Arielle Schwartz

@arielle-schwartz · 13 positions · On ppll ↗

Clinical psychologist, EMDR consultant and yoga teacher in Boulder, Colorado. Author of The Complex PTSD Workbook and EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology; writes on trauma, attachment and the nervous system.

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What Arielle Schwartz says most about

Trauma 7

The body is not an archive of trauma: what feels like a memory stored in the hips or the jaw is a mind-body feedback loop, and the loop is what therapy interrupts.
"The body keeps the score" is only half the story, and the missing half matters: a body described only as a harbinger of the past is a body people learn to avoid.

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Polyvagal theory 3

Regulation must precede reflection: cognitive insight fails while a nervous system is in defensive dominance.
Polyvagal theory survives the 2026 "untenable" critique: what the critics contested was mechanism and evolutionary framing, not the clinical proposition.

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Psychotherapy 3

The body is not an archive of trauma: what feels like a memory stored in the hips or the jaw is a mind-body feedback loop, and the loop is what therapy interrupts.
How EMDR works is still being discovered, and the proposed mechanisms are not mutually exclusive.

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EMDR 2

With complex trauma, EMDR needs resource development and careful pacing so clients feel safe in the present.
How EMDR works is still being discovered, and the proposed mechanisms are not mutually exclusive.

See all 2