A psychiatrist explains how psychological trauma reshapes the brain and body, drawing on decades of clinical work and research, and surveys therapies from talk therapy to yoga for healing.
Stress fades once the threatening situation is over, but trauma doesn't: after the danger has passed, the body keeps reliving it. The brain's survival system, which sits below rational thought, cannot be talked into forgetting what happened.
Trauma physically resets the brain's alarm system, so long afterward the faintest cue of danger can unleash a flood of stress hormones. The result is sudden rage, panic, or strong physical sensations that make no sense to the person having them. A sleeping partner's accidental touch can set off a violent attack.
Because their insides constantly send out warning signals, traumatized people learn to ignore gut feelings and dull their inner awareness with noise, drink, or drugs. The cost is that they lose touch with what they feel at all, and with the bodily sense of being alive.
Talking, connecting with others, and medication all help, but the imprints of trauma can also be rewritten from the bottom up. This happens through physical experiences that directly contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse the body learned. The body that stores the trauma is also a route to healing it.
You cannot change how you feel without first noticing what is happening inside your body and meeting it with curiosity rather than avoidance. Recovery depends on getting familiar with bodily sensations instead of fleeing them, and on letting yourself know what you already know.