A traumatised person's brain and hence mind, operates differently from one who has not been
traumatised. The perception of massage is mediated through the nervous system. It follows therefore
that the experience of massage for a person who has suffered trauma may be quite different from
someone that hasn't. Massage may not be relaxing for the traumatised person.
Like stress, trauma has become overused and devalued. For example 'I'm traumatised, my cell phone is
broken!' Even involvement in a genuinely traumatic event doesn't necessarily mean that the person
will suffer trauma.
With rest, time and the support of others, many people recover from trauma without suffering mental
distress or ill health. But some don't recover and develop post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The functioning of their brains and central nervous system (CNS) are altered.
Simple Trauma and Complex Trauma
Leading trauma expert Babette Rothschild describes two main categories of trauma. Simple trauma
refers to the effect of a single, or series of unrelated trauma events that occur to someone in
adult life, whose previous life experience has been relatively ordinary. Such a person's CNS becomes
stuck in fight and flight.
Complex trauma is concerned with chronic abuse and/or chronic neglect that happens early in a
child's life when the brain is still developing. What happens in this case is that the usual
pathways of information flow are reversed. Instead of transmission from the top downwards i.e from
the cerebral hemispheres to midbrain and hypothalamus to brain stem, it flows the other way. The
normal route fails to develop and so the bottom up pathway form brain stem to hypothalamus to
cerebrum is switched on permanently.
For those that suffer from complex trauma, the information that is relayed from the sensory
receptors and from the proprioreceptors, stimulated by massage, arrives at the cerebral hemispheres,
that part of the brain that registers meaning. However, it then fails to have any impact on the
hypothalmic-pituitary-adrenal axis or the autonomic nervous system (Alan Schore).
Relaxation Can Be Undesirable
It's like the brain has got itself stuck in the general adaptation syndrome, except that in addition
there are a host of dysfunctional thought processes going on that relate to the trauma. These
include and inability to relax. The person suffering trauma may fear lowering their mental defenses
in case something undesirable happens. There may be an inability to switch off from the event. There
may be flashbacks. There may be intrusive thoughts.
Massage is always thought to be desirable, but the physical relaxation it brings induces mental
relaxation. This may not be what the trauma patient requires.
