What a 17th-Century Philosopher Got Wrong About Trauma (and What We Know Now)

Image: Lin Health

In the 1600s, René Descartes famously wrote, “Cogito, ergo sum”," I think, therefore I am. With that phrase, he drew a firm line between the mind and the body. For Descartes, reason was king. Emotion? Distracting. The body? A vessel, separate from the soul.

I don’t blame him; he was working with the best tools of his time. But in modern therapy, especially in trauma recovery, we know better. And in 1994, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio gave the field a wake-up call with his book Descartes’ Error.

The Error in Question

Damasio challenged Descartes’ fundamental belief: that the mind and body are separate. Through neuroscience, he demonstrated something therapists like me see every day in session: emotion and reason are inseparable. Your brain doesn’t run on logic alone. In fact, the emotional systems of the brain are critical to decision-making, self-regulation, and even moral judgment.

In other words, we are not thinking machines that occasionally feel. We are feeling beings who think.

This isn’t just philosophy. It’s neurobiology. And in trauma work, it changes everything.

Why This Matters in Therapy

Many of my clients come to me after working with therapists who focused only on talking about their thoughts.

That’s not therapy, that’s commentary. Real transformation requires a bottom-up and top-down approach:

• Top-down: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps clients identify and reframe distorted thoughts: a process rooted in Descartes' rationalist legacy.

• Bottom-up: Somatic and neuropsychological techniques help regulate the body’s stress response, work that Descartes couldn’t have imagined, but that Damasio helped validate.

  
  

If you’re stuck in trauma or anxiety, you don’t need someone to simply talk you through it. You need someone who understands how your entire system: body, brain, spirit, works together. You need someone who rejects the split Descartes made famous.

Faith and the Integrated Self

As a Christian and a therapist, I also reject the idea that we are just “minds in machines.” Scripture speaks to our wholeness: heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus didn’t just teach abstract truths. He healed bodies, calmed nervous systems, and wept with the grieving. He didn’t fragment people; He restored them.

We are integrated beings. And healing requires an integrated approach.

What This Means for You

If you’ve been burned by therapy that stayed in the clouds (all talk, no traction), I want to offer something different. My work blends:

• Data-driven CBT (for measurable thought change)

• Neurobiological strategies (to regulate the nervous system)

• Faith-infused meaning-making (to connect your pain to purpose, if you don't subscribe to faith, we still find the meaning)
  

Because you are not a brain in a jar. You are a full human being, one whose thoughts, emotions, body, and spirit deserve to be honored in therapy.

Descartes had his era. But this is ours. And it’s time for a better model.

Want to learn more? Listen below!