09/07/2024
Today I want to talk about trauma. Working with trauma patients brings a holistic approach to healing that integrates physical and emotional well-being. Did you know? Physical, emotional and even sexual traumas often lodge not only in the mind but deeply within the body, and the fascia—a network of connective tissue surrounding muscles, bones, and organs—plays a critical role in this. Fascia is highly responsive to stress and trauma, tightening and becoming restricted as the body internalizes emotional pain.
Manual Osteopaths recognize this as a psychosomatic connection meaning one that starts in the brain (pain, fear etc) and is expressed in the body. . By addressing the physical manifestations of trauma, such as muscle tightness, joint restrictions, and postural imbalances, stored emotional trauma can be accessed and released over time. Through pain-free, gentle techniques like myofascial remodelling and cranialsacral therapy, manual osteopaths can manipulate the body to relieve both physical and emotional stress.
Somatic therapies like manual osteopathy often work more quickly than traditional talk therapy for trauma patients because it taps into the body's innate response system where trauma is held on a subconscious level. Somatic therapy focuses on body sensations and physical release, often producing immediate shifts in the nervous system. This can lead to faster regulation of emotional states thanks to the Parasympathetic Nervous System. Afferent nerves are responsible for relaying sensory information from the body to the brain. 80% of all periphery nerves are afferent which means these nerves are responsible for most of the nervous systems communication. Efferent nerves carry motor signals from the brain to the body but only make up about 20% of the nervous systems communication which leads to a much slower response time.
Manual osteopaths facilitate patients to let go of deeply embedded trauma by holding space and allowing their own bodies to heal themselves leading to lasting relief from trauma-induced symptoms.
