Craniosacral Therapy and Long Covid PTSD

(More and more I am seeing clients recovering from Covid and will be sharing insights here)

Even if we have a so-called mild case of Covid, and are able to avoid hospitalization and acute interventions, the virus can still hit the system like a car crash. I say this from personal and professional experience: on the cellular level, the impact of Covid is more like an assaultive trauma than the flu. Our organs and immune system have an intelligence, but that intelligence has never seen anything like the virus before and it reacts by ramping up the adrenaline stress response. Many people speak of having PTSD after recovering, even from mild cases, an dthat makes perfect sense when you consider the stress response Covid evokes.

What are the symptoms of longcovid PTSD? Terror, first off. And with that, the body’s innate reaction to terror — to freeze. Because of the parasympathetic freeze, shock can then get stuck in the tissues. Anxiety, as well. Depression. A sense of not being oneself. Basically all the classical PTSD symptoms can present and these are in addition to the myriad and profound ways the virus impacts the organ systems — brain fog, lung scarring, digestive issues, heartbeat regulation…

BCT is a powerful way to heal lingering PTSD. Unlike talk therapy, BCT directly works with the tissues and organs, addressing the PTSD right where it is being held. Conversely, unlike other kinds of bodywork such as massage or acupuncture, BCT also uses language and awareness to intimately name and process traumatic emotional and psychological states.

And we can heal. COVID is so new, so beyond our system’s habitual territory, and it can feel so terrifying — but it can heal.

And when PTSD heals from the body, deep healing can actualize on other levels — scar tissue can resolve, breathing can open, fog can clear.