Beyond Words: Unlocking Communication with Non-Verbal Clients
Many trauma survivors begin therapy struggling to find words, speak, or access parts of their experience. They often feel blocked, which can make it hard to see or understand their trauma. Traditional talk therapy can have limitations in helping clients notice and release these stuck parts, especially when the trauma hasn’t been fully processed.
When someone is overwhelmed or traumatized, the body doesn’t process the experience the same way it does when calm or even just stressed. The brain’s language centers shut down, and we lose access to words. Traumatic memories bypass normal processing routes and stay stored in the body, often outside of conscious awareness and without language.
As children, many people develop protective strategies through dissociation. These parts of the self defend against overwhelming emotions or memories. This is why we often hear phrases like, “I don’t have the words,” “I don’t know,” or “I can’t remember.” Talk therapy often targets cognitive processes, but the information we need is often held somatically—in the body.
When clients say they don’t know or can’t feel, we begin by asking where that stuckness lives in the body. The body can "speak," but it does so through sensations, impulses, and emotions. Clients might say things like, “My throat feels tight,” or “It feels like my chest is heavy.” These sensations often point to areas where defenses or dissociative parts are protecting vulnerability.
As children, these protective parts helped us survive. When speaking or fighting back was too dangerous, these parts took over. As adults in therapy, clients need to feel safe enough to explore these defenses. Humans are wired to express pain, but only when it feels safe. When that expression is blocked, it can fuel chronic depression, anxiety, flashbacks, and nightmares.
Clients often need guidance to return to their bodies and reconnect with that deeper knowing. Working with sensations in the throat or chest helps clients notice how they may still be protecting themselves in situations that are now safe. This awareness can emerge even before words do. Recognizing something like a blocked throat can awaken parts of the self that have been shut down for years. From there, reflection and awareness can begin.
As safety builds, clients start to find the words they once couldn’t access. They begin to build a narrative. Where there were once blanks and blocks, there is now information. With that comes curiosity, compassion, and a clearer understanding of reality.
We can’t begin this work from the top down—with just thoughts. Starting with cognition alone often leads to more confusion and stuckness. Instead, we focus on the whole experience the client is having in the moment. That’s what can bring back life, language, and hope for trauma survivors.
Tovah Means, MS, LMFT, Owner & Therapist, Watch Hill Therapy