Trauma Rewired | Chronic Pain and Complex Trauma: The Neurosomatic Connection

Hosts: Jennifer Wallace & Elisabeth Kristof
Guest: Matt Bush (Lead Educator, Next Level Neuro & NSI)
Air Date: January 13, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the intricate connection between chronic pain, trauma, and the nervous system. Elisabeth Kristof, Jennifer Wallace, and guest Matt Bush explore how pain is not merely a direct response to injury but is shaped by the brain's interpretation of sensory, emotional, and contextual information—often heavily influenced by trauma and past experiences. The discussion centers on cutting-edge neuroscience insights, including neurotags, the interplay of interoception, dissociation, and perfectionism, and practical approaches to healing chronic pain through neurosomatic strategies.

Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. Rethinking Pain: Not Just Physical Injury

• Pain as Brain Output: Pain is produced by the brain as an output, not simply a response to tissue damage.
  • "Pain doesn't just affect the body, it ripples out to influence our mental health, our social connections, our overall quality of life." — Elizabeth Kristoff [00:23]
• Pain vs. Injury: There can be real physical injuries with no pain or pain present with no injury.
  • "Pain and injury are not the same thing. They don't have to be connected... The sooner we can grasp that, then we can dive into a little bit deeper conversation about why the brain is generating pain." — Matt Bush [07:28]

2. The Input-Interpretation-Output Loop & Neurotags

• Brain as a Predictive Organ: The brain uses past experiences and current sensory input to judge danger and generate pain.
  • "Prediction is equal to the current sensory inputs plus our previous experiences." — Matt Bush [15:58]
  • Example: The “snake-stick story,” illustrating prediction based on past events and the role of nociceptors—receptors that flag potential danger via constant sensory signaling.
  • Notable Quote: "Pain is an illusion, like 100% of the time that happens really quickly and it's outside of your awareness...your being this incredible predictive machine." — Jennifer Wallace [08:43]
• Neurotag Concept: Neurotags are unique neural networks activated by specific inputs, forming the basis for not just physical pain, but also behaviors, emotions, and beliefs.
  • "A neurotag is a specific neuro network, these interconnected brain and nervous system areas that all fire together as a group to create a particular experience." — Matt Bush [22:48]
  • Each neurotag activation brings a physical, emotional, and cognitive component.

3. Trauma’s Influence on Chronic Pain

• Complex Trauma & Heightened Pain Sensitivity: High ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) scores correlate strongly with chronic pain, partly due to a nervous system "primed" for hypervigilance.
  • "People with an ACE score of 4 or higher are significantly more likely to develop chronic pain." — Elizabeth Kristoff [25:55]
  • Dissociation, common in complex trauma, leads to high pain thresholds and poor interoceptive awareness, resulting in pushing through pain until it becomes extreme.
  • Notable Quote: "Dissociation and pain actually have a really interesting relationship...Interoception itself is also predictive in nature, but it's not using real time pattern recognition, it's using that past experience." — Jennifer Wallace [28:42]
• Central Sensitization: Trauma conditions brain regions (amygdala, insula, cingulate, hippocampus) to be hypersensitive to threats, internal or external, leading to chronic pain.
  • "Chronic pain occurs often when normal mechanoreceptive information starts to be misinterpreted as if it were nociception." — Matt Bush [32:08]

4. Emotional Regulation and Pain

• Suppressed Emotions as a Source of Pain: Unprocessed emotions (especially anger, anxiety) manifest as physical pain; perfectionism acts as a trauma response and coping mechanism to avoid emotional pain.
  • "Perfectionism acts as both a shield and a coping mechanism, diverting attention away from underlying emotional pain and creating patterns that may contribute to chronic stress and somatic issues." — Jennifer Wallace [42:34]
  • John Sarno's work: Repressed emotions create bodily tension, reducing blood flow and resulting in dysfunctional movement and chronic pain.
    • "Suppressed or repressed emotions will create tension in the body. Tension will reduce blood flow, and reduced blood flow will eventually lead to dysfunctional movement patterns...which is going to lead to chronic pain." — Matt Bush [38:52]

5. The Chronic Pain Feedback Loop

• Amplified Loops: Outputs (pain) become new inputs, causing cycles of hypervigilance, more pain, isolation, depression, and further nervous system sensitization.
  • "It becomes that cycle, that loop that we talk about...the output becomes the input, and then we get held in that pattern." — Elizabeth Kristoff [28:30]
• Behavioral Impacts: Chronic pain produces avoidance, social withdrawal, increased emotional dysregulation, cognitive impairment, hypervigilance, and often, sleep disturbance.
  • "Pain will eventually become the cognitive output of highest priority. Which means when pain gets bad enough, you can't think of anything else." — Matt Bush [44:32]

