Mental and physical health

Trauma affects the health of individuals and communities across the globe. Historically, approaches to addressing trauma incorporated the physical body. However, the Cartesian mind-body split in the 1600s effectively siloes trauma treatment to the realm of the mind, ignoring the body. Traumatology research challenges this body erasure and recognizes that trauma is linked to and held in the body. There is a bidirectional and cross-disciplinary gap between research and somatic practice approaches to trauma. This phenomenological study aimed to address this gap and explore the lived experiences of practitioners across various disciplines who work with trauma using somatically focused modalities. Feminist theory was used as a broad theoretical framework for this study, and polyvagal theory served as an explanatory theory.