Trauma Therapy: Working with the Body, Not Against It

My approach to trauma therapy bridges psychology, neurophysiology, and the body’s innate wisdom.It integrates talk therapy, Polyvagal-informed regulation, and Focusing — a somatic method that helps the body express what words cannot.

The goal isn’t to analyze or fix, but to help the nervous system remember safety, coherence, and presence.When the body feels safe, the mind follows.

When Talk Therapy Reaches a Ceiling

Talk therapy helps us understand our experiences, make meaning, and recognize long-standing patterns.But sometimes, even after deep insight, the body doesn’t follow.

You may know you are safe, yet still feel anxious, tight, or unwell.That’s because trauma isn’t stored as story — it’s stored as sensation.

You can talk about it endlessly, but until the body receives the message that the danger is over, it keeps reacting as if it’s still happening.

How Do We Know That This Has Happened?

You might notice that:

• You’ve had therapy or years of self-reflection, yet the same symptoms keep returning.

• You understand your triggers, but your body still reacts automatically.

• You wake up with physical distress — reflux, migraines, gut pain, chest tightness — and no medical cause.

• You feel detached, numb, or exhausted, even when your life is calm.

• You’re tired of understanding yourself but not feeling different.

These are often psychosomatic symptoms — the body’s way of communicating what hasn’t yet been integrated.They’re not “all in your head.” They’re the nervous system’s language for unfinished survival responses.

When this happens, it doesn’t mean therapy has failed — it means it’s time to include the body in the conversation.

Through Focusing and Polyvagal-informed work, we begin to listen directly to the body’s experience instead of reasoning with it.Sessions become spaces for sensing, allowing, and gently integrating what arises — at the pace your system can handle.

As the nervous system learns it’s safe to soften, psychosomatic symptoms begin to lose their charge.The body and mind start to tell the same story — one of safety, coherence, and presence.

What Trauma Really Is

Trauma isn’t psychological — it’s physiological.It’s not an idea or memory that can be talked away; it’s a biological response that gets locked in the body and brain when something overwhelming happens and no one helps us regulate it.

When we face threat, the nervous system automatically moves into survival mode — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.If those responses can’t complete and no one comes to help, the body stores the unfinished activation.

That trapped energy becomes the basis for chronic anxiety, tension, and psychosomatic symptoms — the body’s way of expressing what’s never been resolved.

Trauma affects every level of functioning: the brain’s perception of safety, the vagus nerve’s regulation of organs, and the hormonal systems that govern mood, sleep, and digestion.This is why trauma cannot be resolved by logic alone. Healing requires the body’s direct participation.

That’s also why therapy isn’t the same as talking to a friend.A trauma-informed therapist works with the entire nervous system — body, mind, and relational field — creating the safety and attunement needed for the body to finally relax and complete what was once impossible.

Trauma isn’t just what happened — it’s what stayed trapped in the body when no one came to help.

The Neurophysiology of Trauma

Our autonomic nervous system constantly scans for safety or danger.It shifts through several survival states, each governed by the vagus nerve and its pathways:

Response	Nervous System	Body State	Purpose
Fight	Sympathetic	Tension, heat, anger	Mobilize to protect
Flight	Sympathetic	Restlessness, panic, racing heart	Escape danger
Freeze / Collapse	Dorsal Vagal	Numbness, fatigue, shutdown	Survive the unsolvable
Fawn	Mixed (Ventral + Sympathetic)	Over-pleasing, compliance	Stay safe through appeasement
Ventral Vagal	Safe state	Calm, open, connected	Rest, create, relate

If our system gets stuck in one of the defensive states, it can’t return to ventral safety on its own.That’s when the body begins to speak through symptoms — trying to complete what was once interrupted.

Focusing — The Language of the Body

Developed by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago (1960s), Focusing is a gentle, experiential process that helps us connect with what the body knows but hasn’t yet expressed.

Rather than analyzing, we pause and sense inwardly — attending to what Gendlin called the felt sense:

“A special kind of internal bodily awareness… a sense of meaning that is not yet in words.”— Eugene T. Gendlin, Focusing (Bantam Books, 1978)

By staying with this inner sense patiently and respectfully, something within begins to unfold — often in the form of subtle sensations, images, or words that capture what the body has been holding.

Focusing honors the body as an intelligent process that is always trying to move life forward.In trauma therapy, this allows healing to emerge from within — not through effort or interpretation, but through gentle awareness and presence.

Polyvagal Work — Restoring Safety

To support this process, I integrate Polyvagal regulation — gentle, evidence-based techniques that calm the vagus nerve and help the body return to safety.

These include:

• Slow, lengthened breathing (exhale longer than inhale)

• Humming, chanting, or singing

• Gentle earlobe or chest massage

• Orienting and grounding (looking around, feeling the environment)

• Co-regulation — calm voice, eye contact, safe presence

These practices create the physiological conditions in which the body can begin to trust, release, and reorganize at its own pace.

Reflective Integration in Therapy

Sessions can be reflective and integrative — not about labeling parts or forcing insight, but about gently acknowledging whatever appears and allowing it to unfold in its own time.

Talk therapy remains valuable — not as analysis, but as reflection.It helps articulate what the body reveals and integrate those insights into daily life without interrupting the natural rhythm of healing.

This balanced approach invites mind and body to work together — awareness meeting sensation, language meeting experience — so the whole system can finally remember what safety feels like.

My Approach in Practice

Each session is guided by the rhythm of your own body, not by pressure or performance.We move slowly, allowing the nervous system to feel safe before exploring what lies beneath the surface.

Whether through Focusing, gentle Polyvagal regulation, or reflective dialogue, we stay close to what feels true and tolerable in the moment.You don’t need to have memories or a clear narrative — your body already holds what needs to be known.

Healing begins when awareness and safety meet.As the body learns it no longer has to brace against life, energy that was once trapped in pain, anxiety, or hypervigilance becomes available again for creativity, joy, and connection.

This work is not about fixing — it’s about reuniting.Mind with body. Thought with feeling. The past with the present.