Trauma
The Brain-Body Disconnect: A Key to Trauma Recovery
Somatic, mind-body therapies could bridge the disconnect to heal from trauma.
Posted July 31, 2025 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- Trauma can disrupt how the brain processes sensory input, contributing to persistent trauma symptoms.
- Sensory disruptions in the brain after trauma can cause hypervigilance, detachment, and emotional overwhelm.
- Somatic, sensory-based therapies using movement and sensory input may enhance trauma recovery.
This post was co-authored by Dr. Ruth Lanius, Lauren Rudolph, and Dr. Breanne Kearney.
Trauma is an insult to the senses, leaving a lasting impact: It affects what we see, hear, and feel, and how we interpret our environment. When we think of trauma, we often imagine flashbacks or emotional pain. However, persistent symptoms of trauma, like feeling numb, jumpy, emotionally out of control, or disconnected from one’s body, may arise from how the brain processes sensory input. This is why understanding the sensory impact of trauma is essential for recovery.
In our team’s article, we propose that trauma-related symptoms result from disruptions in how the brainstem processes sensory input. Our sensory systems, like the vestibular and somatosensory systems, do more than navigate our environment. They also help us sense safety.
After trauma, sensory systems struggle to accurately assess safety, leaving survivors feeling on edge, overwhelmed, or detached from their bodies.
This is important because we can use this knowledge of sensory processing to improve therapy outcomes.
What sensory systems are involved?
The vestibular system provides our sense of balance and spatial orientation. This system works subconsciously until we unexpectedly trip or speed up, causing nervous system arousal—that panicked feeling. Therefore, vestibular processing relates to security, grounding, and safety.
Interestingly, research shows that vestibular input can quiet the mind, enhance body awareness, modulate nervous system arousal, and support emotional regulation. The vestibular system also modulates other sensory inputs (e.g., sound, touch) by up- or downplaying their intensity or importance, “balancing” our multisensory experience. It even affects how we relate socially and how coherently we experience our bodies.
In this article, our team found that the vestibular system may be disrupted in people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can contribute to feeling hypersensitive or hyposensitive to environmental stimuli—a common experience for trauma survivors. This disruption can also cause people to feel disconnected from their body, a hallmark of dissociation.
Alongside this, the somatosensory system provides awareness of signals from the environment and within one’s body, including touch, pressure, and temperature. Often, traumatized individuals feel clumsy, bump into things, and struggle to sense where their body is in space. This system may explain why people with PTSD might lack awareness or be hypervigilant of their surroundings and bodily sensations.
Therefore, these sensory systems are a critical, yet often overlooked, piece of the trauma puzzle, linking the body’s sense of touch, movement, and spatial awareness to psychological well-being.
How does the brainstem determine whether we feel safe?
During trauma, the body and brain are flooded by sensory input. Sights, sounds, and physical sensations activate lower parts of the brain, like the periaqueductal gray (PAG) in the midbrain within the brainstem. The PAG acts like an internal “coordinator,” linking raw sensory information with raw emotion. It helps the brain answer a key question: “Is this person or environment safe—or am I in danger?” Integrating sensory input with information about safety is crucial for regulating nervous system hypervigilance, muscle tone, and posture, which are altered after trauma.
We found changes in the PAG in brain scans of people with both classic PTSD and the dissociative subtype of PTSD—a subtype our team identified, which we will discuss more about in future posts.
After trauma, the brainstem can remain “hyperactivated,” which can lead to people “feeling too much." This is common in people with classic PTSD, who struggle to regulate their emotions, resulting in aggression, emotional overwhelm, and being easily startled. These brainstem changes can also contribute to feeling detached from emotions and bodily sensations—common in the dissociative subtype of PTSD.
How is sensory processing connected to early life experiences?
People with secure attachment were typically soothed as children through sensory-rich experiences like rocking, swaddling, or nurturing touch. This shows that early sensory experiences may help form secure attachment, while the lack of sensory-rich experiences may result in dissociative symptoms in adulthood. Our findings suggest that individuals with secure early attachment have better brain connections between the PAG and higher brain regions important for emotion regulation, attention, and memory. This helps memories to “integrate” into a past narrative and protects against trauma-related symptoms.
Our model
We provided a model of how sensory information is received in the brain through the midbrain and then relayed to “higher” parts of the brain involved in reflection and memories about oneself. This process provides a sense of self, control, and agency. In fact, this is foundational for infants to develop a sense of self and agency over their bodies.
Implications for therapy
Not only do changes in sensory processing result in trauma-related symptoms, but the reverse also holds true: We can use sensory processing in therapy to improve outcomes.
This idea challenges a long-standing assumption in trauma treatment: that insight and reflection are enough to heal. While cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has helped many, recent estimates suggest up to 50 percent of people with PTSD who undergo psychological treatment do not respond adequately, and it may be less beneficial during high stress or dissociation.
Why? Because there is a difference between knowing you are safe and actually feeling safe.
Imagine being told the fire is gone while your body still senses heat. Symptoms only settle once your sensory systems confirm you are safe. Trauma survivors may know they are not in danger—but with disrupted sensory processing, their brain continues ringing the alarm.
This is where somatic (body-based) therapies come in. Therapists can integrate movement, body awareness, and balance-based practices with cognitive therapies to help clients rebuild a felt sense of safety from the bottom up. This can help trauma survivors feel where their body is in space “in the now,” where it’s safe and the trauma is no longer. We explore this in our recently published book, Sensory Pathways to Healing From Trauma, which brings this science to life with practical strategies that bridge research and practice, along with stories of resilience.
Integrating somatic sensory awareness into therapy could restore one’s mind-body connection, help people process their trauma more fully, and allow them to feel alive again.
