What is trauma and what defines trauma healing? Historically, trauma was defined as an event or series of events that happened in the past and trauma healing was defined as the understanding of that event. 

What is now known: trauma, while often perceived as an event or series of events, is more the residue of those events remaining in the body, mind, and spirit. Symptoms of traumatic stress arise from incomplete or thwarted attempts at self-protection remaining in our tissues long after the event or series of events is over. These experiences often occur before we are physiologically developed to successfully navigate them — sometimes prior to birth and often prior to our capacity for cognitive awareness. They are what happens within, as the body tries, but is unsuccessful, at navigating real or perceived harm.

So, how can cognitive treatment resolve trauma? Short answer: it can’t. Thankfully our bodies are designed to go into both hyper-arousal and collapse to help us get through danger and life threat — and are also hard-wired to recover from these experiences — even the ones that occur before we have language or cognitive awareness. Clinicians can help bring regulation and balance to trauma survivors by engaging the body’s essential wisdom.

Here lies the power of bottom-up therapies. Healing that begins with the body. Body based healing invites the integration of new healthy coping skills to replace habituated responses of either or both hyper-arousal and collapse.