Veterans, Trauma, and the Body: What New Research Tells Us

Military trauma is among the most studied and least adequately treated forms of PTSD. Despite decades of research and the development of gold-standard protocols including Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy, remission rates remain low and dropout rates remain high. A significant proportion of veterans complete treatment and still carry the weight of their trauma in their bodies, their relationships, and their daily functioning.

What the 2025 Research Found

A 2025 randomized controlled trial published in Psychology and Psychotherapy compared Somatic Experiencing to Prolonged Exposure therapy — the current clinical gold standard for PTSD — in a veteran population. Thirty participants from the trial were interviewed about their experiences in therapy. The researchers used a descriptive phenomenological analysis to understand not just whether the treatments worked, but how they worked — from the inside.

Both treatments produced meaningful results. But participants who received Somatic Experiencing described something qualitatively different: a felt sense of safety in the body that they had not experienced through the cognitive approaches they had previously tried. They described a shift not just in how they thought about their trauma, but in how they inhabited their own physical experience.

Why This Matters Beyond Veterans

This research was conducted with veterans, but its implications extend to anyone carrying trauma from prolonged stress, abuse, assault, accidents, or medical events. The finding that body-based approaches can reach something that cognitive approaches cannot is not unique to military trauma. It reflects something fundamental about how trauma is stored and how healing occurs.

The nervous system does not distinguish between the source of a threat — only its intensity and its interruption. Whether the trauma originated in combat, childhood, a relationship, or an accident, the body's response follows the same basic pattern. And the path to healing follows the same basic direction: toward safety in the body, not just safety in the narrative.

The Clinical Implication

The research points toward an important and emerging consensus in trauma treatment: specialization matters. The therapist's depth of expertise in a specific method — their ability to stay with the body's process, to track subtle shifts in sensation and activation — is as important as the method itself. Integration without specialization, the study suggests, may dilute what makes each approach powerful.

In my practice, I work with a somatic approach not because it is the only way to heal, but because it is the most direct path I have found to the level where trauma actually lives — and where real healing becomes possible.