6. Multi-Faceted Healing Approaches

• There Is No Silver Bullet: Successful management and healing of chronic pain require a multi-layered approach—addressing sensory input, movement, vision, interoception, sleep, stress, and emotional processing.
  • "Chronic pain is never a single factor problem. It's always multifactorial...It is possible to move out of chronic pain 100%. I believe that. But it's a multifactorial journey and it's one baby step at a time..." — Matt Bush [49:19]
• Empowerment Through Neurosomatic Training: Working through nervous system regulation and emotional expression can unravel pain loops and promote healing.
  • "There's a certain amount we can do with nervous system regulation and neuro tools. But until there's also that ability to be with, express and immobilize the emotions, the pain keeps coming back up to the surface." — Elizabeth Kristoff [37:40]

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Pain and injury are not the same thing. They don't have to be connected in the human body..."
  — Matt Bush [07:28]
• "Danger signals, they're a really high priority from the brain... By recognizing pain as a neural output shaped by perception, clients can really start to detach from a fear based relationship with pain."
  — Jennifer Wallace [19:42]
• "Every neuro tag, think of it as an active memory...with physical, emotional, and cognitive component."
  — Matt Bush [23:24]
• "Dissociation and pain actually have a really interesting relationship..."
  — Jennifer Wallace [28:42]
• "What allows chronic pain to become chronic...is that the amygdala, where our threat detection is happening...is tuned into a state of hypersensitivity."
  — Matt Bush [31:13]
• "Suppressed or repressed emotions will create tension in the body...which is going to lead to chronic pain."
  — Matt Bush [38:52]
• "Perfectionism acts as both a shield and a coping mechanism, diverting attention away from underlying emotional pain..."
  — Jennifer Wallace [42:34]
• "Chronic pain is never a single factor problem. It's always multifactorial."
  — Matt Bush [49:19]

Key Timestamps

• [00:00–05:37] — Pain as an output, foundational neuroscience concepts, Mosley’s paradigm shift
• [08:33–15:00] — Nociceptors, snake/stick example, how threat is constructed in the brain
• [19:42–22:08] — Reframing chronic pain, the role of beliefs and neurotags
• [22:08–28:42] — Neurotags explained, their role in pain and other outputs
• [28:42–35:26] — Trauma, dissociation, interoception, central sensitization
• [35:26–38:51] — Adaptive responses, emotional repression, Sarno’s work
• [41:34–44:20] — Perfectionism, emotional dysregulation, compounding effects of pain
• [44:20–49:16] — Behavioral consequences, social/mental health impacts
• [49:16–50:59] — Healing: multifactorial approach, empowerment

Memorable Moments

• The “Snake-Stick” Parable
  Vivid illustration of how a past traumatic event primes the nervous system for pain and threat, even in the absence of physical injury.
  Jennifer Wallace and Matt Bush [08:43–15:00]

• Practical Hope and Empowerment
  Matt’s affirmation that recovery from chronic pain is possible with a patient, comprehensive, and adaptive approach.
  [49:19]

• Discussion of Perfectionism
  Deep dive into how perfectionism as a trauma-induced coping strategy fuels both emotional and physical pain.
  Jennifer Wallace [41:34–43:52]

Practical Insights

• Knowledge of Pain Mechanisms Empowers Clients:
  Education diminishes pain-related fear and reframes the client’s relationship to pain, offering improved outcomes.

• Addressing Chronic Pain is Holistic:
  Effective relief combines nervous system regulation, emotional expression, movement-based somatic training, and cognitive reframing.

• Practitioners Need a Multi-Tool Kit:
  Caution against “single solution” thinking—chronic pain, especially with trauma, requires nuanced, layered strategies.

Closing Thoughts

This episode of Trauma Rewired offers a nuanced, brain-based understanding of chronic pain, placing trauma and the nervous system front and center. By reframing pain as a multifaceted output shaped by past experiences, beliefs, and emotions, the hosts promote self-compassion, empowerment, and hope—emphasizing practical strategies for clients and practitioners alike.

For listeners seeking further resources:

• Check out Lorimer Moseley’s TED Talk on pain
• Explore John Sarno’s and Butler & Moseley’s “Explain Pain” literature
• Learn more about the Neurosomatic Intelligence Certification via neurosomaticintelligence.com

Summary compiled in the spirit and tone of Trauma Rewired: scientific, practical, compassionate, and empowering.