Overcoming the Brain-Body Disconnect Following Attachment Trauma: A Comment on Farina and Schimmenti.

Résumé

Farina and Schimmenti's (2025) model of Attachment Trauma (AT) reframes early relational adversity as a transdiagnostic, developmentally rooted process that disrupts emotional regulation, identity formation, and relational functioning. Rather than viewing trauma as a single catastrophic event, their model emphasizes chronic, inescapable relational disruptions, particularly in protection, attunement, and repair as core pathogenic mechanisms. This relationally situated view positions AT as a primary etiological force behind a range of clinical conditions, including complex PTSD, borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorders. To strengthen this compelling framework, the current paper proposes the integration of somatosensory processing models, which offer neurobiologically grounded mechanisms for how AT becomes embedded neurobiologically. Dysregulation in vestibular and somatosensory systems, critical to bodily orientation, interoception, affect regulation, and social connection, may underlie the fragmentation and dissociation central to AT. A hierarchical neurobiological model is proposed, mapping disruptions from brainstem sensory circuits through limbic and cortical systems. A key implication of this model is the need to prioritize physiological regulation before initiating higher-order cognitive or relational interventions. Bottom-up approaches, including sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, and Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) target shock, autonomic dysregulation and sensory fragmentation that can compromise traditional talk-based therapy. By stabilizing the nervous system and restoring sensorimotor integration, these methods prepare clients for deeper therapeutic work and support the reorganization of disrupted self and relational patterns inherent in attachment trauma.