The brain and therefore the mind of a person who has been traumatised functions in a different way from a person who has not been traumatised. Perceptions of massage are mediated through the nervous system, and so the experience of massage may differ between the traumatised and non traumatised person. For the former, massage may not be relaxing.

Like stress, trauma has become overused and devalued. For example 'I'm traumatised, my cell phone is broken!' Even involvement in a genuinely traumatic event doesn't necessarily mean that the person will suffer trauma.

Many people recover with time, rest and the supportive presence of family and friends, without suffering ill health or ongoing mental distress. They get their minds back. But some people who've been through trauma don't recover and develop PTSD. (Post traumatic stress disorder). They don't get their minds back. Their brains and central nervous system (CNS) functioning are altered.

Simple & Complex Trauma

Babette Rothschild, a leading trauma expert, divides trauma into 2 major areas. Simple trauma refers to a single event or series of events that are not related and the effect of this on an adult whose life experience has been fairly ordinary up to that point. This person's CNS gets stuck in fight and flight.

Complex trauma refers to chronic, ongoing abuse and/or neglect that happen early in life, while the child's brain is still developing. Research shows that the usual top down pathway whereby information is transmitted from cerebral hemispheres to midbrain and hypothalamus to brain stem fails to develop and the bottom up pathway - brain stem to hypothalamus to cerebrum - is permanently switched on.

For those that suffer from complex trauma, the information that is relayed from the sensory receptors and from the proprioreceptors, stimulated by massage, arrives at the cerebral hemispheres, that part of the brain that registers meaning. However, it then fails to have any impact on the hypothalmic-pituitary-adrenal axis or the autonomic nervous system (Alan Schore).

Relaxation Can Be Undesirable

It's like the brain has got itself stuck in the general adaptation syndrome, except that in addition there are a host of dysfunctional thought processes going on that relate to the trauma. These include and inability to relax. The person suffering trauma may fear lowering their mental defenses in case something undesirable happens. There may be an inability to switch off from the event. There may be flashbacks. There may be intrusive thoughts.

Physical relaxation through massage brings mental relaxation, which, for a trauma sufferer, may be undesirable.