“We now understand that fragmented trauma memories tend to remain trapped in the body,” explains Ishwari Store, MSW, LCSW, Senior Primary Therapist at the Women’s Program at Penn Medicine Princeton House Behavioral Health’s outpatient Princeton site. “These memories can be repeatedly experienced through emotionally charged body sensations, from symptoms like a racing heart to physical discomfort. For patients to truly heal from trauma, it’s essential to incorporate the body into the healing process.”
The use of sensorimotor psychotherapy is one way to effectively complement other therapy techniques. This body-oriented approach focuses on the somatic and autonomic symptoms of unresolved trauma, helping patients become more aware of the role their bodies play in their experience and lasting effects of trauma.
When providers use these techniques combined with strategies like psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, patients learn to listen to their bodies to recognize and track physical symptoms. With practice, they can begin to interrupt the pattern in which certain sensations lead in progression to an immediate thought, a negative emotional response, a specific body response, and then a sense of being emotionally overwhelmed.
“Healing from trauma takes time, and sensorimotor psychotherapy can be useful on so many levels when working through the intricacies and varied experiences of trauma,” adds Store. “When patients understand what their bodies are telling them, they can work more effectively to create new competencies and restore a somatic sense of self.”
For more information about outpatient services, visit princetonhouse.org or call 888.437.1610.
Article as seen in the Winter 2020 issue of Princeton House Behavioral Health Today.
