Frank Anderson, MD, 30 Domino Drive, Concord, MA (2026)

01/05/2026

We talk about trauma bonding a lot right now. Sometimes it gets romanticized. Other times it gets flattened into something “bad.”

I wanted to slow that down…

Shared pain and empathy can create real connection. But when trauma hasn’t been worked through, the nervous system can start leading attraction and intensity in ways we don’t fully choose.

You might notice relationships that feel immediate, consuming, or hard to leave, even when they’re painful.

That’s not a failure of insight. It’s often a body doing what it learned to do to feel okay.

Understanding this isn’t about judging past relationships. It’s about creating more room for choice moving forward.

01/02/2026

People often say, “I’m too emotional,” or “My feelings take over.” But panic attacks, shame spirals, dissociation, freezing, snapping, shutting down…

Those aren’t emotions. They’re trauma reactions.

They’re the body’s response to an overwhelming life experience that exceeded the system’s capacity to process it at the time. That distinction matters.

Emotions are more likely to be felt, named, and moved through when the nervous system is regulated. 
Trauma reactions are different. They activate quickly, pull the body out of the present moment, and reduce access to language and reflection.

When we confuse reactions with emotions, we try to work with them using insight, logic, or self control alone. We tell ourselves to calm down, think differently, be less sensitive. When that fails, people often turn the blame inward.

But nothing is wrong with you. Your nervous system is responding exactly as it learned to under conditions of overwhelm.

Healing begins when we shift the question from “Why do I feel this way?” to “What is my body reacting to right now?”

As the reaction softens, you start to feel more choice again. You are no longer taken over. Emotions become more accessible, coherent, and tolerable.

This is why trauma healing cannot rely on talk therapy alone. It requires an integrative approach that helps the whole system learn safety again. Body, brain, and meaning working together.

Not controlling reactions. Not overriding them.
But helping them no longer need to run the show.

01/01/2026

For a long time, we’ve treated self-regulation like a solo skill. Something you should be able to do on your own if you just have enough insight or tools.

The science tells a different story.

Self-regulation matters. And it’s built through experience, not willpower. Our nervous systems learn how to settle, recover, and stay present through safe relationships first, and then we internalize that capacity over time.

This isn’t about dependence or needing someone all the time. It’s about how regulation actually develops in the brain and body, especially after trauma.

Co-regulation is not a weakness. It’s the pathway through which real self-regulation is formed.

12/27/2025

As the new year approaches, it is common to feel a mix of frustration and quiet shame.

The sense that you are still in the same place. That certain struggles are still here. That reflection turns into a list of what you do not have or have not figured out yet.

When that feeling shows up, the instinct is often to push harder. To add more self improvement. To fix yourself into a better version.

Wellness culture reinforces this. If you are uncomfortable, the answer is usually framed as more practices, more insight, more discipline.

But for many people, that is not what this moment actually needs. This year, growth may not have looked like breakthroughs or big changes.

It may have looked like learning your limits. Staying regulated in moments that used to overwhelm you. Choosing less when more was costing too much. Treating yourself with more understanding when things stayed complicated.

Those shifts matter. They shape how safe life feels on the inside, even when the outside looks the same.

When you can see yourself clearly and kindly, you have more room to respond instead of react. That is where sustainable change comes from.

Before deciding what needs to change next year, it may be worth acknowledging what it took to get here.

12/24/2025

Most of what your brain takes in is shaped by past experience. That’s not a mindset. It’s how the nervous system works.

If you’ve been hurt before, your system learns to stay alert. It scans tone, silence, and expression. It jumps to meaning fast. Not because you’re untrusting, but because protection once mattered.

This is how the past starts showing up as the present.

You react strongly and feel confused afterward. You pull away even though you want closeness. Your body tightens before anything is actually wrong.

That isn’t a lack of insight. It’s the nervous system struggling to tell then from now.

Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to feel safe. It’s about helping the body recognize when danger is no longer happening.

Sometimes that starts with noticing how old the reaction feels.
 Sometimes it’s sensing where your body braces before you have words.
 Often, it requires support that works with the whole system, not just the story.

This is why integrative trauma work matters. We don’t just analyze the past. We help the nervous system update its sense of safety so your responses have more space and your choices feel more real.

Over time, the world doesn’t have to feel so threatening. Not because nothing bad ever happened, but because your system learns the difference between then and now.

12/23/2025

A lot of people stay in therapy longer than they want to because nothing feels clearly wrong. Their therapist is kind. The sessions feel meaningful. And yet, something quietly feels off.

That tension matters.

Good therapy can be challenging. It can be uncomfortable. It can stir things up before they settle. But over time, your quality of life should be getting better. That usually happens when insight, emotional processing, and nervous system change are working together, not in isolation.

You should have more clarity, more capacity, and a clearer sense of where the work is going and how it’s helping you live differently.

This post isn’t about blaming therapists or rushing healing. It’s about helping people feel more oriented and less alone when they’re carrying questions they don’t quite know how to name.

And one important thing to say clearly: these questions don’t have to live only in your head. They can be brought into the room. Thoughtful therapists welcome conversations about focus, progress, and fit. That kind of dialogue is part of ethical, collaborative care.

If this brings something up for you, you’re not overthinking it. You’re paying attention.

12/19/2025

One thing that came up in my recent conversation with Tom Vozzo on the was how trauma can quietly block our ability to receive love.

