Understanding Trauma as a Neurobiological Condition
Trauma is increasingly recognized not just as a psychological experience, but as a neurobiological condition that leaves lasting imprints on brain structures and physiological systems. In the seminal article The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk (1994) reviewed evidence that traumatic stress “disrupts the stress-hormone system, plays havoc with the entire nervous system, and keeps people from processing and integrating trauma memories” (van der Kolk, 1994). Rather than being stored as a narrative memory, the traumatic experience becomes encoded in subcortical brain regions and in the body’s stress physiology. In other words, as trauma physician Gabor Maté famously put it, “Trauma is not what happens to you; it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you” (Maté, 2023, p. 115). The “inside” changes of trauma are measurable in the brain and body, from overactivated fear circuits to dysregulated stress hormones, which is why trauma is best understood in neurobiological terms. This perspective has important implications for clinicians, as it shifts the focus toward healing the brain-body system rather than only processing memories at a cognitive level.