Somatic Trauma

By Dirk Marivoet, MSc
Psychotherapist, Founder of Core Strokes®
International Institute for Bodymind Integration

What Is Somatic Trauma?

Somatic trauma refers to how overwhelming experiences shape patterns of regulation and response within the body. While traumatic events are often remembered through thoughts, emotions, or images, they are also expressed through breathing, muscular tone, posture, and nervous system activity.

From a somatic perspective, trauma is not defined only by what happened in the past. It is also reflected in how the organism continues to respond in the present. In this sense, trauma affects the whole living system—breathing, posture, muscular tone, and nervous system regulation. Long after the original situation has passed, the body may remain organized around protection—through persistent tension, vigilance, or withdrawal.

Somatic trauma work therefore explores how experience continues to unfold in the body—through sensation, movement, breath, and relational contact. Rather than relying on narrative alone, therapy also explores the physiological patterns through which the organism organizes safety, defense, and regulation.

Somatic trauma work is most often practiced within the broader field of somatic psychotherapy, which integrates attention to body, breath, sensation, and relational experience in the therapeutic process.

How Trauma Is Held in the Body

Human beings respond to threat through deeply rooted biological processes. When danger is perceived, the nervous system automatically prepares the organism for survival.

This response involves coordinated changes throughout the body. Breathing may become restricted or rapid, muscles prepare for action, and sensory systems heighten their vigilance. The organism mobilizes energy for protective responses such as fighting, escaping, or immobilizing.

These responses may include:

• activation of protective muscular tension
• changes in breathing patterns
• heightened sensory alertness and vigilance
• impulses toward fight, flight, or immobilization

Under ordinary circumstances, these protective responses resolve once safety returns. The body gradually returns to a state of balance and flexibility.

When an experience is overwhelming or cannot be fully processed, however, elements of the protective response may remain partially organized within the organism. Over time these patterns can become part of a person’s habitual way of being, influencing posture, movement, emotional responsiveness, and relational experience.

From a somatic perspective, trauma therefore appears not only as memory, but as a persistent organization of bodily regulation.

Is Trauma Stored in the Body?

People often say that trauma is “stored in the body.” The phrase captures an important intuition, yet it can be misleading if understood too literally.

Trauma is not stored as a fixed substance or object within the body. Rather, overwhelming experiences shape patterns of physiological organization—how the nervous system regulates, how muscles maintain tension, how breathing unfolds, and how the organism responds to perceived safety or threat.

These patterns may persist long after the original event has passed. A person may notice chronic muscular contraction, restricted breathing, heightened vigilance, or difficulty settling into rest.

From a somatic perspective, trauma therefore lives not as a stored memory but as a pattern of regulation and response. Therapeutic work focuses on helping the organism gradually rediscover flexibility, responsiveness, and the capacity to move between states of activation and rest.

Trauma as Dysregulation

In somatic psychotherapy, trauma is often understood as a disturbance of the organism’s capacity for regulation rather than simply as the memory of a past event.

Under ordinary circumstances, the body moves fluidly between states of activation and rest. The nervous system mobilizes energy when action is required and settles again when safety is restored. This flexibility allows the organism to adapt to changing situations.

Traumatic experiences can disrupt this natural rhythm of regulation. Instead of returning easily to balance, the organism may become organized around persistent protective patterns.

These patterns may appear as:

• chronic muscular tension or guardedness
• difficulty relaxing or settling into rest
• sudden waves of emotional overwhelm
• numbness or disconnection from bodily sensation
• alternating states of activation and collapse

From this perspective, trauma responses are not signs of personal weakness or pathology. They represent meaningful adaptations of the organism—ways the body has attempted to preserve safety and integrity under difficult circumstances.

Somatic trauma work therefore focuses not on eliminating these responses, but on helping the organism gradually regain flexibility, responsiveness, and the capacity for self-regulation.

Trauma is not only remembered — it is organized in patterns of regulation within the living body.

Shock Trauma and Developmental Trauma

Somatic trauma work recognizes that overwhelming experiences can arise in different ways. Some traumatic events occur suddenly and are clearly identifiable, while others develop gradually through repeated relational experiences over time.

Understanding this distinction helps clarify how trauma becomes organized in the body and in patterns of regulation.

Shock Trauma

Shock trauma refers to discrete events that overwhelm the organism’s immediate capacity to respond. These events may involve accidents, medical procedures, violence, natural disasters, or other situations in which the individual experiences sudden threat or helplessness.

In such situations the nervous system mobilizes powerful survival responses. If these responses cannot be completed or resolved, elements of the protective reaction may remain partially organized in the body.

Developmental Trauma

Developmental trauma emerges more gradually through repeated experiences in early relationships. These may include neglect, chronic stress, emotional absence, inconsistent caregiving, or environments in which a child must continually adapt to relational instability.

Because early relationships shape how the nervous system learns to regulate itself, developmental trauma often influences long-term patterns of emotional regulation, attachment, and bodily organization.

From a somatic perspective, these early adaptations may appear as characteristic patterns of posture, breathing, muscular tone, and relational style—often described in body psychotherapy traditions as character structures.

Why the Body Matters in Trauma Healing

Traumatic experiences often affect the body before they can be understood through language or reflection. When the organism encounters overwhelming stress, responses of protection and survival are organized through breathing, muscular tone, posture, and nervous system activity.

For this reason, working only at the level of thoughts or narrative may not always address the deeper patterns of physiological organization that accompany trauma.