I believe deeply in the importance of receiving love that comes from beyond ourselves. Opening to spirituality was a game changer for me. It helped me experience support that did not rely only on me carrying everything or having all the answers.

However, healing and spirituality are not linear.
For many people, especially those with relational trauma, receiving love can feel complicated.

When connection has been unsafe, inconsistent, or overwhelming in the past, the nervous system learns to protect. Even love that is meant to be unconditional can feel activating before it feels comforting.

This is not just about authority trauma. Relational trauma of any kind can shape how open we feel to receiving love, whether it comes from people or from something beyond us.

Sometimes spirituality supports healing. Sometimes healing has to come first so that spiritual connection can feel safe. There is no single order. What matters is meeting the nervous system where it actually is, not where we think it should be.

12/18/2025

Most of us come to healing with a quiet expectation that one day, we’ll stop getting activated.

We imagine that progress looks like staying calm, unbothered, unaffected. That if the work is really working, we won’t snap at our partner, shut down in hard conversations, or feel our body tense in familiar moments.

So when activation shows up, it can feel like something went wrong.

For example, you might snap at your partner over something small and immediately feel confused about why it came out so strong.

Or you shut down during a conversation and can’t find your words, even though you care deeply about what’s being said.

Or a tone, a look, or a silence suddenly makes your chest tighten and your mind race.

Or you over explain, people please, withdraw, or go numb without fully choosing to.

When that happens, it’s easy to assume healing should have prevented it.

The goal of healing isn’t to eliminate activation. It’s to change what happens when activation appears. That kind of change doesn’t come from insight alone. It comes from helping the whole system learn something new, not just understand it.

Over time, that looks like noticing yourself getting flooded without immediately lashing out.

Staying in the conversation instead of disappearing from it.

Feeling intensity without your nervous system taking over.

Instead of asking, Why am I still getting activated? A more useful question becomes, What’s different about how I meet this activation now?

12/18/2025

A quick clarification, because this topic brings up a lot.
I’m not anti-AI, and I’m not saying people shouldn’t use it. For many, it’s more accessible than therapy and genuinely useful for reflection.

What matters is how it’s used.

Mental health work isn’t just about feeling understood. It’s about knowing when to stay with discomfort and when to ease off. That requires attunement to a nervous system, not just language.

AI can’t track that. If it always feels soothing or affirming, that’s a design limitation, not a signal that growth is happening.

Here’s my take: use AI as a tool, not a stand-in for relationship. Insight helps, but most healing happens when safety is learned with another person.

That line between support and substitution is worth paying attention to.

12/11/2025

That instinct to jump in with reassurance usually carries more than one truth. There’s the sincere desire to care for someone. There’s the discomfort of silence when you don’t know what to say. And there’s the deeper layer, when their pain brushes against your own and it feels hard to stay with the moment.

And if you’re the one being rushed, it makes sense that it can feel like your pain is being minimized even when the other person means well.

When you understand that both people bring their own histories into the moment, the conversation shifts. It stops being about who got it right or wrong and becomes a clearer look at how pain, care, and fear get tangled together in real time.

12/10/2025

The holidays can stir a very specific kind of grief. Not only the grief of what happened, but the grief of what never took shape in the first place.

Even when you know distance from family is what keeps you steady, there can still be a quiet sadness underneath it. A sadness for the version of family you hoped was possible.

That grief is real. It’s the recognition that certain kinds of closeness or safety never fully formed. And when the season revolves around home and togetherness, that gap can feel sharper.

It’s common to feel more than one thing at once. The sense that you’re doing what is healthiest for you, and the pain of wishing it didn’t have to be this way. Confusion about why something you chose still hurts. Even frustration that the past still has an emotional hold on you.

Nothing is wrong with feeling that mix of clarity and grief. It doesn’t undo the progress you’ve made. It simply shows how deeply you’ve always needed connection that felt safe.

If this season feels heavy, give yourself room to notice it without judgment. There’s value in acknowledging what was missing, and real strength in being honest about what hurts.

And if you’re sitting with all of this wondering what you’re supposed to do next, you’re not alone. Grief like this takes time. It starts to ease when you let yourself feel what’s actually there instead of pushing it down, when you can speak the truth of your experience without turning it against yourself, and when you let supportive people offer whatever care they can.

It shifts a little when you slow down enough to notice what’s happening, whether that looks like a quiet moment or tears you didn’t expect. And over time, it changes as you face the reality that you can’t turn your family into something they’ve never been, even if you wish things could have been different.

You may not have had the family you hoped for, but you can still experience love and safety in the relationships you choose now.

12/10/2025

People often hear “let it go” as if trauma responds to effort. But trauma doesn’t live in logic - it lives in the body, in the beliefs formed during overwhelming moments, and in the protective patterns that once kept you safe.

You can understand your story and still find yourself reacting to things you cannot explain. Not because you’re unwilling to let go, but because your nervous system learned to stay ready for danger long before it felt safe.

True healing asks for something deeper than trying harder. It asks for safety, compassion, curiosity, and a way of relating to your internal world that helps the body update its memory.

This is the work of integration.

On December 12 & 13, and I will teach this integrative approach to trauma healing. We’ll guide you in recognizing the living legacy of trauma and supporting the physiological shift that makes letting go possible.

Link in bio to learn more and sign up.

Frank Anderson, MD

01/05/2026

01/02/2026

01/01/2026

12/27/2025

12/24/2025

12/23/2025

12/19/2025

12/18/2025

12/18/2025

12/11/2025

12/10/2025

12/10/2025

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