Nobody talks about it. Yet every day, people leave an operating theatre, a course of anaesthesia, or a hospital stay carrying something more than stitches: an invisible imprint on their nervous system.<\/p>\n
A medical procedure \u2014 surgery, general anaesthesia, emergency hospitalisation \u2014 can leave trauma in the nervous system: the body undergoes an intense physical assault without being able to flee or defend itself, and this incomplete survival response can remain stuck long after physical recovery.<\/p>\n
If since your procedure you have been sleeping poorly, feeling strangely disconnected from your body, avoiding hospitals or white coats, or no longer quite recognising yourself \u2014 what you are experiencing has a name. It is medical trauma. And it is possible to recover.<\/p>\n
Somatic Experiencing was born from the observation of a medical trauma. In 1969, during a session with a young woman named Nancy, Peter Levine \u2014 the future founder of Somatic Experiencing \u2014 experienced the founding moment of his entire career. Without warning, Nancy froze, her pulse racing, as she relived the moments of a traumatic surgical procedure from her childhood \u2014 including being strapped down and anaesthetised with ether.<\/p>\n
It was from this experience that Levine understood something essential: trauma is not in the event itself, but in the nervous system's response to that event. And medical procedures \u2014 however necessary \u2014 can trigger exactly this response.<\/p>\n
During general anaesthesia or a surgical procedure, the body is placed in a radically paradoxical situation: it undergoes intense physical aggression \u2014 incisions, tissue manipulation, total immobilisation \u2014 without being able to flee, defend itself, or even cry out.<\/p>\n
The nervous system registers this as an overwhelming threat and activates survival responses \u2014 fight, flight, or freeze. If this energy cannot complete itself, it remains \"frozen\", manifesting later as persistent symptoms: chronic tension, hypervigilance, unexplained pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, anxiety in medical environments, or a sense of disconnection from physical sensations.<\/p>\n
Dr. Marcus Kurek, a physician, writes in an article published by the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute: \"I never realized that those experiences were traumatic and had shaped much of my life.\" He had undergone numerous operations under ether anaesthesia in childhood, including the loss of an eye at age four.<\/p>\n
This is not a question of fragility. It is biology.<\/p>\n
Not all procedures are experienced in the same way, but certain situations are particularly likely to cause trauma:<\/p>\n
General anaesthesia<\/strong> plunges the body into an altered state of consciousness where the usual regulatory mechanisms are suspended. The autonomic nervous system continues to react to surgical stimuli \u2014 it records, even if the patient has no conscious memory of it.<\/p>\n Unprepared emergencies and hospitalisations<\/strong> \u2014 accidents, heart attacks, emergency procedures \u2014 combine the initial state of shock with the hospital environment (noise, lights, pain, separation from loved ones) in an experience that is often overwhelming. This is not rare: a meta-analysis of 48 studies found that roughly one in five people who survive an intensive care stay develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n Repeated or prolonged procedures<\/strong> \u2014 cancers, chronic illnesses, intensive care \u2014 expose the nervous system to cumulative stress that can exceed its adaptive capacity.<\/p>\n Invasive procedures experienced without sufficient support<\/strong> \u2014 colonoscopies, biopsies, punctures \u2014 where the person is conscious but immobilised, without any possibility of reacting.<\/p>\n SE does not ask you to recount the operation in detail. It does not relive the event. It works with what the body feels now<\/em> \u2014 tensions, areas of numbness, micro-movements \u2014 to allow the nervous system to complete the survival responses that were interrupted on the operating table.<\/p>\n SE facilitates the safe completion of these responses without asking clients to relive traumatic memories in detail. Gradually, the nervous system learns that the threat has passed. That the body can feel safe again.<\/p>\n A few years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. What followed \u2014 surgery under general anaesthesia, then chemotherapy \u2014 was traumatic in two very different ways.<\/p>\n The anaesthesia left something indescribable in my body: the sensation of having been absent from myself while my body was being operated on \u2014 present without being present, unable to defend myself, to react, to say stop. A loss of continuity and sovereignty over myself that words can barely describe.<\/p>\n The chemotherapy was a slow, repeated assault \u2014 my body subjected, session after session, to something toxic that was necessary for its survival. Two experiences, two types of imprint on the nervous system.<\/p>\n It was ten sessions of Somatic Experiencing that allowed me to emerge from this. Not to forget, but to find a nervous system that is no longer in a state of permanent alert. A body that feels liveable again.<\/p>\n This is also why I now support people who have been through difficult medical procedures \u2014 because I know, from the inside, what it leaves behind.<\/p>\n If you are reading this article because you recognise something in what you have just read \u2014 a procedure that hasn't passed, an anaesthesia you are still carrying something from \u2014 know that it is not in your head. Your body did what it had to do to survive. And there is a path to recovery.<\/p>\n Would you like to know more or book an appointment? Contact me here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nHow Somatic Experiencing helps<\/h2>\n
What I have been through myself<\/h2>\n
A word about your own experience<\/h2>\n
Sources<\/h2>\n
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