Enhancing Agency in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Therapies Through Sensorimotor Technologies (Preprint)

Abstract

UNSTRUCTURED Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a significant public health concern, with only a third of patients recovering within a year of treatment. While PTSD often disrupts the sense of body ownership and the sense of agency (SA), attention to SA in trauma has been lacking. This perspective article explores the loss of SA in PTSD and its relevance in the development of symptoms. Trauma is viewed as a breakdown of SA, leading to a freeze response and dissociation, with peritraumatic dissociation increasing the risk of PTSD. Drawing from embodied cognition, we propose an "enactive" perspective of PTSD, suggesting therapies that restore the SA through direct engagement with the body and environment. We discuss the potential of agency-based therapies and innovative technologies like gesture sonification (GS), which translates body movements into sounds to enhance the SA. GS offers a screen-free, non-invasive approach that could complement existing trauma-focused therapies. We emphasize the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and clinical research to further explore these approaches in preventing and treating PTSD.