Yes, absolutely! It is a commonly held belief that it is necessary to dig into painful and repressed memory in order to resolve wounds from the past; and while intellectual insight can be valuable, it is rarely enough to heal trauma. Trauma is more a physiologic state than a cognitive construct (for more information see my post: How is trauma held in the body?) and because the body lives and responds only in the present, that is also where the trauma lives. It is more effective to address what is showing up now through body regulation then to continue to hammer away at memories and analysis, which can in fact have a detrimental effect on recovery and agency, which I will address below. The healing process doesn’t have to hurt and be difficult. If you’re white-knuckling your way through sessions, relapsing into coping mechanism, experiencing intense mental health symptoms after a session, or hitting the same wall over and over, you are suffering unnecessarily.
When a traumatic event is re-visited your body’s physiology reenacts its response from the past, essentially training the nervous system to get better and better at going into that traumatized survival state every time. Neurologically when we go into a survival state our rational, creative, thinking brain becomes limited or goes offline, making it physically impossible to access the mental flexibility to find new perspectives, problem solve or make new choices. Instead our old brain (the unconscious part of the brain located closer to the base of the skull that is in charge of survival responses like Fight and Flight) takes charge and rather than problem solving, the old brain goes directly to whatever coping mechanisms have worked in the past, however unhealthy or self-sabotaging they may be. This is why revisiting the past can feel just like experiencing it all over again, why it’s so difficult to get out of the pattern once it has started, and why flashbacks are more than just memories.
Why not instead train the brain and body to get better at self-regulation so that the need for the survival brain to kick in is no longer so highly active? Instead of asking your body to practice going into a survival response, neurosomatic exercises gently re-pattern the nervous system through a daily practice so that it gets better at remaining calm in the face of triggers. This slow and steady approach also limits the risk of creating big emotional releases such as can be experienced in other somatic therapies and breathwork practices which might be more than the nervous system is ready for. This steady habit-building allows the work to be stable and long lasting. After some practice this increased regulation makes it possible to process past trauma more cognitively and release repressed memories and/or emotions without overwhelming the body and triggering old patterns, (for more information see my post: Why can’t we think our way through mental blocks?). As the safety and capacity within our nervous system increases the traumas, memories and beliefs that have been living under the surface will often begin to rise to the surface naturally to be looked at and processed, but when they do it is because you have the resources and wisdom to hold them and integrate them and their appearance won't be accompanied with the same level of bracing and reactivity as before.
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