How Trauma Changes Identity and How EMDR Can Mend the Wounds
After trauma, many people describe feeling like they lost parts of themselves, or like they became someone they never meant to be. They may not recognize themselves, feel like something got “broken” inside of them, changed their personality, or feel as if they are only observing their life.
If this resonates with you, just know that you are not alone, and you are not at fault. Trauma has a big impact on the whole identity, aside from just mental constructs and thoughts. The nervous system, beliefs, relational patterns, and survival adaptations all play a role in our identity.
And there is hope. Healing can reshape the cracks that trauma once created. Therapies like EMDR, somatic approaches, and parts-based work support the restoration of a steady, whole sense of self. In this article, we will explore this dynamic, both the trauma-induced identity changes and the therapy-prompted identity reclaiming.
What Trauma Does to the Sense of Self
Trauma has a deep impact on the sense of self for people who have experienced it. It distorts self-perception, creates a sense of disconnection from self and others, and installs over-adaptive coping behaviors. Although all of these are logical, they are not constructive or healthy. Let’s explain each in more detail.
Trauma Distorts Self-Perception
Trauma disrupts the basic internal story of who you are. In moments that are chaotic, shaming, or give a sense of helplessness, self-beliefs about weakness, unlovability, wrong-doings, guilt, or faultiness appear. They don’t come from logic, but from the brain and the nervous system, which are looking to create a coherent story and a meaning behind those overwhelming moments.
Sometimes, self-blaming or faultiness feels more “controllable” than acknowledging and accepting that the world is unsafe, untrustworthy, or unfair; that perpetrators consciously decided to do something that would traumatize another person; or that unfair coincidences happen and leave a life-long mark that the person now needs to “bear”. Through the lens of shame, the brain is trying to create a coherent story and restore any sense of agency, as changing ourselves to fit the world is far more plausible than changing the world to fit us.
Trauma Disconnects
Many survivors describe moments of feeling detached from themselves, including feeling numb or emotionally flat, feeling disconnected from their body or the people around them, watching their life as an outside observer, or feeling like different “parts” of them take over in different situations.
These experiences are not signs of weakness, but protective mechanisms. The nervous system is designed to protect us, so in overwhelming situations, it may disconnect and self-numb. These responses then become locked in the nervous system and activate in triggering situations that may remind the person of the traumatic experience in any form.
Aside from self-dissociation, trauma survivors may also disconnect from others. Oftentimes, relational traumatic experiences shift the perception of others and the world, and impact beliefs about trust, vulnerability, security, or closeness. This is another protective mechanism, but over time, it builds feelings of loneliness, coldness, disconnection, isolation, and may increase negative self-beliefs about unworthiness.
Trauma Prompts Over-Adaptation
Trauma often forces survivors into roles that once kept them safe. They may become:
Hyper-independent, so they don’t get disappointed,
People-pleasers to avoid relational hurt or abandonment
Perfectionists to avoid ridicule or abandonment
Invisible, excessively accommodating, or small to avoid conflict, possible re-traumatization, or another similar trauma occurring
Overachieving to outrun shame
These identities form because the system has adapted for survival. And although they feel protective on one side, they are also very limiting on the other and restrict the person’s freedom to express themselves and be authentic. Over time, they fortify and build even more negative self-beliefs and feelings. It’s important to understand that those behaviors are never personal faults; they are the strategies that helped people get through what they never should have had to endure.
How Trauma Reshapes the Body and Nervous System
Many studies have proved that trauma is stored in the body, and the work toward healing includes the body. The identity of a person is expressed through posture, muscle tension, the way one holds themselves and moves, eye contact, breathing patterns, tone of voice, and their overall physical appearance.
For trauma survivors, these physical patterns formed for a reason. They are not personality; they are the body’s memory of what once happened, often created to protect and shield the person. Somatic psychotherapy research shows that trauma imprints itself not just on thoughts, but on posture, movement patterns, and the felt sense of identity. As Ogden and colleagues note, the body often “remembers” the traumatic identity long before the mind does, expressing it through collapse, tension, or shrinking. (Ogden et al, 2006)
And, the sense of who we are shifts depending on our physiological state. The body is not the only one that is giving signs or acting in a particular protective way. The nervous system does so, too, without any conscious design. When our nervous system is in hyperarousal (the so-called “fight or flight”), we might feel reactive, overly responsible, in need of control, or anxious. Conversely, when our nervous system is in hypoarousal (“freeze or shutdown”), we may feel empty, flat, detached, hopeless, or invisible. And in a fawning nervous system response, we may feel like we have to keep everyone happy and safe, adjusting and readjusting ourselves to avoid conflict or future pain. If you want to learn more about how trauma affects the nervous system, our Journal has a blog on the topic. If, on the other hand, you want to delve into how the body is affected by trauma, you can learn more about that in another one of our journals. You can access that blog through this link.
