“Talking about your trauma will retraumatize you.” Incorrect.

One of the most common concerns I hear, particularly from clinicians, is this idea that talking about trauma will re-traumatize you. That revisiting details, memories, or narratives is inherently dangerous, reckless, or unnecessary.

We all have heard Bessel van der Kolk say: “the body keeps the score.” And yes, 100%; but the conclusion some people draw from this is that trauma must only be processed somatically or subconsciously and that talking about it is harmful. This is a misunderstanding. And in some cases, it becomes its own form of avoidance.

What Do We Mean by “Processing,” Anyway?

When I was in graduate school, I asked one of my mentors who was teaching a somatic healing through yoga seminar this question. She paused. I could tell this wasn’t a one-size-fits-all answer.

She described trauma as showing up through:

·       inflammation

·       sensation

·       sympathetic nervous system activation (fight, flight, freeze)

Trauma is a memory and a warning, a protective mechanism, a reminder that something once caused harm and might do so again. While processing, she explained, involves moving toward sensation, memory, or discomfort in a controlled, safe way so the nervous system can update its response. When the system learns that the trigger no longer signals imminent danger, sensitivity decreases. Avoidance, on the other hand, keeps the system hypervigilant and reactive.

Humans Want to Tell Their Stories

Part of being a healer, for me, is a willingness to sit with my clients and not look away or shield myself from discomfort. People who have experienced ongoing relational trauma often carry their stories alone for years, sometimes decades. It’s essentially kept a secret and forbidden because no one wanted to hear it, it felt unspeakable, it wasn’t safe.

But those stories don’t disappear. They get held in the body, in the nervous system, in inflammation, in chronic activation.

Telling the story, when done safely, is not reckless. It is often profoundly relieving. And being witnessed matters.

Narrative Exposure Therapy: When Details Are the Medicine

In Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET), we don’t avoid details. We carefully, intentionally move toward them. NET works by helping clients with multiple or complex traumas observe and integrate fragmented memories, place experiences into a chronological life narrative, add once missing context to events that were encoded in isolation.

At its core, NET is a storytelling modality.

Sensory details, emotions, and memories are revisited slowly and deliberately, with a therapist who stays present and regulated. The work isn’t about reliving trauma for its own sake, it’s about reconnecting experiences to time, meaning, and survival.

Is There Risk? Yes. And That’s True of All Trauma Work.

Any trauma or exposure-based therapy carries risk. NET is no exception. But NET practitioners operate from an important truth: if you lived through the trauma, you already survived it. Revisiting it slowly, with pacing, consent, and support allows the nervous system to form new associations. Over time, triggers become connected not just to fear, but to context, completion, survival and meaning.

Not All Trauma Processing Looks the Same

I am not suggesting NET is superior to other modalities, each modality has benefits, and no single approach is right for every person at every stage of healing.

EMDR, IFS, somatic approaches, brain spotting, each offers a different doorway into processing. Some people benefit from starting in the body, others need language and discussion as well.

Trauma Processing Is Like Working a Muscle

I often tell my clients that processing trauma is like working a muscle. If we push too hard, too fast, we risk injury. If we never add any weight, the muscle doesn’t grow. Effective trauma work sits in the middle where it’s tolerably uncomfortable. Enough activation to create change, but not so much that the system becomes flooded.

What I See Again and Again: Reclaiming Identity

Across the NET work I do with my clients, the most powerful outcome I witness isn’t just symptom reduction, it’s identity reclamation. Clients begin to experience themselves as more than what happened to them. More than victims of circumstance or harm. Their story becomes fuller, more complex, more theirs.

My point is simply that talking about trauma does not retraumatize you, avoidance does.