07 Aug 2025
10 Mental Health Tricks That Therapists Secretly Use”
Discover 10 powerful mental health techniques therapists use to heal trauma stored in the body. Learn how emotional pain affects you physically and find your path to healing.
The Hidden Language Your Body Speaks
Have you ever noticed how your shoulders creep up toward your ears during a stressful conversation? Or how your stomach churns when you walk into a room that reminds you of a difficult time? Your body is constantly communicating with you, storing memories and emotions in ways that your conscious mind might not even recognize.
What if I told you that the chronic back pain you've been experiencing, that persistent anxiety that seems to come from nowhere, or that inexplicable fatigue could all be connected to unprocessed emotions and trauma? This isn't just alternative medicine talking—it's backed by decades of neuroscience research and clinical practice.
Today, we're pulling back the curtain on 10 powerful techniques that therapists have been using for years to help clients understand how trauma affects the body and unlock the path to profound emotional healing.
Understanding the Mind-Body Connection: Why Your Trauma Lives in Your Tissues
Before we dive into these therapeutic secrets, let's explore a fundamental truth that modern medicine is finally embracing: your body keeps the score.
What Is Somatic Memory?
Somatic memory refers to the way our bodies store emotional experiences and trauma at a cellular level. Unlike cognitive memories that we can consciously recall, these body memories operate below our awareness, influencing our physical health, emotional responses, and daily behaviors.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk's groundbreaking research revealed that trauma literally reshapes both our bodies and brains. When we experience overwhelming stress or trauma, our nervous system can become stuck in survival mode, creating lasting changes in how we move, breathe, and exist in our bodies.
The Physical Manifestations of Emotional Pain
Unprocessed emotions don't just disappear—they find expression through:
Chronic muscle tension (especially in shoulders, jaw, and hips) Digestive issues (the gut-brain connection is profound) Autoimmune conditions (stress hormones suppress immune function) Sleep disturbances (hypervigilance keeps the nervous system activated) Chronic pain conditions (fibromyalgia, headaches, back pain) Anxiety and panic attacks (stored fight-or-flight responses)
10 Mental Health Secrets Therapists Use for Deep Healing
1. The Body Scan Technique: Becoming Your Own Detective
Therapists often begin sessions by helping clients reconnect with their physical sensations. This isn't just relaxation—it's information gathering.
How it works: Starting from the top of your head, slowly scan down through your body, noticing areas of tension, numbness, or unusual sensations without trying to change anything.
Why it's powerful: Many people disconnect from their bodies as a protective mechanism. This technique rebuilds that crucial mind-body communication pathway and helps identify where emotions are stored physically.
2. Bilateral Stimulation: Rewiring Traumatic Memories
Used in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, bilateral stimulation helps integrate traumatic memories by engaging both brain hemispheres.
The secret: You can create this at home by crossing your arms over your chest and alternately tapping your shoulders while thinking about a mildly distressing memory. This helps your brain process and integrate difficult experiences.
3. The Window of Tolerance Assessment
Therapists constantly monitor their clients' "window of tolerance"—that optimal zone where you can experience emotions without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.
Recognition signs:
Hyperarousal (above the window): racing heart, anxiety, anger, restlessness Hypoarousal (below the window): numbness, dissociation, depression, fatigue Within the window: present, grounded, able to think clearly
4. Breathwork as Nervous System Regulation
Your breath is the most accessible tool for nervous system regulation, and therapists use specific breathing techniques to help clients shift their physiological state.
The 4-7-8 technique: Inhale for 4 counts, hold for 7, exhale for 8. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, signaling safety to your body.
5. Somatic Resourcing: Building Your Resilience Bank
Before diving into trauma work, skilled therapists help clients identify their "resources"—physical sensations, memories, or visualizations that create feelings of safety and strength.
Try this: Think of a time when you felt completely safe and loved. Notice what happens in your body—maybe warmth in your chest, relaxation in your shoulders, or a sense of groundedness in your feet. This becomes a resource you can return to.
6. The Felt Sense Approach
Pioneered by Eugene Gendlin, this technique involves tuning into the subtle bodily felt sense of emotions and situations.
How therapists use it: Instead of asking "How do you feel?" they might ask "What's happening in your body right now?" This bypasses cognitive defenses and accesses deeper wisdom.
