Why Talking About Trauma Won’t Heal It—And Here’s What Does

Talking about trauma can offer insight, validation, and understanding—but it doesn’t fully heal what happened. If it did, most of us wouldn’t find ourselves in therapy for years, revisiting the same wounds and re-telling the same stories. We wouldn’t be stuck in the same reactive behaviors or similar patterns, wondering what’s wrong with us that we keep acting this way, or what’s wrong with our therapy/therapist that nothing is changing.

When it comes to Trauma, Traditional Talk Therapy is limited

While talk therapy helps us make sense of our experiences, it doesn’t effectively address trauma, because trauma doesn’t live in the mind. Trauma—the imprints of overwhelming experiences—is stored in the body, deeply embedded in our nervous system. Our mind creates a narrative of what happened, consciously and unconsciously shaping what we think and believe about ourselves and others. To truly heal, we need to address the core wound instead of dancing around it with talk therapy alone (and when I say talk therapy, I’m referring to most mainstream therapies, like CBT, DBT, etc.).

Trauma Doesn’t Live in the Mind—It Lives in the Body

This is where somatic therapy comes in. By incorporating the body into the healing process, we allow the nervous system to release old patterns, complete interrupted stress responses (fight, flight, freeze), and recalibrate. You’re essentially tackling two things at once: healing the body and rewiring the mind. This is what leads to true resolution of trauma—healing not just from a cognitive place but at a physiological level. When we work with the body, we can finally release what’s been held inside for years, sometimes even decades—sometimes even an entire lifetime (hello birth trauma and attachment trauma!).

What Is Somatic Therapy—and How Is It Different?

As a somatic psychotherapist specializing in holistic trauma healing, I blend somatic modalities with energy work, like Reiki, and psychoeducation to support the healing process from all angles—mind, body, and spirit. My clients have found this approach more effective and sustainable than talk therapy alone. By working with the body, we create long-lasting change, not just intellectual understanding.

And by the way, real somatic therapy is more than a therapist drawing attention to your posture or body language, and it’s way more than mindfulness-based exercises such as meditation or breathing. It requires specialized training and certification, and a therapist who has done deep somatic work on themselves.

Somatic therapy leads to real, lasting change.

Read: What No One Tells You About Trauma

From Surviving to Thriving: What Healing Feels Like

I’ve personally experienced and witnessed the transformative power of somatic therapy, both through my work with clients and in my own healing journey. My clients often describe feeling more connected to themselves and their bodies, experiencing a sense of freedom they didn’t know was possible—a feeling I know quite well, after working through my own trauma from a somatic perspective. With somatic therapy, clients move from feeling stuck and overwhelmed to reclaiming their sense of safety, freedom, and power.

Somatic therapy not only resolves trauma more effectively but also tends to take less time overall, costs less in the long run, and results in deeper, more lasting transformation. True healing means addressing the whole person—and that’s why incorporating the body is absolutely necessary for real healing to happen.

–Clara Mackinlay, Associate Marriage & Family Therapist #149677