In somatic trauma therapy, it is believed that trauma is renegotiated through discharging the traumatic energy held in the body at the time of an overwhelming event. Some modalities ignore the importance of the body and maintain that trauma is healed through releasing emotions associated with a traumatic experience. Cathartic practices such as beating pillows, primal screaming, Holotropic breathwork, frenzied dancing, and re-living trauma, aggressively pursue the idea that trauma can be purged by expressing emotions and over-riding the nervous system. What particularly distinguishes cathartic practices is that trauma survivors are encouraged to release the emotional charge in a wild and uncontrolled way.

Catharsis will make you feel good initially because it releases dopamine and oxytocin, but it's an emotional hamster wheel you can never get off. Although the emotional charge is released, the emotion itself is not processed, so it is still there afterwards. However, the biggest problem is that catharsis perpetuates a cycle of addiction. If the release felt satisfying (who doesn’t enjoy a dopamine rush?), you'll seek it out again in the future. These ‘addicts’ end up going round and around, without ever getting out of the trauma cycle – and in some cases, are harmed through re-traumatising the nervous system.

In trauma-informed somatic psychotherapy, interventions and practices that only slightly shake-up the nervous system are valued the most, this is because small shake-ups (called perturbations) prepare the client’s body for change without activating survival states (or addiction patterns). Nervous system change can, and should, feel seamless and without undue effort. Along with gradually re-directing traumatic patterns, not grasping or clinging to change is the most effective way to help changes ‘stick’ at the level of your nervous system.

One of the most helpful practices I introduce people to is something I call, ‘Noticing Neutral’. The practice of tuning into and sitting with things that are neutral-to-slightly-pleasant shifts neural pathways away from requiring states of bliss to experience transformation, or from needing high risk situations to feel alive.

For anyone with a sympathetically-dominant nervous system (not in freeze or shutdown), the idea of this practice is as appealing as watching paint dry. However, it is possible to make it somewhat interesting by introducing a relational component and recruiting curiosity and playfulness. Surprisingly, many of my clients with this nervous system presentation enjoy it.

Before they learned about their nervous system and what were the signs that indicated they were in overwhelm, they were stuck in ongoing cycles of drama and intensity. Their process was all about pushing right up to their edge and feeling everything – usually ALL AT ONCE! Which was the problem, they were treating their nervous system like a machine, and not heeding the signs their nervous system was giving them about its sensitivity.

[Often people use the word ‘sensitive’ as a weapon – intending to dismiss or diminish someone – and to dispute their reality. That’s not what I wish to convey here – your nervous system is a sensitive instrument that accurately reflects what is going on inside you. It can also take the temperature of the collective and reflect that back to others. It’s a marvellous and precious thing of true wonderment and awe.]

It’s important to bear in mind that not explicitly choosing intensity doesn’t mean intense experiences don’t happen. But it does mean that you don’t have to seek high intensity to be able to process. Because, when it comes to processing trauma, it actually goes against you if you do.

That might seem counter-intuitive – Shamanic traditions often work with intensity, and Expansion Training bows to the shamanic tradition. However, it took many years for an adept to qualify as a shaman, and it was only through many initiations over many years that the adept built their capacity to hold the energy of powerful spirits. When the adept fell into a healing crisis, they were in nervous system overwhelm. They needed to do that because they had to recruit powerful spirits to heal members of their community on a daily basis. But in the contemporary context, if we change the pattern within us that seeks intensity, we don’t need to be in overwhelm to transform our consciousness.

‘Noticing Neutral as a pleasure practice teaches your nervous system that you don’t need intense experiences to know you are alive, and that it’s possible to expand by gently creating space in the body instead of blowing up your nervous system.

The gift in this practice is that if you can find pleasure in ‘neutral, you will be able to find pleasure in the ‘ordinary’ and experience the ordinary moments of life as utterly delicious.

The problem with catharsis – why dance, breathwork, primal screaming and beating pillows can re-traumatise your nervous system