How Trauma Lives in the Body and What It Takes to Heal: A Holistic Guide to Trauma Therapy

Trauma lives in the body long after the mind has moved on. If you have ever felt your heart race at a sound that reminds you of something painful, noticed your shoulders tense in certain situations, or experienced unexplained fatigue that seems tied to nothing specific, your body may be holding onto experiences your conscious mind has tried to forget. I see this every day in my practice. The body remembers what the mind tries to leave behind.

This guide explores how trauma becomes stored in our physical systems, why traditional talk therapy alone often falls short, and what a truly holistic approach to trauma therapy looks like.

Understanding Trauma Beyond the Mind

When most people think about trauma, they imagine distressing memories or intrusive thoughts. These psychological symptoms are certainly part of the picture, but they represent only one dimension of how trauma affects us. True healing requires recognizing that trauma is not just something that happened to you. It is something that changed how your entire system operates.

Trauma occurs when an experience overwhelms our capacity to cope. It leaves our nervous system stuck in patterns of protection that were once necessary but have outlived their usefulness. This can result from a single overwhelming event or from repeated experiences of feeling unsafe, unseen, or unsupported over time.

What makes trauma so persistent is that it becomes encoded not just in our thoughts and memories, but in our biology. The nervous system learns to stay on high alert. The body develops its own memory of danger, one that operates below conscious awareness and speaks through sensation rather than words.

How the Body Holds Trauma: The Science of Embodied Memory

The relationship between trauma and the body is rooted in neuroscience. When we experience something threatening, our brain activates a survival response, often described as fight, flight, or freeze. In ideal circumstances, once the danger passes, our nervous system returns to a state of calm. The experience gets processed and integrated into our life story.

But when an experience is too overwhelming, or when we lack adequate support to process what happened, this natural completion does not occur. The survival response gets stuck. Our nervous system continues to behave as though the danger is still present.

This is why someone can intellectually know they are safe while their body continues to react as though they are in danger. The logical brain understands that the past is over, but the survival brain has not received that message. This disconnect between knowing and feeling is one of the most frustrating aspects of living with unresolved trauma.

The Nervous System and Survival Patterns

I approach trauma work from a biopsychosocial perspective. This means I recognize that our well-being is shaped by the dynamic interplay between our biology, our psychology, and our social world. The nervous system sits at the center of this framework, serving as the bridge between mind and body.

When trauma becomes lodged in the nervous system, it shows up in predictable patterns.

Hyperarousal occurs when the system is stuck in fight or flight mode. You might experience this as chronic anxiety, difficulty sleeping, irritability, an exaggerated startle response, or a constant sense of being on edge. Your body is running on high alert, prepared for danger that is not actually present.

Hypoarousal happens when the system defaults to a freeze or shutdown response. This can manifest as depression, numbness, disconnection from your body, chronic fatigue, or a sense of going through life on autopilot. This state often develops when fight or flight felt impossible, and the nervous system learned that shutting down was the safest option.

Oscillation describes the experience of swinging between these two extremes. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed and anxious. Other times you feel flat and disconnected. Many people living with unresolved trauma know this rollercoaster pattern well.

Where Trauma Hides in the Body

Beyond these nervous system states, trauma often becomes stored in specific areas of the body. While everyone's experience is unique, certain patterns are common.

The jaw and throat frequently hold unexpressed words. These are things we wanted to say but could not, whether out of fear, powerlessness, or lack of safety.

The shoulders and neck often carry the weight of hypervigilance, that constant scanning for danger that becomes exhausting over time.

The chest and heart area may hold grief, loss, and the pain of disconnection, particularly when trauma involved relationships.

The stomach and gut often register anxiety, fear, and the physical impact of chronic stress. This area is sometimes called the second brain because of the concentration of neural tissue there.

The hips and pelvis can store experiences related to vulnerability, sexuality, and our sense of groundedness in the world.

Understanding where you carry tension and discomfort can provide valuable clues about what your body is holding and what needs attention in the healing process.

