Trauma Is an Injury That Can Heal — Here’s How to Choose the Right Help
If you remember nothing else from this post, remember this: trauma is an injury that can heal. Not metaphorically—functionally. The same body that mends bones, closes wounds, and clears infections can also resolve trauma when given the right conditions and the right protocol.
I’ve broken more bones than I care to count. Every one of them healed with a clear plan: assess, set the fracture, stabilize, re-assess, and rehabilitate to full function. No one told me I had a 'lifelong mobility disorder.' They said, 'You’ve got an injury. Here’s how we heal it.'
We should treat psychological injury with the same clarity.
Two Questions to Ask Any Clinician (Before You Start)
1. Do you believe trauma is an injury that can heal—unequivocally?
The answer must be yes. Your body and brain are exquisitely designed to adapt, repair, and reorganize. Neuroplasticity is not a theory—it’s a capability. If a provider hesitates here, keep looking.
2. Have you actually healed someone’s trauma—and how did you measure it?
A confident 'yes,' backed by measurement, matters. In physical medicine, we use X-rays and MRIs. In trauma work, we use validated psychometric assessments pre- and post-intervention. You deserve to see objective change, not just 'I feel a bit better.' Ask what instrument they use and when they administer it.
Evidence-Based vs. Evidence-Proven (The Difference You Can Feel)
There’s a crucial distinction I teach my coaches:
• Evidence-based means a tool or technique showed positive effects at some point in the past in a study cohort. That’s fine—but it can include slow protocols with modest efficacy and high recurrence.
• Evidence-proven means your outcomes are measured, now, with validated assessments—so we can say you’re actually healed rather than merely improved.
If a method cites results like '40–50% efficacy with ~80% recurrence,' it may be 'evidence-based,' but that’s not the bar we’re aiming for. You want protocols consistently reporting >90% success with no recurrence, and you want your own scores to reflect that change.
The Neuroscience That Makes the Difference: Visual-Spatial Tasking (VST)
Across the most effective trauma interventions I’ve observed and practiced, there’s a common denominator: visual-spatial tasking of short-term working memory. In simple terms, VST strategically engages the brain’s limited working-memory bandwidth while re-processing the traumatic imprint. When done correctly, it weakens the old stimulus-to-response 'superhighway' and allows new, regulated pathways to form.
Why does this matter? Because of Hebb’s rule—'neurons that fire together, wire together.' If your nervous system repeatedly pairs a trigger (say, the sight of a blue SUV) with a panic state, that pathway becomes dominant. Skillful VST-based protocols interrupt that pairing and help the brain rewire, so the trigger loses its grip. The result: relief that lasts—without medication, hallucinogens, or invasive procedures.
What 'Good' Looks Like in Trauma Care
When you’re vetting a clinician or coach, look for the following:
• Clear stance: 'Trauma is an injury that can heal.'
• Proven experience: They can say, 'Yes, I have healed trauma,' and show you how they measure it.
• Pre-/post-measurement: Use of validated assessments to establish your baseline and your completion score.
• Mechanism clarity: They can explain how their method works (e.g., VST engaging working memory to reorganize traumatic encoding).
• Time-bound plan: Results in weeks, not months or years. A realistic range is 3–5 sessions of ~90 minutes with between-session stabilization.
• Recurrence vigilance: Follow-ups to verify that healing holds in real life.
If you hear, 'We’ll talk through it for a year and see,' or 'You’ll likely manage symptoms long-term,' that’s not an injury-to-recovery model—that’s maintenance care.
Tenacity, Resilience, and the Brain You’re Building
There’s a brain region that strengthens when you do hard things you don’t want to do. Think of it as the neural muscle of tenacity. Each time you face what you’d rather avoid—booking the consult, doing the session, practicing the tools—you grow the circuitry of resilience. Pair that with Hebbian learning and you’ll understand why repeated, successful reps of regulated responding become your new default.
Trauma once built a fast lane from trigger → collapse. With the right protocol and your consistent reps, you’re building a faster lane from challenge → capacity. That’s how freedom becomes familiar.
For Coaches and Clinicians: Why We Train Trauma Competence
We train coaches in NLP-informed, neuroscience-grounded approaches because the reality is unavoidable: sooner or later, your clients’ stuck states intersect with trauma. Prevalence is high, and ethically serving clients means being able to recognize trauma patterns and use protocols that resolve them—not just soothe them.
Our next Clinical Applications of NLP & Neuroscience for Healing cohort begins September 13. If you’re a coach or clinician who wants to help clients get real, measured outcomes, this is your invitation. We’ll cover assessment, protocol delivery, stabilization, and documentation—so you can stand behind your results with confidence.
What to Do Next (If You or Your Client Is Stuck)
1) Ask the two questions: “Do you believe trauma is an injury that can heal?” and “Have you healed trauma—and how did you measure it?”
2) Insist on metrics: Get a pre-assessment now and a post-assessment upon completion.
3) Choose mechanisms that work: Prioritize interventions that employ visual-spatial tasking and demonstrate >90% success with no recurrence.
4) Expect a short runway: Weeks, not years.
5) Commit to the reps: Healing is accelerated by the disciplined, repeated practice of regulated responses. That’s how you lock in the change.
Trauma may be the injury. Tenacity—guided by neuroscience—is the cure.
Call to Action
If this message resonates with you—or with someone you care about—join me every Wednesday at 12 PM ET for INSPYRD Talks, where we dismantle outdated ideas about trauma and explore modern, evidence-based paths to healing.
Follow me on LinkedIn | Subscribe on YouTube (@allen.kanerva) | Learn more at inspyrd.com
Because trauma is an injury that can heal—and your tenacity is the medicine.
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Allen Kanerva, founder of INSPYRD Inc., for weekly insights on neuroscience-based trauma healing, NLP applications, and the proof that trauma is an injury that can heal.
