Preverbal Trauma can be difficult to detect, but crucial.
Did you know that the very first memories actually precede our ability to talk or store them as visual images?
It is our bodies that remember. Those earliest memories--or for some of us, those traumas-- reside inside us as sensations and or muscle patterns.
That being the case, our preverbal experiences can act as the unhealthy architecture for our earliest connections.
And those relationships, not surprisingly, shape our interactions with others for years to come.
This can lead to a condition called preverbal trauma.
So, What Happens When We Experience Preverbal Trauma?
Your body tells you. That is, preverbal trauma is a burden inside you. It is as though trauma drew up plans for your life and relationships long before you could challenge them or cry out in opposition.
As a result, you were left hurting and effectively haunted by a past you can now barely remember or voice. Yet on some level, you may sense it affects you deeply. For example, you may live with physical strain and pain. Or wrestle with emotional weight and worry.
So, how do you reach such deeply fragmented and confusing traumatic events for relief? To attend to the trauma, you must devise a process of tapping into the bodily sensations it is linked to. How?
First, We Need to Understand the Physiological Factors at Play
Well-known therapists, researchers, and authors believe that we must access the hidden memory system to uncover the way our bodies view our early caregiver relationships.
Those relationships, after all, are most likely to have contributed to the preverbal trauma. In essence, our early body memories are fueled by the “primitive” or limbic brain system. That system runs the bodily functions key to survival.
Prior to more complex interaction and application, the limbic part of the brain is in charge from infancy up to three years old. Therefore, it is no surprise that representations of your relationships with your caregivers would be body-oriented.
Generally, the function of our caregivers is to set us up internally. They help hardwire our sense of self and help us tap into our own needs. However, if you were mistreated or neglected by someone during that period, your body likely characterizes difficult early relationships or interactions with an uncomfortable shift in your muscles, organs, breathing, etc. These shifts, may happen so routinely and automatically that it feels natural.
The imprint left on your nervous system simply stays until it is corrected. You may even need help to realize what a healthy nervous system response is and isn’t.
Next, the Importance of Somatic Therapy is Invaluable
Somatic therapy affirms that your traumatic preverbal memories are real and deserving of attention. These memories simply exist as a “felt sense” not a play-by-play representation of the traumatic events. That being said, treatment must connect with that sense.
Thus, accessing your preverbal trauma means accessing the essence or gist of the experience. It means retrieving traumatic memories that lack many details and may be profoundly disordered. Bodily awareness effectively helps locate and stabilize the preverbal memories stored in the body.
Moreover, somatic therapy halts our natural tendency to weave a narrative about things that happened to us. We naturally want to fill in gaps and “fix” memories so that they align with ideas we have about ourselves or our pasts. We instead, stay with the body and pay it close attention
Your Therapist Can Help Promote Peace in Your Body and Clarity in Your Mind
A qualified somatic therapist will help you get in touch with sensation and bodily reactions linked to preverbal trauma by
helping you avoiding incorrect verbal characterization or assumptions
encouraging you to develop a higher tolerance for bodily awareness.
observing your body language without judgment or interpretation, but only as a way to describe your felt sense of the memory as you feel it now in your body (not to create a story for why you are the way you are).
The truth of it is, most preverbal trauma is attachment trauma or relationship-related trauma. I am here, as are other compassionate somatic therapists, to provide a safe environment, reliability, and kind support. In other words, to be the kind of responsive and compassionate connection that may have been withheld at a crucial, early point in your life.
Finally, Take the Next Step
Together, we can work out new bodily patterns for acknowledging and regulating your mind and body. Through this work, you will not only become more aware of the link to your preverbal experience but more capable of practicing mindful self-care.
You will find that, in time, you can consciously put the past into the proper context. Then, you can engage your body so that the pain and discomfort it holds are healed and released. From there, you can start feeling more in control, kind to yourself and able to guard your future with appropriate attention to your current needs with safe, fulfilling connections to others.
Please reach out to us for relief. A therapist can help you feel better sooner rather than later. You've suffered discomfort long enough.
If you would like support and are looking for a psychotherapist, please contact us for a free consultation to learn about how we can be of service.
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