Why Survivors Internalize Harmful Beliefs
In frightening or overwhelming moments, the brain tries to answer: Why is this happening? When no clear meaning exists, the mind often turns inward to make up a “coherent action-reaction story.” So, it might start blaming itself and its actions, all in the effort to gain some sense of agency and ability to prevent the same thing from happening again.
Although protective by nature, these beliefs become part of identity not because they’re true, but because they once felt like the safest or the most “logical” explanation.
When trauma or chronic stress occurs in childhood, identity forms around the survival needs of the moment. Children don’t have the mental ability to understand context. They only look for safety, connection, and fulfilling their personal needs. And a logical explanation of why that’s not the case for a child is “I’m the problem.” As Siegel (2012) explains, when a child’s emotional world is marked by fear or disconnection, the brain often encodes identity through lenses of shame, unworthiness, or vigilance. As a way to cope with that, they may start trying to be “worthy” or “good enough” to maintain a connection, take responsibility for managing others’ emotions and behaviors, or stay small and hide away, believing that they are “too much,” “not enough,” or “fundamentally flawed.”
How Identity Can Heal
Trauma shapes identity, but therapy reshapes it back toward authenticity, wholeness, and self-compassion.
EMDR, or Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, helps survivors to process their memories and repair their identity wounds. First, EMDR targets the core memories in which harmful self-beliefs, such as powerlessness, defectiveness, or unworthiness, were formed.
As the brain reprocesses these memories, the emotional charge softens. The belief system shifts from self-blame to a more rational, realistic understanding of the situation and what happened. As Shapiro (2018) describes, EMDR helps the brain move these memories from survival-based networks into adaptive ones, allowing identity to shift from “I am broken” to “I am safe and capable.”
In later phases, EMDR reduces the physiological activation that keeps old identity patterns alive. As the nervous system settles, survivors often report feeling more present, having clearer boundaries, experiencing more confidence, and a stronger sense of inner steadiness, strength, and authenticity.
Aside from EMDR, other therapeutic modalities are highly effective in trauma work. Somatic approaches, for example, can restore the sense of self by helping clients release their protective tension, increase their healthy connection to their bodies and sensations, increase their window of tolerance of distress, and stay present in their body with a sense of safety.
Working from a different standpoint, the modality of Internal Family Systems tackles identity as a collection of “parts” that were formed to protect or guide the person. So, therapy works to help clients understand their parts and what they need, soften the “inner critic” part, help and protect the “scared parts,” and build and strengthen the grounded, compassionate “inner leader.” Identity healing, in these modalities, comes from understanding and integrating each part and its role.
Attachment therapies start from the notion that identity is formed in relationships, so it should also be healed in them. So, they use the safe, attuned therapeutic connection as a base to help the client restore their sense of worth, rebuild their trust in themselves and others, repair internal models, and experience co-regulation. Through relational repair, the client reclaims the identity that trauma once interrupted.
Final Thoughts
Trauma can change how you see yourself, feel yourself, and understand who you are. It can fracture identity, distort self-beliefs, and force you into roles that helped you survive but never allowed you to thrive.
But identity wounds are not permanent, and they can heal with the right guidance and support. Understanding the complexity of trauma, therapists at EMDR Therapy Nashville specialize in and utilize different kinds of modalities, and adjust their treatment plans based on what the client needs.
Through EMDR, somatic therapy, relational repair, and compassionate integration, you can release the narratives that trauma wrote. We invite you to schedule a call and step back into the truth of who you truly are, a worthy and capable person who deserves to live a fulfilling life guided by wish, and not fear. Maybe you can’t erase the past, but you can certainly get your future back. We are here to support you in the process.
References
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press. https://www.guilford.com/books/Eye-Movement-Desensitization-and-Reprocessing-EMDR-Therapy/Francine-Shapiro/9781462532766
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-12273-000
Siegel, D. J. (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-12726-000