On the surface, it’s easy to separate the body and mind into wholly different categories. You might even believe the emotional pain you’re facing is unrelated to any physical struggles. The truth is, matters of the heart (and mind and soul) are much more powerful than you’d think.
If you are just starting your journey researching the science behind trauma, one of the first mental shifts you will need to make is understanding the connection between your mind and body. Your physical body can actually be impacted by painful emotions and feelings, especially when you’ve dealt with traumatizing experiences (even those from your distant past). In his book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, Dr. Peter Levine talks about how traumatic experiences are stored in the body: “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” And though the physiological effects of psychological trauma are very real, trauma treatment can help you achieve lasting healing—emotionally and physically.
Understanding Trauma and Its Many Forms
At The Guest House, we guide you in exploring the impact of traumatizing events on your body. The key in our logo is not just a design element. It represents our commitment to helping you unlock and understand your body’s response to trauma. But what exactly is trauma? Trauma in its simplest form is the emotional response to a terrible event, according to the American Psychological Association. You may not even be aware that some incidents in your life are the very definition of trauma. Traumatic events can include:
- A serious or life-threatening accident
- Natural disasters
- Crime
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Living with a family member struggling with addiction or mental health challenges
- Poverty
- Racism
- Experiencing or witnessing violence
- War
- The death of a loved one
Trauma can happen to anyone at any time. The US Department of Veterans Affairs even estimates that 90% of American adults have experienced at least one traumatic event at some point in their lives. Consequently, when you’re traumatized, the experience can cause a range of responses. While initial shock or denial are common in the immediate aftermath, the impact of a traumatizing event can linger on for years. No matter when the distressing experience takes place, trauma can make you feel:
- Frightened
- Under threat
- Humiliated
- Rejected
- Abandoned
- Invalidated
- Unsafe
- Unsupported
- Trapped
- Ashamed
- Powerless
In another of Dr. Levine’s seminal books, Healing Trauma: Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body, he shares, “The symptoms of trauma can be stable, that is, ever-present. They can also be unstable, meaning they can come and go and be triggered by stress. Or they can remain hidden for decades and suddenly surface.” With that said, your experience with a traumatizing event can be entirely different from someone else’s. That’s because trauma itself can take on many forms. In fact, trauma is commonly categorized into three main types:
The Guest House Difference
A Look at Trauma Treatment at The Guest House
The very foundation of our programs is trauma. Guest House co-founder Judy Crane has dedicated her career to developing treatment strategies for trauma and it’s underlying causes, innovating in the area of treating trauma safely. Our expert staff are highly trained to handle the heightened anger and emotional outbursts that can result from unresolved trauma. Our medical team is experienced in helping guests deal with the physical symptoms of trauma, providing relief especially during their detox phase. We also recognize the role animals can play in the healing process. Our on-site equine therapy and “trauma llamas” provide a calming presence and encourage the building of healthy, caring relationships.
At The Guest House, we recognize the healing process is deeply personal, so our approach is always tailored to the unique needs and preferences of each individual.
Acute Trauma
Acute trauma is defined as trauma that arises from a single event. This includes events like severe accidents, natural disasters, assault, or rape. This traumatizing event is so devastating that its effects are long-lasting, even if the experience itself is momentary. Many of clients will present with symptoms that include:
- Extreme anxiety or panic
- Confusion
- Sleep challenges
- Aggressiveness
- Unreasonable distrust of others
“Ninety percent of all substance abusers are trauma survivors, so if you start to unravel the trauma story, you start to understand why they are using alcohol or drugs, why they are using pornography or gambling.”
– Judy Crane, Co-founder of The Guest House
Chronic Trauma
When you’re traumatized as a result of either multiple or prolonged experiences, it is defined as chronic trauma. Because this type of trauma doesn’t happen one singular time, it commonly comes from situations associated with long-term illness, bullying, abuse, or domestic violence. Multiple events that produce acute trauma can even lead to chronic trauma. As these traumatic events unfold in your life, their effects really start to add up. When treating chronic trauma clients, the issues our experienced clinicians commonly see include:
- Insomnia
- Muscle tension
- Body aches
- Headaches
- Exhaustion
- Increased heart rate
- Increased blood pressure
Complex Trauma
Complex trauma arises as a result of exposure to multiple types of traumatic events over time. What often makes these events more complicated is the fact that they’re associated with people you know, even family members. Neglect, childhood abuse, and domestic violence are just a few examples of traumatizing experiences that can lead to complex trauma. Common complex trauma symptoms include:
- Memory lapses
- Emotional dysregulation
- Always being on alert
- Low self-esteem
- Nightmares and sleep disturbances
“Addiction is the strategy people establish to deal with trauma,” explains Dr. Adam McLean, Director of Business Development at The Guest House. As you can imagine, complex trauma is incredibly difficult to navigate on your own, especially when addiction enters the picture. That’s why our expert treatment team is here to provide the support and guidance you need to heal.
Other Types of Trauma
Beyond the three main types of trauma, there are additional classifications that get even more specific. No matter the type, each can produce distressing experiences that negatively impact your mind and body. Other types of trauma you may encounter include:
- Secondary Trauma: Also known as vicarious trauma, secondary trauma describes the trauma you can get as a result of being impacted by someone else’s trauma. This indirect exposure can happen when you witness a traumatic experience or help support someone struggling with their own trauma.
