Healing Trauma and PTSD: A Neurodivergent Affirming, Somatic, and Experiential Approach
Trauma and PTSD can profoundly impact a person's life, affecting how they think, feel, and experience the world. Neurodivergent folks may experience trauma in particularly unique ways, compounded by sensory and processing differences. Traditional trauma therapies and approaches might not always resonate, especially when they don't account for neurodivergent experiences and needs. Approaching trauma from a neurodivergent affirming perspective while integrating experiential, somatic, and expressive art therapies offers a holistic, tailored approach that honors both body and mind.
Understanding Trauma Through A Neurodivergent Lens
Research published in 2020 explored how autistic adults experience trauma, including after events that don't meet the DSM-5 definition of trauma. In the study by Rumball et al., over 40% of the participants experienced probable PTSD following traumas, even when the trauma didn't meet the DSM definition of trauma. These findings are an important understanding for neurodivergent affirming trauma therapy.
Events not typically classified as traumatic can still have significant and lasting impacts on autistic people. With heightened sensory experiences, often visual, detail-oriented processing, and more reactive nervous systems, autistic people frequently have vivid sensory memories of overwhelming experiences. These intense experiences and vividly stored memories can exacerbate PTSD and trauma-related symptoms.
Autistic people, especially those who are high-masking or late diagnosed, often learn to keep their inner experiences to themselves. We learn to push and power through uncomfortable situations, adapting ourselves to the world, even if we are completely overwhelmed internally. From differences in sensory processing to challenges with societal norms, this chronic stress can add a layer of baseline anxiety and hyperarousal, intensifying PTSD symptoms. Also compounded by intersecting identities, Autistic people are at an increased risk of victimization, further adding to the risk of developing PTSD.
Neurodivergent Affirming Trauma Therapy
For a neurodivergent affirming approach, it's crucial to adapt trauma therapy to address the unique ways in which autistic people process and are impacted by trauma. Making space to explore the effects of "little t" traumas (experiences that don't meet the DSM definition of trauma), and how these ongoing experiences often compound and lead to autistic burnout, can be an important part of healing trauma for autistic people. It's also helpful to distinguish between sensory sensitivities, autistic meltdowns, and trauma triggers. Influenced by sensory overload, unexpected changes, and difficulty communicating needs, autistic meltdowns are typically responses to currently overwhelming experiences. Trauma triggers generally are memories, objects, situations, people, or other reminders that evoke emotional and/or physical distress due to their association with a past traumatic event.
The Power of Experiential Healing
Experiential therapy operates on the understanding that lived experience can help clients explore and process emotions and behaviors. Instead of just talking, experiential therapies create opportunities for active, hands-on experiences that facilitate healing and growth. This can include approaches like guided imagery, body awareness exercises, sensory exercises, expressive arts, nature therapy, or body-based therapies like Brainspotting.
These approaches can often be life-changing for neurodivergent people who struggle to express themselves verbally or find themselves overanalyzing and intellectualizing life experiences. Experiential healing can help foster the mind-body connection, bypassing our analytical brain and allowing for a more embodied experience.
Somatic Healing: The Body Remembers
Somatic approaches to therapy recognize that the body stores and holds onto trauma and overwhelming experiences, often outside of our conscious awareness and recognition. Frequently stored as pain, tension, GI distress, and other chronic physical symptoms, these experiences can serve as an entry point to healing. Instead of starting therapy focusing on our cognitive experience of an event, somatic therapy is an experiential approach that involves reconnecting with your body's sensations to process, release, and transform stored trauma, gently guiding the nervous system back into balance and equilibration.
For neurodivergent and autistic folks, somatic work can be profoundly impactful. We are often affected by alexithymia and can feel quite disconnected from our bodies while simultaneously experiencing heightened sensory reactions. This duality adds an extra layer to the disconnect and sense of space from ourselves. Somatic techniques like breathwork, Brainspotting, expressive arts, and sensory integration activities can help neurodivergent individuals with trauma reconnect to their bodies and feel safe in their skin again.
Expressive Arts: A Pathway for Self-Expression & Regulation
Another somatic and experiential approach, expressive arts therapy, offers an alternative to traditional talk therapy. An excellent option for those who struggle to verbalize their emotions, the expressive arts can be a powerful way to process complex emotions that words often fail to capture. Through the arts and playful exploration, clients can build sensory and interoceptive awareness, externalize trauma, and begin to understand and reframe overwhelming experiences. For many neurodivergent folks, the healing arts and creative expression resonate more deeply, facilitating more profound healing and connection. This nonverbal expressive approach helps to bypass our thinking brain and honors different processing and communication styles.
Integrating These Approaches for Healing Trauma
Integrating experiential, somatic, and expressive arts therapy approaches from a trauma-informed, neurodivergent affirming lens can provide a comprehensive and individualized framework for trauma recovery. This integrated approach:
Honors the individual by recognizing the interplay that neurodivergence and intersecting identities have on trauma responses and healing.
Provides a variety of ways for individuals to connect with and process their experiences without needing to verbalize them.
It emphasizes the mind-body connection, showing how trauma embeds itself in both the brain and body and calls for healing that addresses both to create lasting change.
Prioritizes empowerment and client-led experiences, providing individuals with tools to heal, while respecting their personal needs, preferences, and processing styles.
Healing from trauma and PTSD isn't one-size-fits-all, especially for neurodivergent and autistic adults. Many traditional therapy models overlook the ways neurodivergent brains work, are impacted by, and process trauma. When we combine neurodivergent-affirming, trauma-informed care with somatic, expressive, and experiential approaches, healing becomes more than symptom management - it can be a return to wholeness and our authentic selves.
If you're neurodivergent and navigating trauma, know this: you don't have to keep pushing through. There are approaches that meet you where you are - no masking, no pretending, no fitting in required. Just freedom and space to move, feel, express, and heal - on your terms.
If you’re ready to explore how neurodivergent affirming trauma therapy (Florida only) can help, reach out today to get scheduled for a free 15-minute consult call or initial intake session.
References
Brown-Lavoie, S. M., Viecili, M. A., & Weiss, J. A. (2014). Sexual knowledge and victimization in adults with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(9), 2185–2196. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2093-y University of Texas Library+3PubMed+3ncsby.org
Rumball, F., Happé, F., & Grey, N. (2020). Experience of trauma and PTSD symptoms in autistic adults: Risk of PTSD development following DSM‐5 and non‐DSM‐5 traumatic life events. Autism Research, 13(11), 2122–2132. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2306