Talk Therapy Isn’t Enough: How to Heal Complex Trauma

From Somatic Experiencing to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, the most promising therapies for healing complex trauma work with the brain and nervous system—not just the story.

Talk therapy was never supported by my family growing up. “We don’t do that,” my mother told me. Regardless, I bee-lined to a talk therapist as soon as I went away to college. The logic felt simple: an objective person, in my corner, who actually wants to help. 

I jumped into talk therapy wholeheartedly and stayed there for 30 years. I had over a dozen different therapists, with a few exceptional people who lifted me and supported me along the way. It was certainly instrumental in my understanding of myself. 

But it didn’t take away, resolve, or move my trauma much. It didn’t stop me from repeating the patterns. It didn’t alleviate the pain in my physical body. And it didn’t help me manage the emotions I didn’t understand.

 Now we understand that trauma lives in the body, not the brain – The Body Keeps the Score, as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk named his book. All those feelings – trapped in the body, tied to memories I couldn’t consciously reach – keeping my nervous system locked.  But what do we do with that information? How do we learn to treat the body when we’ve ignored it for the better part of our lives?  

So what actually helps? Here are five therapies getting serious attention – because science is starting to catch up with what bodies have always known. 

1.     Somatic Experiencing 

Anyone with complex trauma knows the feeling: the terror has passed, but your body didn’t get the message. The panic, the hypervigilance, the inability to rest – that’s not weakness. That’s a nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do: protect you. 

The science is clear: trauma lives inside the body. So what do we do with that? Dr. Peter Levine (Waking the Tiger) noticed something: animals shake off threats instinctively and move on. Humans suppress it. We hold it in. Somatic Experiencing therapy, created by Dr. Levine, teaches us how to listen to our bodies, not brains. We learn to listen to the Felt Sense: the language of the body. Over time, practice builds a relationship with your physical body – one where it finally feels safe enough to release what it’s been holding. 

If you’d like to work with a Somatic Experiencing therapist, check out the Link in Trauma Resources, where you can search for a Somatic Experiencing therapist near you. 

2.     Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

Controversial and questioned, I did not expect to try psychedelics during my healing. But the research is clear: psilocybin helps generate new neural networks and pauses your Default Mode Network, where your limiting beliefs are stored. Ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA can lower fear, open the heart, and sometimes offer a completely different relationship to the stories we’ve been carrying.  

This therapy is not easy: you are often facing some of your little parts’ deepest fears, so doing an assisted session offers you complete support. A skilled guide knows when to offer grounding, when to encourage you to push through, and when to simply hold space while your body does what it needs to do. 

Psilocybin is legal in Oregon, New Mexico, and Colorado. (There is active legislation to legalize in ~15 other states.) Healing centers are available in each state, and travel is often worth it. (Some include lodging, where you stay with your guide.) I work with Boulder Canyon Retreat Center in Colorado.  

NOTE: You cannot safely proceed with psychedelic therapy if you are on SSRIs, so it’s important to be fully weaned before your first experience.  

Ketamine is available through Mindbloom or Journey Clinical, who screen you and ensures you are safe to proceed with ketamine journeys. Ketamine is very safe, prescribed in small doses, and can generally be taken with most SSRIs (check with your provider). 

·      Mindbloom prescribes directly to you, and you work with a guide before and after self-guided sessions. They provide a heart rate monitor and clear instructions; you are advised to have another adult with you on journey days. Mindbloom sells packages starting at 6 sessions. You’ll be guided to complete one approximately every 10 days to 2 weeks.

·      Journey Clinical matches you with a therapist/guide, who you pay separately. This is a little more hands-on as you’ll be matched with someone who will personally guide you through the journeys. 

MDMA for PTSD has been through 3 FDA trials, and many were upset that it wasn’t approved last year. MDMA lowers the fear in the amygdala of the brain – and for many, that’s the opening needed to finally move through what felt immovable. Links to clinical trials available in Trauma Resources on Good Girl Trauma, for both veterans and non-veterans. 

3.     Internal Family Systems 

What if none of your parts were bad?

That’s the foundation of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, created by Dr. Richard Schwartz, author of No Bad Parts. What if we were able to see all our parts as needed and none as “bad”? For those of us who grew up and were told to “get over it,” we may have stored grief, sadness, and betrayal without the body ever having a chance to process them. By following an IFS framework, you are deeply encouraged to view all of your feelings as allowed. There are no bad parts. Instead, practicing curiosity and non-judgment allows us to finally see and let go of whatever our little ones are holding on to. 

Here’s what I notice: when you stop fighting your feelings and get curious instead, your nervous system starts to settle down. That’s not incidental – that’s healing. 

Many therapists are working within the Internal Family System framework; those trained by Dr. Richard Schwartz can be found via the link in Trauma Resources on Good Girl Trauma. 

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)

Some memories feel locked – isolated, heavy, and resistant to talk. EMDR was designed for exactly those. Working with a therapist (Zoom or in person), you wear headphones and watch a bouncing ball on a screen while listening to bilateral sounds. Slowly, you recall the memory, allowing your body to feel it, while balancing being grounded and safe. This balance is tough and requires a lot of practice. It’s easy to overdo it. Your nervous system can only process so much at once – depletion is a real signal to slow down. My therapist starts and ends the practice with deep grounding, which helps me feel safe.  

The bilateral stimulation in EMDR (the sounds in your headphones) helps the brain reprocess the memory. The back-and-forth stimulates both sides of the brain. Memories don’t disappear. Instead, they become more integrated and less emotionally charged. As well, EMDR reduces amygdala activation and increases prefrontal cortex activity – less fear, more clarity. The memory becomes something that happened in the past. Not something still happening.1  

EMDR is widely recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the United States Veterans Administration.

Forest Bathing

Your body already knows this. The Japanese simply studied it. 

The Japanese have figured out the value of spending time in the forest: multiple studies from Japan show that even 15-20 minutes of walking or sitting in a forest lowers your cortisol, pulse rate, and blood pressure and results in higher parasympathetic nervous system activity - the vagus nerve, finally getting to rest.2 People spending 3-days in the forest boosted their immune system for 1-4 weeks post the trip.3  

Time against the earth is proven to be soothing to humans: time to ground. Trees, mountains, oceans – whatever calls to you. This isn’t a once-a-year vacation strategy. You’re allowed to need this regularly. We are meant to live in sync with the earth as much as possible. Tip: take phone calls or therapy sessions from outside on the earth. 

In my experience using these therapies:

• Over time, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy broke down those coping mechanisms and showed me the memories I lost.
• Over time, my parts – my little girl, whom I call “little Lauren” – trusted that I was serious: I wasn’t going away, and I was ready to see it all.
• Over time, I learned to listen to my body, slowly, and saw the pain not as a punishment, but just a part that needs attention.
• Over time, the charge from the memories that once left me spinning against a wall began to diffuse.  

And over all this time, I started to feel very different in my body. I started to see my patterns. I started to see the screen through which I viewed life. 

This is not an exhaustive or complete list of all therapies for CPTSD. Trauma is so unique that we each may need a different approach (making it even more complex).

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk says that the people who heal CPTSD do multiple things, not one thing. What are your multiple things? These are some of mine.

 

About the Author

Lauren McFerrin, an entrepreneur and writer, has lived experience with complex trauma, including severe childhood abuse and the loss of her son. She helps others escape the pain of complex trauma by understanding how trauma lives in the body, not the brain. At Good Girl Trauma, we heal with rebellion and science.