How Interoception Helps Heal Trauma
Updated: Apr 7
Claire Buttrum is one of the first Somatic Trauma-Informed Coaches in the world, combining somatic coaching techniques with parts work and nervous system regulation. She is the founder of Somatic Harmony Healing, supporting women globally to get better at feeling and trusting the wisdom of their bodies.
When it comes to healing trauma, parts work (like IFS – Internal Family Systems) is a gold standard approach. In parts work, we talked about our inner critics, our wounded inner children, or our fierce protectors as if they were distinct characters in a play. But these parts aren't just metaphors or sub-personalities. They also exist as physiological states.
If you’ve ever felt that sensation of a lump in your throat when you’re upset, or a tightness in your chest when you feel judged, you weren't just experiencing a symptom of stress or anxiety. You were experiencing a part of you communicating somatically through your body.
To hear what these parts are saying, we need to be able to listen into the body. Those cues that tell us how we’re feeling and what we’re experiencing. This is called Interoception.
What is interoception?
Interoception is often called our eighth sense. We have our usual five senses, smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing, plus we have proprioception, which is where our body is in space, and neuroception, the signals we pick up on from our environment and other people. Interoception is the ability to perceive the internal state of the body. This includes sensing your heart rate, hunger, breath, and the subtleties of your emotions like sadness, happiness and anger.
For many who have experienced trauma or are neurodivergent, interoception can be either muted, where you don’t feel anything until it’s a crisis, or over-tuned, where it feels like everything is intensely overwhelming. Some of your cues may be muted and some may be over-tuned. And it may change over time. For example, I have clients who don’t feel hunger cues until they are over the hill and falling down into hangry-town. Or they don’t understand the rage they feel is actually anxiety. Honing your sense of interoception is the bridge between being activated by a part and gaining insight from it.
Sensing where a part lives
In Parts Work, the first step to unblending from a difficult emotion is to locate it in the body. When you are hit with a wave of anxiety, instead of saying "I am anxious," we instead describe the sensation we are experiencing without labelling it, "I feel a buzzing in my solar plexus."
By locating the sensation, you achieve three things:
Distance: You realise the sensation has a boundary. It is in you, but it is not all of you.
Personification: You can begin to treat that buzzing as a part with its own story.
Validation: You move from the abstract ("I'm stressed") to the somatically concrete ("My jaw is clenched"). This provides immediate evidence to your brain that your internal experience is real and valid.
Understanding the need behind the sensation
Once you have located a part through interoceptive awareness, you can begin a somatic dialogue. Every physical activation is an attempt by your body to identify and meet a need:
The tight throat: Might be a Protector Part trying to keep you safe by preventing you from saying something risky that may be judged by others.
The heavy limbs: Might be a part trying to force you to rest because it senses you are nearing burnout or is afraid you may return to burnout.
The racing heart: Might be an Exiled Part that is terrified of being seen.
By staying with not in the physical sensation, not trying to relax it away, we can witness the story of our somatic parts. Sometimes they begin to speak to us. This may come as words, memory, images, or a spontaneous understanding of the wisdom your body already holds.
Moving toward regulation
Regulation doesn't mean making the sensation go away or always feeling calm and centred. We are meant to be in different states in our nervous system that is what unites us with other mammals. What emotional regulation really means is becoming self-led. When you truly tune into the interoceptive cues your body is offering you, spending a moment hearing that part of you, it is often the first time that part has ever felt seen or heard. This can be a huge comfort to a part of you that is used to be ignored or pushed away.
The Somatic Shift: Notice what happens to the sensation when you simply acknowledge it. Often, a tightness will soften or a buzzing will slow down just because you paid attention to it without judgement. Sometimes the opposite is true and you’ll get an increase in sensation. But this is also just information. And if you keep listening to it, chances are it will pass naturally.
This is the essence of Self-Leadership. You are no longer at the mercy of your activated parts, you are an insightful observer who can negotiate with your parts, providing them with the safety they’ve been trying to create for you in their own, sometimes painful, ways.
Practice: The interoceptive scan
The next time you feel triggered or out of sorts, try this:
Stop the story in your head - those negative words or thoughts that crowd you
Scan the midline of your body (throat, chest, stomach)
Ask: "Where do I feel this most?"
