06/01/2026
⚠️ A caution about interpreting this article concretely: This could unintentionally be misconstrued as another reinforcement to dismiss the body's signals as the past playing in the present. Trauma survivors are told this so often that they learn to tune out their body's signals, which can actually decrease attunement, embodiment, and trust in their own experience while increasing susceptibility to danger. 🚨If every alarm is reduced to a prediction error, we risk losing contact with one of our most important sources of wisdom and protection.
AND....
This thought-provoking article invites us to reconsider perspectives about one of the most influential metaphors in trauma treatment. The authors explore how "The body does not keep the score; the brain keeps predicting it."
🤔 I THINK THERE IS A MIDDLE GROUND.
✅️ I would add: The body may not keep score, but it does store memory, Kukushkin (2024) found vast evidence that even "kidney and nerve tissue cells learn and make memories in ways similar to neurons." Body, organ, and cellular tissue memory exist outside of a vacuum, especially if chronic or ongoing threats are present, AND the brain will keep predicting it.
When trauma becomes chronic, the nervous system can become organized around it. This score is no longer being kept in one place. It is continuously being co-authored.
Co-authoring inspired by past experiences and remaining true to its present experience.
When the brain remains actively scoring threat and predicting danger (consciously or unconsciously), the body responds to what is encoded and remains activated. This does not mean that once the brain may shift from predicting, the body doesn't have long term impacts. Long-term impacts and medical issues remain real and valid.
The brain and body integrate what may have been necessary for survival in those moments but could not be completed, and for many in current environments/situations these moments are still occurring in the present. This does not diminish the reality of present or past suffering, nor does it suggest confusion between the two. It simply means that self-protection is reasonable and the body/brain can metabolize traumatic encoding.
Rather than viewing trauma as something permanently stored within us, the authors offer a perspective that aligns with what I have witnessed both clinically and through my own post-traumatic growth work. Trauma-driven predictions, whether conscious or unconscious, reinforce the body's self-protective responses, increase severity, and compound long-term physiological/neurological medical impacts.
Healing becomes profound when it is holistic. When interrupted somatic experiences can be safely completed while restoring the brain's flexibility, adaptability, and capacity for safety, agency, and possibility. Through meaningful therapeutic relationships and integrative approaches, the body, brain, and soul can process experience, create new meaning, and move beyond prediction into transformation.
The Body Does Not Keep the Score: Trauma, Predictive Coding, and the Restoration of Metastability By Steven Kotler, Michael Mannino, Glenn Fox, Karl Friston ...