Somatic approaches therefore include careful attention to the body’s ongoing processes, such as:

• breathing patterns
• muscular tone and posture
• bodily sensation and interoception
• impulses toward movement or withdrawal
• experiences of relational contact and safety

Through gradual and respectful attention to these embodied processes, the organism can begin to reorganize patterns of protection and rediscover greater flexibility in regulation.

In this way, therapeutic change unfolds not only through new understanding but also through shifts in how the body experiences safety, responsiveness, and connection.

Trauma, Fascia, and the Living Body

Because trauma-related patterns involve the entire body, increasing attention has been given to the role of connective tissue—known as fascia—in shaping embodied experience.

Fascia forms a continuous network throughout the body, linking muscles, organs, nerves, and blood vessels. This living tissue contributes to posture, movement, sensory perception, and the coordination of physiological processes.

When the organism responds to threat, patterns of muscular tension, protective posture, and altered breathing also influence the fascial network. When the organism responds to threat, patterns of muscular tension, protective posture, and altered breathing also influence the fascial network. Over time these adaptive responses may contribute to characteristic qualities of tissue tone, restriction, or reduced responsiveness.

In somatic practice, practitioners often learn to recognize these qualitative differences in tissue organization—how fascia may feel dense, guarded, restricted, or alternatively more fluid and responsive.

From a somatic perspective, fascia participates directly in how protective patterns become organized throughout the body.

For this reason, many contemporary somatic approaches—including Core Strokes®—pay close attention to the qualities of connective tissue as part of the therapeutic process.

Working with breath, movement, posture, and relational contact can gradually support greater elasticity, fluidity, and responsiveness within the organism.

Somatic Trauma Work in Practice

In somatic psychotherapy, trauma work unfolds gradually and collaboratively. The emphasis is not on forcing emotional release or reliving past events, but on supporting the organism’s capacity to regulate, integrate experience, and respond flexibly to the present.

Rather than attempting to eliminate symptoms directly, therapeutic work focuses on how patterns of protection and regulation are organized in the body.

In practice, this exploration may involve:

• developing awareness of bodily sensations
• recognizing patterns of tension, contraction, or withdrawal
• supporting regulated breathing and grounding
• exploring impulses toward movement or posture
• strengthening the capacity to remain present with experience

Throughout the process, careful pacing is essential. The work respects the nervous system’s natural rhythms and the individual tempo at which integration becomes possible.

Over time, this gradual process can allow previously rigid patterns of defense to soften, making space for greater regulation, vitality, and relational presence.

The Role of Relationship

Trauma rarely develops in isolation. Many overwhelming experiences arise within relational contexts and therefore influence how a person perceives safety, trust, and connection with others.

For this reason, healing from trauma is not only an individual process. It often unfolds within a relational field in which new experiences of attunement, responsiveness, and safety become possible.

In somatic psychotherapy, the therapeutic relationship becomes an important environment for this process. Through attentive presence, careful pacing, and embodied awareness, therapist and client create conditions in which previously defensive patterns may gradually soften.

Moments of contact, resonance, and shared regulation can help the nervous system rediscover experiences of safety that may have been absent or unreliable in earlier life.

In this way, relationship becomes not merely the context of therapy but an active part of the healing process.

Somatic Trauma and Regulation

A central aim of somatic trauma work is the restoration of flexible regulation.

In a well-regulated organism, the nervous system can move fluidly between states of activation and rest. Energy mobilizes when action is required and settles again when safety is present.

Trauma can disturb this natural flexibility. The body can become organized around persistent states of activation, collapse, or guarded vigilance.

Somatic trauma work therefore supports the gradual recovery of regulatory capacity. This includes the ability to:

• experience emotional activation without becoming overwhelmed
• relax and settle when safety is present
• move fluidly between states of engagement and rest
• remain connected to bodily sensation and emotional experience

As regulation improves, individuals often rediscover greater vitality, emotional range, and relational openness. What once appeared as rigid defensive organization can slowly give way to more responsive and adaptable patterns of being.

Somatic Trauma and Core Strokes®

My work with Core Strokes® grows out of the broader field of somatic psychotherapy and has developed through long-term clinical practice, research, and lineage-based learning.

Within this approach, trauma is understood not only through nervous system dynamics but also through how experience becomes organized in breathing, connective tissue, posture, and relational timing.

Core Strokes® therefore pays particular attention to several interconnected dimensions of embodied organization

• patterns of breathing and energetic regulation
• the responsiveness and organization of fascial tissue
• posture, movement, and muscular tone
• developmental and relational timing within therapeutic contact

By working carefully with these dimensions, therapy supports the gradual reorganization of embodied patterns of defense and regulation.

You can learn more about the Core Strokes® approach to somatic psychotherapy here:

Core Strokes® & Somatic Psychotherapy

These perspectives have also developed within a long tradition of body-oriented psychotherapy. If you are interested in the historical background of this field, you can explore the historical lineage of body psychotherapy here.

A Gentle Invitation

If you feel curious about somatic trauma work, the first step is simply to begin noticing how your experience lives in the body.

Somatic psychotherapy does not require dramatic expression or intense bodily techniques. Often the work begins quietly—with noticing breath, sensing posture, or becoming aware of how the body responds in relationship.

Through this gradual process of attention, people often rediscover capacities that may have been obscured by long-standing patterns of protection: the ability to settle, to feel, to move, and to remain present with experience.

Over time, this gentle exploration may support a renewed sense of safety, presence, and embodied freedom.