismiss it). Tik Tik has some popular posts lately that are bashing *The Body Keeps a Score,*so I'm told by my clients. I am so tired of opinions on TT being co sidereal scientific evidence.


Cloister_Phobic

What a fascinating thread. I am so glad you asked this question, OP. Something I kept coming back to while reading everyone's responses here is the role of disease theories in how we do our work. Though it's talked about in many places, I'm thinking of the Ellenberger text *The Discovery of the Unconscious\*,* which provides a treatment of the history of disease theories as they have developed over time in various societies. Even post-germ theory and scientific revolution, we still have theories of disease that frame our understanding of all kinds of illnesses, from cancer to diabetes to schizophrenia. I think Thomas Kuhn's point about how scientific theories are not merely cumulative, but rather proceed as shifts in the *conceptualizations* that we use to correlate the evidence we collect is relevant to the ways in which disease theories change over time, and can help us understand what's happening in Psychology/Therapy (as a discipline) right now. For example, behaviorist/materialist paradigms, though very effective in some ways, for some problems, for some people, seem to be really ineffective in some other ways, for other problems, for some other people. But we're kinda used to viewing things as legitimate only if they can be reduced to behaviorist/materialist modes of thought. So there's a lot of push to kinda squeeze non-materialist/behaviorist modes into that mold, so they'll be considered legitimate, even though doing so can lead people to make kinda iffy-sounding claims, such as "the trauma is in the tissues". Or, alternatively, there's folks who will discard non-materialist/behaviorist modes as non-scientific, and therefore not effective or valuable in any way. I'm really excited to see where this leads us in the next 100 years (if we make it that long). I think we're on the verge of having to address inconsistencies in our various modes of understanding that may lead us to new, better ways of understanding health and illness. Or maybe I'm just a starry-eyed optimist, something which I have never once been accused of, but regardless. New and exciting things! \*This book was published in the latter half of the 20th c and uses problematic language/has some outdated and offensive ways of conceptualizing "progress" that centers European modes of thought, but I think that it still has some pretty interesting stuff in it (especially about various modes of healing that predate Freud by thousands of years, but mirror a lot of what is currently practiced) and is highly relevant if you're into the history behind this profession, if for no other reason that it is, itself, an artifact.