Why Healing Trauma Means Healing the Body: Lessons From The Body Keeps the Score

Trauma is not a story to just be told. It is a wound held in the body a call for compassion, presence, and radical healing.

Key Takeaways

• Trauma is deeply embodied, not just psychological. Survival mechanisms shape brain function and embed in bodily systems, explaining why trauma affects memory, emotion, and health holistically.

• Healing trauma requires more than talk therapy. Somatic therapies yoga, neurofeedback, EMDR, movement activate the body’s natural ability to rewire and reclaim safety beyond the mind’s grasp.

• Restoring connection to self, to others is essential. Trauma fractures trust and belonging, but healing can restore the capacity for intimacy, creativity, and joyful engagement.

  
  

When Trauma Lives Inside the Body

What happens when painful experiences do not just scatter in memory but settle like sediment in our nervous system, shaping how we navigate the world every day? Trauma, as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk reveals, is far more than a psychological event; it becomes a literal imprint on the body’s architecture.​

Those early moments of terror, neglect, or overwhelm can reprogram the brain’s alarm systems, cementing chronic states of fight, flight, or freeze. This means trauma survivors often live with a nervous system that is “stuck,” cycling through anxiety, dissociation, or rage sometimes without conscious awareness.​

This disconnect explains why conventional talk therapy, while valuable, often falls short. The body holds the memories in muscles, organs, and regulation pathways, demanding more holistic approaches to unlock healing.

Healing Beyond Words: Practices That Reclaim the Body

Dr. van der Kolk’s pioneering work champions therapies that engage the body directly:​

• Yoga and Mindfulness: These practices help trauma survivors reconnect to their bodies with gentle curiosity, fostering a sense of safety and presence where there once was disconnection.

• Neurofeedback and EMDR: By training the brain to recognize and self-regulate trauma’s impact on neural pathways, these evidence-based methods enable integration of traumatic memories without retraumatization.

• Movement Therapies: Dance, tai chi, and expressive arts allow outlets for releasing stored tension and reclaiming agency over physical expression critical steps in dissolving trauma’s grip.

  
  

Such modalities harness neuroplasticity the brain’s capacity to form new connections—supporting the rebuilding of pathways disrupted by trauma.​

From Fragmentation to Wholeness: The Promise of Connection

Trauma fractures more than memory; it ruptures the fundamental human needs for safety, attachment, and trust. Restoring these connections is not optional but vital for recovery.​

Healing involves cultivating relationships where vulnerability is met with empathy, and where the survivor’s body and mind can safely express truths long buried. It might be through therapeutic alliance, community, or creative practices.

Dr. van der Kolk reminds us that healing is not only the absence of symptoms, but the return of joy, play, and a feeling of home within one’s own skin. It is a journey from survival to thriving a reclaiming of a full, vibrant life.​

Closing Insight: Listening to the Wisdom of the Body

The Body Keeps the Score teaches that our bodies are the narrators of trauma stories waiting to be heard not as relics of the past, but as gateways to profound healing. By honoring somatic experiences alongside emotional truths, we open pathways to renewal once thought impossible.

Healing trauma is a radical act of reclaiming self-ownership, integrating mind and body, and stepping into a future where pain no longer dictates your story.