When Stress and Trauma Show Up in the Body: What Brainspotting May Help You Explore

Living with unexplained physical symptoms can be frustrating and exhausting. You may have gone through appointments, tests, and treatments without finding an explanation that fully accounts for what you are experiencing.

When medical causes have been appropriately evaluated, it can also be worth considering how stress, trauma, and emotional experiences may influence the way your body responds.

This does not mean your symptoms are “all in your head.” Physical symptoms are real, even when their cause is not immediately clear. Research has found meaningful connections between psychological trauma, posttraumatic stress, and a range of physical symptoms, including pain and gastrointestinal and cardiopulmonary complaints.

Brainspotting therapy in Oklahoma City offers one way to explore the emotional experiences and patterns that may be connected to what you are experiencing.

The Connection Between Trauma and Physical Symptoms

Your brain and body are constantly communicating. Stress can affect sleep, muscle tension, energy, pain sensitivity, digestion, and other aspects of physical functioning.

Research supports a relationship between psychological trauma and what researchers describe as functional somatic syndromes. These include conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic widespread pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, and temporomandibular disorder.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 71 studies found that people who reported exposure to psychological trauma were about 2.7 times more likely to have a functional somatic syndrome than comparison groups. The researchers noted, however, that the exact mechanisms behind this relationship are still not fully understood. (Afari et al., 2014)

This does not mean that trauma causes every unexplained physical symptom. These conditions are complex and can have multiple contributing factors.

It does suggest that psychological experiences and physical symptoms can be connected in ways that may not be obvious through standard medical testing.

Physical Symptoms Are Not Imaginary

One of the most frustrating parts of unexplained symptoms is being told that nothing is wrong simply because a test did not reveal a clear physical explanation.

A normal test does not mean you imagined what you felt.

Research has found that people with PTSD or significant posttraumatic stress symptoms report more frequent and severe physical health symptoms. A meta-analysis of 62 studies found associations between PTSD symptoms and greater frequency and severity of pain, gastrointestinal complaints, and cardiopulmonary symptoms, as well as poorer overall physical health. (Pacella et al., 2013)

Researchers have also identified several possible pathways connecting PTSD with physical health, including changes involving the stress-response system, the sympathetic nervous system, inflammation, behavior, and other biological and psychosocial processes. (Cohen et al., 2019)

The important point is not that physical symptoms are psychological.

It is that physical and emotional experiences can influence one another.

Trauma and Pain Can Overlap

The relationship between trauma and chronic pain has received increasing attention in research.

A systematic review of 40 studies found a consistent association between chronic pain and PTSD, with PTSD occurring at higher rates among people experiencing chronic pain than in the general population. (Siqveland et al., 2017)

More recent research has begun examining whether psychological treatments that address trauma can also affect pain. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of 30 randomized trials involving more than 3,200 participants found low-quality evidence that trauma-focused treatments may improve PTSD symptoms and produce a small reduction in pain intensity among people with chronic pain and PTSD. The authors emphasized that most of the available studies had methodological limitations and that more rigorous research is needed. (Rosenbloom et al., 2026)

This is an important distinction.

The research supports exploring the relationship between trauma, stress, and physical symptoms. It does not establish Brainspotting as a treatment for chronic pain, fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue.

Why Understanding Is Sometimes Not Enough

You may already understand that stress affects you.

You may even know exactly where some of your stress comes from.

And yet, knowing something intellectually does not always change how you feel.

You can understand that you are safe while still feeling tense. You can know that an experience happened years ago while noticing that your body continues to react when something reminds you of it.

This is one reason some people benefit from approaches that involve more than talking and analyzing.

How Brainspotting Can Help You Explore the Mind-Body Connection

Brainspotting is a focused therapy approach that uses your visual field and your internal experience to help you access and process emotionally charged material.

Rather than requiring you to explain everything in words, Brainspotting gives attention to what you notice in your body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations while focusing on a particular point in your visual field.

The goal is not to assume that a physical symptom has an emotional cause.

It is also not to diagnose or treat an unexplained medical condition.

Instead, the process can give you an opportunity to explore whether there are unresolved emotional experiences, stress responses, or patterns that may be relevant to what you are experiencing.

You Do Not Have to Choose Between Physical and Emotional Explanations

Your physical and emotional experiences do not exist in completely separate systems.

You can take your physical symptoms seriously and explore whether stress or past experiences may be affecting how you feel.

If you are experiencing persistent or unexplained physical symptoms, appropriate medical evaluation remains important. Brainspotting is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment.

But if you have also noticed a connection between your symptoms and stress, difficult experiences, or emotional activation, therapy may give you another place to explore that connection.

Brainspotting therapy in Oklahoma City can be part of that exploration, not by assuming what your symptoms mean, but by becoming curious about the relationship between your mind, body, and experiences.

References

Afari, N., Ahumada, S. M., Wright, L. J., Mostoufi, S., Golnari, G., Reis, V., & Cuneo, J. G. (2014). Psychological trauma and functional somatic syndromes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychosomatic Medicine, 76(1), 2–11. 

Cohen, B. E., Edmondson, D., & Kronish, I. M. (2019). State of the art review: Depression, stress, anxiety, and cardiovascular disease. American Journal of Hypertension, 32(4), 321–330. 

Pacella, M. L., Hruska, B., & Delahanty, D. L. (2013). The physical health consequences of PTSD and PTSD symptoms: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 27(1), 33–46.

Rosenbloom, B. N., Curtis, K., Williams, C., et al. (2026). Is treating both chronic pain and trauma-related symptoms at the same time effective? A systematic review and meta-analysis of psychological interventions. Pain, 167(7), e207–e221. 

Siqveland, J., Hussain, A., Lindstrøm, J. C., Ruud, T., & Hauff, E. (2017). Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in persons with chronic pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8, 164.