Transforming Trauma: Episode 174

What if trauma wasn’t just a wound to be managed, but a powerful gateway to transformation? This episode of Transforming Trauma delves into that important idea, unpacking how implicit memory and the biology of healing can reshape our lives from the inside out. The conversation moves beyond theory and into the lived experiences, practical strategies, and emerging research that illuminate the path from survival to embodied selfhood.

On this episode, host Emily Ruth sits down with internationally recognized trauma expert Dr. Abi Blakeslee, founder of Implicit Psychotherapy and a leader in somatic psychology. Together they explore how trauma is stored, how implicit memory shapes our reactions and healing, and what it truly means to transform trauma rather than stay captive to it. Dr. Blakeslee guides listeners through the different branches of implicit memory, explains how somatic therapies engage these unconscious networks, and shares actionable strategies for helping clients encode new, empowering experiences in their nervous systems.

Dr. Abi Blakeslee is known for her integrative approach, weaving together Somatic Experiencing, psychodynamic therapy, attachment principles, and cutting-edge clinical research. With advanced training under Dr. Peter Levine and original research with mentors like Dr. Daniel Siegel, Dr. Blakeslee specializes in implicit memory’s role in trauma recovery. As a teacher and consultant, she brings a compassionate, curious lens to the complexities of trauma, working with individuals and therapists around the globe.

One of Dr. Blakeslee’s core messages is that “trauma can be a gateway for transformation.” She explains that implicit memories—“non-consciously encoded memory, and you don’t realize you’re remembering it when you’re recalling it”—are the hidden drivers of trauma responses and healing alike. Drawing from her research and clinical experience, she describes procedural and associative memory at work in habitual movements, and how the process of new learning can be harnessed to give the nervous system a new autonomic template. She highlights interoception as a pathway for reconnecting with bodily sensation, how individuals can get into “contact with the shifting landscape of your sensory world.”

Throughout the discussion, Dr. Blakeslee offers rich insights into how therapists can help clients safely access and transform implicit memories, especially by working with anticipation and fear arousal states. She grounds these neuroscience concepts in real-life examples, whether it’s facilitating new boundary experiences in the present or guiding clients toward their “essential self.” Dr. Blakeslee emphasizes that “the connection to [self] is more diminished” when survival patterns take over, but with patient, embodied attention, the wellspring of agency and selfhood opens from within.

Listeners will walk away with a renewed understanding of how implicit memory and somatic practices can foster profound change, and a reminder that transformation is as much about expanding into our essential nature as it is about resolving the past. Dr. Blakeslee’s approach is deeply integrative way of seeing, feeling, and relating that therapists and clients alike can adapt.

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Dr. Abi Blakeslee for sharing her depth of research, practical wisdom, and contagious passion for trauma recovery. Her commitment to healing reminds us that new possibilities are always within reach—both in our bodies and our lives.