Witnessing the Body’s Response to Trauma: Resistance, Ritual, and Nervous System Activation

Abstract

This essay describes the body's states of nervous system activation after traumafocusing on intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women-as signs of resistance and posits that caregivers should attend to these phenomena as the body's way of communicating. Trauma triggers nervous system responses. and understanding these responses helps caregivers to read the body language of survivors and thus avoid retraumatizing them in pastoral care. Fundamentally, rather than being seen as symptomatic of a disorder, the aftereffects of trauma should be seen as a survivor's witness to the profound harm experienced as well as to the image of God in the survivor. This approach offers ritual and social ways of addressing this harm.

Understanding the Body and Embodiment in the Context of Women’s Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: A Scoping Review

“…Our analysis found that while the reviewed research describes and analyzes women’s physical and emotional experiences of and reactions to violence, these articles generally do not explain or explicitly conceptualize the body and/or embodied processes. Only six articles provided implicit or explicit definitions of these terms (Helsel, 2015; Mills, 2016; Pain, 2014b; Price, 1999; Pyscher, 2017; Rajah, 2007). This finding is somewhat surprising.…”

“…One woman living in a shelter describes being “paralyzed with fear” when she first arrived there, still expecting that she might experience violence at any moment (Hydén, 2005, p. 173). Helsel (2015) notes that this paralysis may be rooted in the nervous system’s “freeze” response to trauma. Although the victim may appear helpless to an outside observer, this response preserves energy that may be needed later and may have been developed to avoid or buffer against immediate suffering.…”

“…Although the victim may appear helpless to an outside observer, this response preserves energy that may be needed later and may have been developed to avoid or buffer against immediate suffering. Like Hydén (2005), Helsel (2015) interprets a “freeze” response as reflecting “the coreness of the self,” a crucial source of embodied knowledge about danger and a survival skill rather than a pathology (p. 686).…”

“…Other research that fits the subtheme of emotion and the interactive body suggests it is the sum total of women’s interactions over their lifetimes that shape their capacity for resistance. These articles assume that people possess an embodied way of being in the world, which they have acquired over countless social interactions (Helsel, 2015; Pyscher, 2017). For example, research rooted in trauma studies argues that the body retains a memory of past violent interactions, which prompt individuals to act in a self-protective manner (Helsel, 2015).…”

Understanding Formal Responses to Intimate Partner Violence and Women’s Resistance Processes: A Scoping Review

“…This process may also play out in therapeutic and counseling settings, particularly among practitioners who push clients far beyond their comfort limits. Helsel (2015) notes that therapists who push their clients to confront triggering experiences too early in the treatment process run the risk of retraumatizing them by forcing exposure to “the same feelings of terror and helplessness they felt at the time of trauma without the tools to lessen the intensity of the experience” (p. 692). Instead, Helsel advocates for practitioners to familiarize themselves with the physical aftereffects of trauma and to teach concrete strategies for self-regulation, such as controlled breathing or meditation.…”