African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Why Trauma Does Not Respond to Talk Therapy: A Symbolic–Somatic Account of Change

African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research March 9, 2026 Gary Ow

Despite its centrality in clinical practice, talk-based psychotherapy frequently proves insufficient for resolving trauma. This paper advances a symbolic–somatic account explaining why trauma often does not respond to verbal processing alone. Drawing on contemporary trauma theory, narrative psychology, and embodied cognition, the paper argues that traumatic experience is encoded not as...