Breathe into that space and say: "I see you there."
This Interoceptive Body Map is a starting point for translating your somatic sensations into the language of Parts Work.
Use this as a place to begin, then as you develop greater awareness and knowledge of your parts and how they show up for you, you will begin to expand on this simple map and make it more relevant to you and your own personal experience. These are not universal rules. Every internal system is unique. Your clenched jaw might be a protector, while for someone else it is an exile. Use this map with curiosity, always asking the part itself what its role is. And just go with whatever your first impressions are.
Midline map: The emotional core
Physical Sensation | Common Part/Inner Role | What the Part might be trying to Say/Do |
Lump in the Throat | The Finisher/Silencer (A Protector) | "Don't speak. It’s too risky. If we say what we really think, we’ll be rejected." |
Tightness/Constriction in the Chest | The Guardian of the Heart (A Protector) | "I’m not letting anyone else in. This space is fortified because the pain of heartbreak is too much." |
Buzzing/Churning Solar Plexus (High Stomach) | The Hyper-Vigilant One (An Anxious Part) | "Scan the room! Something is wrong. We need to be ready to run or fight." |
Hollow/Empty Feeling in the Deep Belly | The Exiled Child (A Wounded Part) | "I am totally alone. No one is coming for me. Is this emptiness all there is?" |
Peripheral map: Action and bracing
Physical Sensation | Common Part/Inner Role | What the Part might be trying to Say/Do |
Clenched Jaw/Tension in the Face | The Masker (A Manager) | "Maintain control. We must look calm and normal, no matter how chaotic we feel inside." |
Heavy shoulders/"Weight of the World." | The Over-Responsible One (A Manager) | "I have to carry this entire burden. If I let go, everything will collapse." |
Urge to Fidget, Sway, or Rock (Neurodivergent) | The Regulator (A Self-Soothing Part) | "This is too much input! We need rhythmic sensory feedback to survive this overwhelm." |
Tension in the Thighs/Legs (Feeling Braced) | The Ready-to-Runner (A Flight Part) | "We are trapped. I am preparing to escape at the first opportunity." |
Tight Fists/Clenched Knuckles | The Defender (A Fight Part) | "This is unfair. I am ready to push back and fight for our boundaries." |
Dissociative map: Blurring and freezing
Physical Sensation | Common Part/Inner Role | What the Part might be trying to Say/Do |
Brain Fog/Floaty/Disconnected from the Ground | The Detacher (A Dissociative Part) | "This reality is too painful. We are leaving now. Safety is found at home." |
Sudden, Overwhelming Fatigue/Sleepiness | The Shut Down(A Freeze Part) | "System error. Too much threat detected. We must go offline immediately to conserve energy." |
How to use this body map with parts work
Acknowledge the sensation: buzzing in my solar plexus.
Unblend: Step back slightly from the buzz. Notice the sensation has edges and is only felt in one part of the body.
Use the Map as a warning tool: Say, "I’m feeling a buzzing, which sometimes means a part is hyper-vigilant and is scanning for trouble."
Check with the Part: Directly ask the sensation: "Is that true? Buzzing part, are you scanned for trouble? What are you worried will happen if you stop buzzing?"
Listen to the answer: The part might agree, or it might say, "No, I’m not worried, I’m just really excited."
Insight: Trust the sensation over the map. The map is just a starting prompt to begin the conversation with your own body’s unique language.
If you are interested in finding out more about how your wounds show up and feel within your body using your interoceptive cues, you can book a free consultation with Claire here.
Read more from Claire Buttrum
Claire Buttrum, Somatic Trauma-Informed Coach
Claire Buttrum is a Somatic Trauma-Informed Coach and the founder of Somatic Harmony Healing, a service focused on nourishing the body and mind. Claire is one of the first level 7 qualified somatic trauma-informed coaches in the world. Her approach is centred on nervous system regulation and deep self-connection, tailored to the individual needs of her clients who are primarily women. She integrates various modalities, including parts work, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and emotional freedom technique. She holds specialised certifications in ADHD and menopause coaching. Claire's practice aims to help women become their own advocates and cheerleaders to achieve profound healing and growth.