7. Pendulation: The Natural Rhythm of Healing
Somatic therapy recognizes that healing happens in waves, not linear progression. Therapists guide clients through the natural oscillation between activation and calm.
The process: Experience a difficult sensation or emotion briefly, then return to a resource or pleasant sensation. This teaches your nervous system that it's safe to feel and that difficult emotions will pass.
8. Container Visualization for Emotional Overwhelm
When emotions feel too big to handle, therapists help clients create mental containers to hold intense feelings temporarily.
Visualization technique: Imagine a strong container (safe, box, room) where you can place overwhelming emotions. You're not dismissing them—you're choosing when and how to process them safely.
9. The Completion of Thwarted Defensive Responses
Trauma often occurs when our natural defensive responses (fight, flight, freeze) are interrupted or unsuccessful. Therapists help clients complete these responses safely.
Example: If someone froze during trauma, they might guide them through gentle movements that honor the body's desire to run or fight, allowing the trapped energy to discharge naturally.
10. Interoceptive Awareness Training
This involves developing sensitivity to internal bodily signals—hunger, thirst, need to use the bathroom, fatigue, emotional shifts.
Why it matters: Trauma often disconnects us from these vital signals. Rebuilding interoceptive awareness helps restore your body's natural wisdom and self-care abilities.
The Science Behind Somatic Healing
Recent neuroscience research confirms what body-based therapists have long known: trauma is stored in implicit memory systems throughout the body. The autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary functions like heart rate and digestion, becomes dysregulated during trauma and can remain stuck in survival patterns for years.
Somatic experiencing and other body-based therapies work by:
Discharging trapped survival energy Restoring nervous system flexibility Rebuilding the sense of safety in the body Integrating fragmented aspects of traumatic experience
Your Journey Toward Emotional Healing Starts Here
Healing from trauma isn't about "getting over it" or "thinking positive thoughts." It's about learning to befriend your body again, understanding its signals, and creating safety from the inside out.
Signs You Might Benefit from Trauma-Informed Therapy:
Chronic physical symptoms without clear medical causes Difficulty regulating emotions (intense highs and lows) Feeling disconnected from your body or emotions Hypervigilance or constant sense of danger Relationship patterns that don't serve you Addictive behaviors or compulsions Sleep disturbances or nightmares
Different Paths to Healing
Emotional healing isn't one-size-fits-all. Some effective approaches include:
Somatic Experiencing (SE): Focuses on releasing trapped survival energy EMDR: Uses bilateral stimulation to process traumatic memories Internal Family Systems (IFS): Works with different parts of the psyche Breathwork: Uses conscious breathing to access and release emotions Body-based therapy: Incorporates movement and touch Trauma-informed coaching: Combines therapeutic principles with goal-oriented support
The Hope That Lives in Your Body
Your body has been carrying your story—all of it, including the painful chapters. But here's what trauma survivors often don't realize: the same body that holds your pain also holds your incredible capacity for healing and resilience.
Every cell in your body is designed to move toward health and wholeness. When you provide the right conditions—safety, support, and gentle attention—your nervous system can begin to reorganize itself around wellness rather than survival.
This isn't about erasing your past or pretending trauma didn't happen. It's about honoring your experience while reclaiming your right to feel safe, connected, and alive in your own skin.
Taking Your Next Step
Healing happens in relationship—with ourselves, with trusted others, and with skilled practitioners who understand the profound wisdom of the body-mind connection.
If you recognize yourself in these words, if you've been carrying emotional weight that's affecting your physical health, know that you're not alone, and more importantly, you're not broken. Your symptoms are your body's way of trying to keep you safe and get your attention.
The path forward involves learning to listen to your body's signals with compassion, developing tools for nervous system regulation, and gradually expanding your capacity to be present with your full range of human experience.
Ready to begin your healing journey? If you've been carrying hidden emotional weight and are curious about how trauma might be affecting your body, consider speaking to a trauma-informed mental health coach who understands the profound connection between emotional and physical wellness.
Book your first session at CoachGates.com and take the first step toward reclaiming your vitality, emotional freedom, and the joy of living fully in your body.
Remember: Healing is not a destination but a journey of returning home to yourself. Your body has been waiting patiently for you to listen. Today can be the day you begin that conversation.