Why Talking About Trauma Isn’t the Same as Processing It
Photo by Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash
Photo Description: Blog header reading “Why Talking About Trauma Isn’t the Same as Processing It” by Kandace Ledergerber, EMDR therapist in Phoenix, over ocean background.
You’ve told the story before. Your story. A story that holds a lot of pain and history all intertwined.
You can explain what happened. You understand how it shaped you. You can even identify the patterns and negative thoughts that came from it.
And yet…
Your body still reacts when that familiar trigger pops up.
Your shoulders tighten in response.
Your thoughts go into a downward spiral.
You freeze in moments that don’t seem “that big of a deal.”
If that’s you, I’m here to say that you’re not broken.
You may simply be discovering the difference between talking about trauma and processing trauma. And even to this day, in my work providing EMDR Therapy Phoenix, it’s a distinction I hear echoed frequently in conversations with clients.
Insight Is Powerful, But It Does Have Its Limits
Traditional talk therapy is an incredibly valuable tool. It can help you:
Name what happened
Build language around your experience and gain insight
Recognize patterns
Develop positive coping tools
Insight matters! And talk therapy gives that to many people.
But here’s the thing, trauma doesn't just live in our thoughts. It also actively lives in our nervous system.
And, albeit often frustrating, the nervous system does not respond to logic alone.
If you’ve ever wondered why trauma triggers seem to hijack your system before you can think clearly, it’s often because of how the nervous system responds to perceived threat.
Trauma Is Stored Differently in the Brain
When something overwhelming happens, whether it is a big trauma or a repeated stressor, the brain does not always file it away like a completed memory.
Instead of recognizing it as something that happened and is now over, trauma (or repeated stressors) can remain “unprocessed”, much like a tab left open in the background on your computer.
When our brain cannot process that memory or memories, we carry them with us. In the form of:
Body sensations
Emotional charge
Negative beliefs about yourself or the world around you
Survival responses like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn
And, sometimes that survival response looks less like panic and more like shutdown or dissociation, which many people don’t even recognize as a trauma response.
This is why that frustrating thought of “I know I’m safe now, why does this still bother me like this?” can pop in from time to time.
Your mind knows you are safe logically but your body doesn’t fully believe it yet.
Why Insight Alone Can Feel Frustrating
Many high-functioning, thoughtful adults come into therapy saying, “I understand why I do this. I know where it started. But, I just can’t stop.”
That’s because understanding and nervous system integration are two different processes.
You can logically know:
You are not too much.
You are not responsible for everyone.
You are safe now.
This is often the voice of the inner critic doing its best to keep you safe by staying hyper-aware and hyper-responsible.
But if your body learned something different years ago, that learning needs to be processed and not just analyzed.
Talking Uses The Thinking Brain - Processing Integrates
When we talk through trauma stories, some will find it relieving to be able to share details and feel liberated at talking through what happened to them. However, if we leave the body out of this conversation, we do our brains and bodies a disservice.
Talk therapy is what is referred to as a top-down approach, using logic and reasoning to gain insight and direction surrounding our emotions, ourselves, and the world around us.
When trauma survivors only utilize talk therapy, the body can get left behind.
Bottom-up approaches to therapy (like EMDR Therapy) help us look at what’s going on within the body and learn how to regulate, which is especially important when the amygdala is firing on all cylinders and claiming there is danger ahead.
Processing trauma helps the brain refile the memory so it no longer carries the same charge in the body or activates a heavy dose of emotion.
In EMDR therapy, we’re not just recounting events and discussing them. We’re helping the brain:
Digest what was overwhelming
Update outdated beliefs
Release stored nervous system activation
Create adaptive resolution
It’s less about rehashing the past and more about allowing the nervous system to complete what got stuck in the first place because we were too busy trying to survive.
How EMDR Therapy in Phoenix Helps You Move From Insight to Integration
Photo by Vardan Papikyan on Unsplash
Photo Description: Hands holding two puzzle pieces about to connect, representing trauma processing and integration through EMDR therapy in Phoenix.
In EMDR Therapy, we use bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess memories in a way that reduces emotional charge and shifts core beliefs. The bilateral was modeled after what happens in REM sleep, where the brain works on emotional processing from the day, creating new neural connections and memory consolidation (our brains are so cool!)
EMDR is structured and paced for you as an individual, where a good chunk of it is learning how to regulate the nervous system and prepare for trauma reprocessing.
And what’s great is that you do not have to relive everything in vivid detail.
Over time, with re-processing, clients often notice:
The memory feels further away, or like “just another memory.”
Triggers don’t feel like a full-blown tsunami.
The body responds differently to the memory.
Old beliefs lose their grip and can shift to something more accurate.
That’s processing.
That’s integration.
That’s moving out of trauma.
You Don’t Have to Stay Playing on Auto Loop
If you’ve been talking about a trauma or stressful time in your life for years and it still feels raw, that doesn’t mean therapy failed you (or that you failed therapy).
It may just mean your nervous system is ready for a different approach.
If you’re looking for EMDR Therapy Phoenix, Tempe, or virtually across Arizona, you can book a free consult to learn more about how I approach this work and see if we might be a good fit.
About Kandace Ledergerber, LPC/LMHC
Photo Description: Kandace Ledergerber, trauma therapist in Phoenix offering EMDR Therapy - smiling in a sunflower field, representing growth and healing.
Kandace Ledergerber (she/her) is a Certified EMDR Therapist, providing EMDR Therapy sessions here in Phoenix and virtually across Arizona. She specializes in helping adults heal from trauma, anxiety, perfectionism, and nervous system dysregulation through EMDR therapy and compassionate, collaborative care.
She is passionate about work that goes beyond traditional talk therapy, supporting people in processing trauma held in the body so they can feel more grounded, connected, and at home within themselves. Kandace offers both weekly EMDR therapy and EMDR Intensives for clients seeking deeper, focused support.
TL;DR
Talking about trauma can build insight.
Processing trauma changes how it lives in your nervous system.
EMDR therapy helps the brain integrate overwhelming experiences so they no longer feel present-day urgent.
