Enhancing Agency in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Therapies Through Sensorimotor Technologies.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Embodied Cognition

Background:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects many, with limited recovery rates.
• PTSD often impairs body ownership and sense of agency (SA), yet SA is understudied in trauma.
• Trauma can be conceptualized as a breakdown in SA, linked to freeze responses and dissociation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the role of SA loss in PTSD development and symptoms.
• To propose an enactive perspective of PTSD based on embodied cognition.
• To suggest novel therapeutic approaches for restoring SA in PTSD.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and theoretical perspective.
• Drawing from embodied cognition and enactivism.
• Exploring agency-based therapies and gesture sonification.

Main Results:

• Trauma can lead to a breakdown of SA, potentially increasing PTSD risk.
• Restoring SA through embodied experiences may be a viable therapeutic strategy.
• Gesture sonification is presented as a non-invasive method to enhance SA.

Conclusions:

• An enactive perspective reframes PTSD as a disruption of SA.
• Therapies focusing on restoring SA show promise for PTSD treatment.
• Interdisciplinary research is crucial for developing and validating these novel approaches.