Why Talk Therapy Alone Often Falls Short

If trauma lives in the body, it makes sense that healing cannot happen through words alone. This is not a criticism of traditional talk therapy. Talk therapy has tremendous value for processing experiences, gaining insight, and developing new perspectives. But when it comes to trauma, talking about what happened without addressing the body's response often produces limited results.

I have worked with many clients who could articulate their trauma story with perfect clarity. They understood what happened, why it affected them, and how it showed up in their lives. Yet despite all this insight, they continued to feel anxious, disconnected, or stuck in patterns they could not seem to break.

The survival brain does not speak the language of logic and analysis. It speaks the language of sensation, movement, and felt experience. To reach the places where trauma lives, we need approaches that can communicate with the body directly.

This is why I practice therapy as an integrative and holistic process that honors the complexity of being human. It is not just about what we say or feel. It also considers how our system responds to stress, how the body holds memory, and how daily habits and surroundings support or hinder healing.

A Holistic Approach to Trauma Therapy

True trauma healing requires working on multiple levels simultaneously. In my practice, I draw from several evidence-based modalities that address both the psychological and somatic dimensions of trauma.

Internal Family Systems and Parts Work

Internal Family Systems, or IFS, offers a powerful framework for understanding how we respond to trauma. This approach recognizes that the mind is naturally multiple. We all have different parts of ourselves that carry different feelings, memories, and protective strategies.

When trauma occurs, certain parts take on extreme roles to protect us. You might have a part that stays hypervigilant to prevent future harm. You might have a part that criticizes you to keep you small and safe. You might have a part that numbs out to avoid overwhelming feelings. These protective parts developed for good reasons, but they can become stuck in outdated patterns that no longer serve you.

IFS provides a way to develop a compassionate relationship with all parts of yourself. This includes the parts that carry pain and the parts that work hard to keep that pain at bay. This approach helps create internal safety, which is essential for trauma healing.

Brainspotting for Accessing Embodied Memory

Brainspotting is a brain-body based therapeutic approach that allows access to trauma stored in the subcortical brain. These are the areas below conscious awareness where survival responses are regulated. This modality uses specific eye positions to help locate, process, and release trauma from the nervous system.

What I appreciate about Brainspotting is its ability to reach places that talk therapy cannot access. By working with where the eyes naturally settle in relation to internal experience, we can tap into the body's innate capacity for healing. This approach often allows for deep processing without requiring extensive verbal narrative. This can be particularly helpful for experiences that are difficult to put into words.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Building Resilience

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, provides tools for changing your relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings. Rather than trying to eliminate painful experiences, ACT helps you develop psychological flexibility. This is the ability to be present with what is while still moving toward what matters to you.

For trauma survivors, this framework is invaluable. It offers practical strategies for managing intrusive thoughts, tolerating difficult emotions, and reconnecting with your values and sense of purpose. ACT helps build the resilience needed to navigate the healing process and create a life worth living.

The Biopsychosocial Foundation

Underlying all of these approaches is a biopsychosocial perspective that recognizes healing happens on multiple levels. I am interested not just in what happens in our sessions together, but in how you sleep, move, eat, connect, set boundaries, and manage stress. These daily rhythms and relationships either support or hinder healing. Attending to them is part of comprehensive trauma therapy.

I help clients make sense of their inner world while also focusing on what sets them up for real-life change. This is about rewiring, re-patterning, and reimagining how you move through the world in a way that feels more connected, grounded, and true.

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Healing from trauma is not about erasing what happened or returning to some idealized version of who you were before. It is about integration. It means bringing together the fragmented pieces of experience so they no longer hijack your present. It is about expanding your capacity to feel fully alive, to connect deeply with others, and to respond to life's challenges with flexibility rather than reactivity.

Signs of Nervous System Healing

As trauma begins to resolve, you may notice shifts in how your body responds to the world.