- Developmental Trauma: Also described as childhood trauma, developmental trauma results from adverse childhood experiences in your formative years, when your brain is developing.
- Intergenerational Trauma: When trauma gets passed down from one generation to the next, this occurrence is called intergenerational trauma. It’s often associated with a family history of child abuse, racial oppression, or systematic oppression.
- Retraumatization: Sometimes you can re-experience a past traumatic event as if it’s occurring in the present. Called retraumatization, this may occur due to stress or exposure to triggers or new traumatic events.
The Physiological Impact of Traumatizing Events
While trauma in all its forms clearly has a mental and emotional impact on our lives, what does it do to our physical bodies? For starters, emotional or psychological pain can actually cause or worsen physical pain in different areas of your body. According to the National Institues of Health, there are a number of physiological effects that can arise as a result of emotional pain and distress associated with trauma, including:
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Diarrhea
- Nausea
- Muscle pain, especially in the neck
- Leg and arm pain
- Upset stomach
When you’re traumatized, your body’s central stress response system is activated, explains PsychologyToday.com. This not only makes you more reactive to stress, but it increases the presence of cortisol, your body’s stress hormone. While cortisol is necessary and important to normal functioning, chronically high amounts of it can actually be toxic. Over time, the constant presence of high levels of cortisol can put you at increased risk of health conditions such as depression, digestive issues, inflammation, weight gain, and heart disease. At the same time, stored trauma can reduce your body’s physical ability to tolerate stress, leading you to feel overwhelmed more easily.
Exposure to developmental trauma or childhood trauma in particular can lead to physical challenges later in life. A study by the American Psychological Association indicates that trauma associated with abuse or violence in childhood can lead to more rapid aging in your brain and body. This accelerated aging makes you more susceptible to diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and auto-immune disorders, as well as a shorter lifespan.
Trauma can also make a physiological impact due to its association with addiction. After all, most addictions are rooted in past trauma. When you experience a traumatizing event (or series of events), the symptoms of unprocessed trauma may continue to persist. Without the right trauma recovery process, it’s easy to seek out your own ways to self-medicate your trauma symptoms. This may be coping mechanisms such as drugs or alcohol, which only provide temporary relief. So you use them again and again, leading to addiction. And the symptoms of addiction can make a devastating impact on you physically and mentally.
“During the calm is often when people’s reactions take hold of them. Your body is able to come down from the distractions of everyday life and finally process what’s really going on internally based on a memory of something that’s happened in the past. That’s what’s important to learn to manage when it comes to trauma, and that’s where The Guest House comes in.”
– John West, Co-founder and Managing Director of The Guest House
Treating Trauma: What is Somatic Therapy?
Because trauma impacts your mind and body, it’s important to approach treatment for trauma in a way that emphasizes total mind-body healing. As a trauma-first clinic, The Guest House understands this well. That’s why we incorporate somatic therapy into our trauma and addiction treatment programs. Somatic trauma therapy can be incredibly powerful in helping to reverse trauma’s effects on your life. But what is somatic healing and how does it help?
Somatic therapies embrace the concept that your body stores emotional pain, especially pain associated with trauma. As a result, somatic therapy approaches believe your body is the starting point to achieving healing, according to Harvard Health Publishing. That’s why this newer form of mental health counseling aims to directly address the emotions and trauma trapped inside your body. Participating in somatic work during a therapy session concentrates on increasing your awareness of your body’s sensations. This helps you to feel safe in your body while exploring your traumatic thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
Somatic Therapy Techniques
By focusing on your body, somatic trauma therapy helps you finally release built-up traumas and stored emotional pain. Some of the key somatic therapy exercises and techniques utilized in holistic approaches to trauma treatment include:
Somatic Breathwork
Exactly what is breathwork? Somatic breathwork in this case is the practice of intentionally controlling your breathing to connect your body and mind and enhance your overall well-being. Utilizing a range of breathing techniques, somatic breathwork helps you retake control of your body’s nervous system, which then allows you to address and release traumatic emotions buried beneath your unconscious.
Bodywork
Somatic bodywork helps address trauma’s impact on your life through physical touch. This technique utilizes traditional bodywork methods, such as massage or craniosacral therapy, while also helping you engage your inner thoughts and emotions. Bodywork helps cultivate awareness of the areas of your body impacted by trauma and can set free any fight-or-flight energies trapped inside.
Acupressure
Instead of using needles (like acupuncture), acupressure is a traditional Chinese medicine that utilizes fingers to apply pressure to specific points on your body in order to unblock the flow of energy and restore balance. By doing so, acupressure can help remove the imprints of trauma (and resulting unhealthy coping strategies) stored within your body.
Achieve Mind-Body Healing at The Guest House
As a highly visible personl, you may be wrestling with the idea of getting treatment for trauma (as well as any co-occurring addictions). However, as our Outpatient Clinical Director Deidre Lockhart explains, “Alcohol, substance abuse, and trauma can affect anyone.” It doesn’t matter how smart or successful or well-known you are. There’s no shame in getting the help you need so you can live your best life. At The Guest House, we understand your situation and work hard to make this a sanctuary of hope and healing. With our holistic approaches to trauma, mental health, and addiction treatment, you can reclaim the healthy, high-impact life you deserve. Contact us today to learn more.