June is PTSD Awareness Month, which marks a time to honor the resilience of trauma survivors and for us to deepen our understanding of what healing truly looks like. PTSD affects millions of people worldwide, meaning that the journey to recovery doesn’t always follow a straight path. While traditional talk therapy has long been a cornerstone of PTSD treatment, it doesn’t always reach deeper levels of trauma.
Many survivors of PTSD find themselves disappointed or frustrated after years of therapy, still stuck in cycles of anxiety or dissociation. This is because trauma is not just stored in the mind, but in the body as well. Here, we’ll explore a holistic, whole-body approach to long-lasting PTSD recovery—one that includes not just talking, but moving, feeling, and reconnecting with yourself.
Why Talk Therapy Alone Isn’t Always Enough
Talk therapy, such as CBT, can be extremely valuable is helping PTSD survivors. It can help people to make sense of what happened, identify patterns, and build coping skills. But for many, understanding doesn’t always translate into emotional relief.
This is because trauma isn’t just a story for us to remember—it’s an experience that the body holds on to. Survivors of PTSD often continue to feel anxious, disconnected from their lives, or overwhelmed, even when they can clearly understand and articulate their past trauma. Healing requires more than just talking. It requires reconnecting with the body, calming the nervous system, and creating a safe environment from the inside out.
Somatic Therapy and Movement Practices
When trauma sees an opportunity to attack, the body often goes into survival mode, or fight-or-flight. These responses can get stuck, even after the danger has passed, keeping you on edge. Somatic therapy can help to release that built-up tension to enable you to feel safe in your body again. Here are some different types of movement therapies and practices:
- Somatic experiencing can help you to become more aware of your internal bodily sensations and gradually help you to release stored stress and trauma from the body by focusing on the body’s physical response to stress, rather than thoughts and emotions.
- Tension and trauma release exercises can help to calm the nervous system and release tension in the body by activating the body’s natural reflexes to help the body to return to a more balanced state.
By working with the body, not against it, trauma recovery can become more grounded and complete to help you reconnect to your body and your brain.
Rewiring the Brain with EMDR and Mindfulness
Even though trauma lives on in the body, it also affects the brain by locking people into cycles of fear, flashbacks, and emotional reactivity. That’s where brain-based therapies, such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and mindfulness practices come in:
- EMDR uses guided eye movements to help reprocess traumatic experiences in a less intense way. It’s considered one of the best treatments for PTSD as it helps the brain to reframe traumatic memories in a more tolerable way.
- Mindfulness can complement EMDR by training your attention to stay focuses on the present moment. This includes practices such as breathwork and meditation that can help survivors recognize their triggers without becoming too overwhelmed.
Over time, these tools and practices can strengthen your emotional regulation, increase resiliency, and rewire the brain for safety and clarity.
The Future of PTSD Recovery: Whole-Body Healing
The future of PTSD recovery requires addressing the entire human experience: physical, emotional, cognitive, and even spiritual. This means that more and more, mental health providers and professionals are incorporating tools such as movement therapy, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness into their treatment plans. Trauma-informed care is expanding as well, not just in therapy offices, but in hospitals, schools, and community spaces.
As we move forward on the path to recovery, the goal is not just symptom management, it’s wholeness. Healing is absolutely possible when we treat the person, not just the diagnosis.
Your journey toward whole-body healing beyond PTSD begins at Beachside Rehab in West Palm Beach, Florida. We offer private inpatient mental health and addiction treatment programs. Please call 866-349-1770 to speak with one of our trained admissions counselors.