How NeuroAffective Touch Heals Dissociation: A Neuroscience Approach to Somatic Fragmentation
Discover how NeuroAffective Touch supports healing from dissociation, somatic fragmentation, and unresolved trauma by integrating body-based safety, nervous system repair, and relational regulation.
How NeuroAffective Touch Heals Dissociation: A Neuroscience Approach to Somatic Fragmentation
Dissociation can feel confusing, frightening, and profoundly isolating. Many people describe it as “being here but not here,” “watching life from the outside,” or “feeling disconnected from my body.” For others, it shows up as numbness, zoning out, emotional deadness, or losing time. These experiences are not a sign of weakness. They are the nervous system’s attempt to survive overwhelming experiences that the body could not process at the time.
But dissociation does not only affect thoughts. It affects the body. It fragments physical sensations, emotional presence, and a core sense of self. Trauma disrupts the relationship between mind, body, and identity, leaving people feeling scattered, unsafe, or disconnected inside their own skin.
This is where NeuroAffective Touch becomes uniquely powerful. Unlike talk therapy alone, which often cannot reach the implicit memory systems where trauma is stored, NeuroAffective Touch works directly with the nervous system to restore safety, integration, and embodied presence.
At Embodied Wellness and Recovery, NeuroAffective Touch is integrated into our trauma-informed approach to help clients restore connection, wholeness, and self-regulation from the inside out.
What Is NeuroAffective Touch?
NeuroAffective Touch is a somatic, relational, hands-on therapeutic modality developed by Dr. Aline LaPierre. It is grounded in developmental neuroscience, attachment theory, and polyvagal principles. The method uses skilled, respectful, attuned touch to regulate the nervous system and repair early attachment injuries.
Unlike massage or bodywork, NeuroAffective Touch focuses on emotional and relational development. The touch is slow, intentional, and supportive. It offers the body an experience of co-regulation and safety that may have been missing during crucial early periods of life.
NeuroAffective Touch communicates safety where words alone cannot.
Why Trauma Creates Dissociation and Fragmentation
Trauma overwhelms the brain’s capacity to regulate emotional and physiological states. When the nervous system cannot escape, fight, or seek safety, it may default to dissociation.
Dissociation serves as a biological protective mechanism by:
— Numbing overwhelming sensations
— Disconnecting from emotional pain
— Distancing from the environment
— Reducing awareness to tolerate threat
Although dissociation can protect a person in the moment, chronic dissociation impairs daily functioning. It disrupts:
— Emotional regulation
— Stable sense of self
— Physical presence
— Connection with others
— Ability to feel safe
— Capacity for intimacy
Many people with early trauma describe feeling “cut off” from their bodies or “floating through life.”
NeuroAffective Touch offers a pathway back.
The Neuroscience Behind Somatic Fragmentation
Somatic fragmentation occurs when the nervous system organizes itself around survival rather than connection. Trauma disrupts integration in several key areas:
1. The Polyvagal System
Trauma often forces the body into dorsal vagal shutdown, leading to numbness, collapse, and disconnection.
2. The Amygdala and Limbic System
Overactivation keeps the body on alert, leading to hypervigilance and emotional overwhelm.
3. The Prefrontal Cortex
Trauma reduces access to executive functioning, making grounding and presence difficult.
4. Implicit Memory Networks
Trauma is stored nonverbally in the body, not in words. These memories must be processed through sensation, movement, and relational attunement.
5. Attachment Pathways
Early relational trauma creates disrupted internal maps that shape emotional regulation, touch tolerance, and relational safety.
NeuroAffective Touch specifically targets these systems through the language of the body.
How NeuroAffective Touch Helps Heal Dissociation
NeuroAffective Touch supports dissociation recovery by working directly with the nervous system and the body’s relational wiring.
1. It Restores Safety Through Co-Regulation
Trauma often occurs without the presence of a supportive adult. Attuned touch gives the body an experience it may never have received: a safe, nurturing, regulated presence.
2. It Reconnects the Body and Mind
Touch helps reintegrate sensory, emotional, and physical awareness. Clients begin noticing sensations they previously had no access to.
3. It Heals Developmental Attachment Injuries
Gentle touch communicates attunement, presence, and care, which support the repair of early relational wounds.
4. It Supports Emotional Regulation
Slow, intentional touch stimulates the ventral vagal system, promoting calmness and resilience.
5. It Rewrites Implicit Memory
Trauma stored in the body is accessed and reorganized through therapeutic touch and relational presence.
6. It Reduces Shame and Self-Blame
The experience of being cared for at a nervous system level counters deep shame narratives that trauma often leaves behind.
7. It Supports Integration and Wholeness
Clients often describe feeling “more in their body,” “more real,” or “able to feel again.”
What a Session Looks Like
NeuroAffective Touch sessions are gentle, slow, and deeply collaborative. Clients remain fully clothed. Touch may be applied to areas associated with developmental attachment, such as the upper back, arms, hands, pelvis, or feet.
Sessions may include:
— Grounding and sensory tracking
— Guided breath awareness
— Hands-on support to specific regions of the body
— Relational attunement and co-regulation
— Verbal reflection to integrate physical experiences
The goal is always safety, choice, and honoring the client’s pace.
Who Can Benefit from NeuroAffective Touch?
Individuals experiencing:
— Dissociation
— Somatic numbness
— Emotional shutdown
— Chronic freeze
— Complex PTSD
— Developmental trauma
— Attachment wounds
— Difficulty with embodied presence
— Fragmentation or inner disconnection
— Difficulty tolerating emotional closeness
Often find NeuroAffective Touch deeply transformative.
How NeuroAffective Touch Fits into Trauma Treatment at Embodied Wellness and Recovery
At Embodied Wellness and Recovery, NeuroAffective Touch is integrated with:
— EMDR therapy
— Attachment-focused EMDR
— Somatic Experiencing
— IFS and parts work
— Polyvagal-informed therapy
— Mindfulness and breath-based regulation
— Trauma-informed relational psychotherapy
This integrative approach helps clients rebuild safety, connection, and emotional resilience at both a cognitive and cellular level.
Trauma may fracture the body’s sense of wholeness, but the nervous system is capable of profound repair when given the right conditions.
A Pathway Back to Yourself
Dissociation and somatic fragmentation are not signs of weakness. They are evidence of the body’s incredible ability to survive. NeuroAffective Touch offers a compassionate, neuroscience-informed pathway to reconnect with your body, restore emotional presence, and rebuild inner coherence.
With attuned support, the body can learn to feel safe again. The mind can return home to the body. And the fragmented parts can integrate into a grounded, connected whole.
Reach out to schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation with our team of therapists, trauma specialists, somatic practitioners, or relationship experts, and start working towards integrative, embodied healing today.
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References
1) LaPierre, A. (2021). NeuroAffective Touch: Healing through the body in psychotherapy. W. W. Norton.
2) Porges, S. W. (2017). The pocket guide to the polyvagal theory: The transformative power of feeling safe. W. W. Norton.
3) Siegel, D. J. (2020). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we become (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
