Symbolisation: Why This Word Matters in Trauma Recovery

Every so often, I come across a word in my study or clinical reading that stops me in my tracks — not because it’s complicated, but because it speaks directly to something I’ve lived without ever having language for.

Recently, that word was symbolisation.

It first appeared while I was reviewing material on trauma, embodiment, and therapeutic process. At first glance, I wondered if it was just another spelling of symbolism. But it isn’t. And understanding the difference has turned out to be unexpectedly important.

Symbolism vs. Symbolisation: A Small Distinction With Big Implications

Symbolism is what we usually think of in language or art: A rose symbolises love, and light symbolises hope.

But symbolisation is something much deeper, more intimate, and more psychological.

It means:

the process of turning raw sensations, overwhelming emotions, or bodily memories into something that can be thought about, spoken, and understood.

Symbolisation is not abstract.
It is not decorative.
It is not optional.

It is the very mechanism by which the body says,
“I need you to know something,”
and the mind feels safe enough to listen.

Why This Word Matters to Me

As someone who lives with the long shadow of childhood sexual abuse, I’ve spent years navigating the gap between what my body remembers and what my mind has been able to bear. Trauma survivors often learn, too early, to endure sensations and emotions that have no words.

Before symbolisation, there is only:

• a knot in the stomach

• a tight chest

• going numb

• sudden fear

• the sense of “something is wrong” without knowing what

For many of us, especially those harmed in childhood before language fully formed, the body becomes the archive.
The mind becomes the interpreter later — if it can.

This is where symbolisation comes in.

An Example From Lived Experience

(Not graphic, just illustrating the psychological process)

Let’s say I feel a sudden rush of fear during a completely ordinary interaction. My adult self knows I’m safe. But my body doesn’t.

Before symbolisation, that fear is just there — overwhelming, confusing, and seemingly irrational.

After symbolisation, it becomes something like:

“This sensation belongs to the child I was.
It’s connected to times when touch wasn’t safe.
My body remembers even when my mind doesn’t.
And that’s why this moment feels threatening.”

This doesn’t magically fix anything.
But it transforms:

❌ an unnamed reaction
into
✔️ a meaningful piece of my story.

Symbolisation is the bridge between the implicit and the explicit — between the body’s knowledge and the mind’s capacity to make sense of it.

Why I’m Writing About This Now

Because this word — this process — explains something many survivors feel but never name:

that trauma recovery isn’t just remembering;
It’s translating.

It’s translating sensations into emotions,
emotions into thoughts,
thoughts into meaning,
and meaning into a story that finally makes sense.

And symbolisation doesn’t happen all at once.
It happens slowly — through therapy, through movement, through language, through art, through practices that reconnect us with our own bodies.

It is the opposite of dissociation.
It is the opposite of silence.

It is how we reclaim the ability to think and feel at the same time.

Why This Matters Beyond Therapy

We often talk about “telling our story” as part of healing.
But symbolisation is what makes that possible.

You can only tell a story once you can feel it, hold it, and represent it in mind without being swallowed by it.

For people with traumatic histories — especially those involving childhood sexual abuse — this capacity is hard-earned. Symbolisation gives us back something that was taken:
the ability to understand ourselves from the inside.

Closing Thought

I’m writing about this word because it helped me understand my own healing differently. It helped me see that when my body reacts, it isn’t betraying me — it’s communicating.

And when I find language for those reactions, when I can bring them into meaning, I’m not just analysing something painful.

I’m transforming it. I am giving shape and voice to something that once had none.

That, to me, is the heart of recovery

“The Chimera” (1867) by the French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau