The Difficulties Of Massage For The Trauma Patient

August 17, 2008 by Su Fox

The brain, and consequently the mind, of a traumatised person functions differently from that of a non-traumatised person. And since all perception of massage is mediated via the nervous system, it follows that a traumatised person’s experience of a massage may differ from that of a non-traumatised person. The statement ‘massage is relaxing’ may not apply.

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.

Many people recover with time, rest and the supportive presence of family and friends, without suffering ill health or ongoing mental distress. They get their minds back. But some people who’ve been through trauma don’t recover and develop PTSD. (Post traumatic stress disorder). They don’t get their minds back. Their brains and central nervous system (CNS) functioning are altered.

Simple Trauma and Complex Trauma

Babette Rothschild, a leading trauma expert, divides trauma into 2 major areas. Simple trauma refers to a single event or series of events that are not related and the effect of this on an adult whose life experience has been fairly ordinary up to that point. This person’s CNS gets 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 with complex trauma, the relayed information from the sensory and proprioreceptors, stimulated by the action of massage, makes its arrival at the cerebral hemispheres, that part of the brain where meaning is registered, but it fails to have any impact on the autonomic nervous system or the hypothalmic-pituitary axis (Alan Schore).

Relaxation Can Be Undesirable

It’s similar to the brain being stuck in the general adaptation syndrome but in addition the trauma brings with it dysfunctional thought processes. These may included flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, inability to relax because of the fear of what might happen by lowering the mental defenses, and inability to switch the incident off.

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.

About the Author:
The writer is a massage therapist, psychotherapist and craniosacral therapist and supervisor in private practice in London, England. She can be contacted at her london psychotherapy practice or at london psychotherapy.