Your baseline state becomes calmer. The constant underlying hum of anxiety or the heavy weight of numbness begins to lift.

You develop more capacity to tolerate intense emotions without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.

Your body begins to feel like a safer place to inhabit. Sensations that once felt threatening become simply information.

You can think about past experiences without getting flooded with emotion or disconnected from feeling altogether.

Your relationships improve as you become more present, more authentic, and more capable of intimacy.

Sleep, digestion, and other physical functions often improve as the nervous system comes into better regulation.

The Importance of Pacing

One thing I emphasize with every client is that healing cannot be rushed. The nervous system needs time to adapt to new patterns. Pushing too fast can actually reactivate the very survival responses we are trying to resolve. This is why trauma therapy requires a therapist who understands pacing and can help you move through the process at a rate that feels challenging but not overwhelming.

At the same time, I believe in the power of focused, intensive work for those who are ready. Research shows that concentrated therapeutic efforts can produce results that might take much longer to achieve through weekly sessions alone.

Options for Trauma Therapy

I offer two primary ways to engage in individual therapy, each suited to different needs and circumstances.

Intensive Sessions

Intensive Sessions are designed for those wanting focused, accelerated progress through deep-dive work condensed into a short, structured timeframe. This format allows for sustained attention to trauma processing without the interruptions of daily life getting in the way. For many people dealing with trauma, the immersive nature of intensive work creates conditions for breakthroughs that might not happen in shorter sessions spaced a week apart.

Intensives can be particularly powerful for trauma because they allow us to stay with the process until natural completion occurs. We do not have to stop and restart each week. This continuity often leads to deeper integration and more lasting change.

Weekly Sessions

Weekly Sessions are best for clients seeking consistent, ongoing support and gradual change over time. This format works well for those who prefer a slower pace, have complex situations that require sustained attention, or simply feel more comfortable with regular, shorter check-ins.

Many clients find that a combination of approaches serves them best. Some start with an intensive process to process acute trauma and then transition to weekly sessions for integration and continued growth.

Supporting Your Healing Between Sessions

While what happens in therapy is important, true healing extends into daily life. The rituals, relationships, and rhythms you build outside of session matter enormously. Here are some ways to support your nervous system between sessions.

Movement helps discharge the survival energy that trauma leaves trapped in the body. This does not mean you need intense exercise. Even gentle movement like walking, stretching, or shaking can be powerful.

Breathwork offers direct access to the nervous system. Learning to use your breath to calm or energize your system is one of the most practical tools available.

Mindfulness practices help you develop the capacity to be present with your experience without becoming overwhelmed by it. I often teach specific practices tailored to each client's needs.

Sleep and rest are essential for nervous system regulation. Many trauma survivors struggle with sleep, and addressing this is often an important part of the healing process.

Connection with safe, supportive others provides the relational context that healing often requires. Trauma frequently occurs in relationships, and healing often does too.

Taking the First Step

If you recognize yourself in what I have described, know that healing is possible. The patterns that feel so stuck right now can shift. The body that feels like the enemy can become a source of wisdom and strength. The nervous system that stays on high alert can learn to rest.

I work with adults in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who are ready for transformative change. These are people who are tired of just managing symptoms and want to address what is actually driving their struggles. Because of my corporate and personal experience, I speak the language of high achievers navigating intense work environments, relationship challenges, and major life transitions.

Whether you are dealing with anxiety, depression, work stress and burnout, relationship challenges, grief, or trauma from past experiences, I am here to help you understand your inner world and build the foundation for real-life change.

I offer online sessions for clients in San Francisco, as well as both online. The first step is a free 15-minute consultation where we can discuss your situation and determine if we are a good fit.

To learn more about scheduling and how to get started, please reach out through my website. You will be guided through a clear onboarding process so you know exactly what to expect.

Healing from trauma is one of the most courageous things a person can do. It asks you to face what you have been avoiding and to trust that something better is possible on the other side. If you are ready to begin that journey, I would be honored to walk alongside you.