Is Interoception Becoming a Key Therapeutic Modality in Trauma, Anxiety, and Emotional Regulation?

Interoception and mental health are increasingly recognised as intimately linked, with growing research suggesting that it plays a foundational role in emotional regulation and psychological wellbeing.

What Does the Research Say About Interoception and Mental Health?

Interoception refers to the brain’s perception and interpretation of internal bodily signals – things such as heart rate, breath, temperature, and hunger¹. These cues form the foundation of how we understand our internal state¹. For most people, this awareness develops early in life as a learned skill, enabling us to notice when something feels off or when our body is signalling a need¹. However, some individuals struggle to identify or interpret these signals clearly, often due to underlying neurodevelopmental or psychiatric conditions¹.

Interoception is more than a simplistic, background physiological function, however. It plays a pivotal role in how we process emotions and regulate behaviour². Emotional states are not formed solely in the mind but are shaped through the interplay between bodily cues and their contextual interpretation². Several models of emotional processing place interoception at the centre of this experience; where the physical and psychological converge².

As a result, we’re seeing a surge of clinical interest in interoception and mental health, namely in how altered interoception may underpin or exacerbate symptoms in a range of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions³. This includes anxiety, depression, eating disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia, autism, and emotionally unstable personality disorder ­– all of which have been shown to involve measurable changes in interoceptive processing². A simple literature search confirms this: the number of studies on interoception has grown considerably³, with mounting evidence linking interoceptive dysfunction to specific mental health conditions; including anxiety disorders^4-8, post-traumatic stress disorder^9-12, eating disorders^13-16, and alexithymia^17-19.

Emerging studies indicate that improving interoceptive awareness – the ability to detect, attend to, and understand these internal signals – can support better emotional regulation^20-22 and provide greater resilience under stress^23-25. As such, some clinicians are beginning to explore targeted interventions – including somatic therapies^26-28, interoceptive exposure protocols, and breath-based mindfulness²⁹ – which may directly support this system^30-31. These approaches are still under evaluation, but they represent an important step towards more embodied, neurobiologically-informed models of mental health care.

Why Is Interoception Clinically Relevant

While many integrative therapeutic approaches already make use of breathwork, movement, or body-focused practices, few explicitly frame these interventions through the lens of interoceptive neuroscience … despite that being where their potential mechanisms of action may lie^32-34. This omission limits our ability to apply them consistently or evaluate their outcomes meaningfully.

For individuals with trauma histories, anxiety disorders, or chronic emotional numbing, verbal therapies – while foundational – are not always enough for every patient. Where cognitive insight is intact but emotional connection is fragmented, talk therapy may stall. In these instances, interoception might provide a more accessible, bottom-up route into emotional awareness. It can offer a gateway to re-establishing a relationship with one’s internal state that is not reliant on verbal expression or analytical reasoning.

The field is gradually shifting its view of interoception and mental health. It is no longer always seen as a background physiological process but increasingly recognised as a therapeutic target in its own right^5,35-38. This is an important development for clinical practice, particularly as we encounter more individuals for whom conventional treatments plateau. This is often the case in presentations marked by somatic dissociation^{26, 39} or emotional detachment^40-41, where patients may describe feeling disconnected from both their bodies and emotions.

Can Interoception Help When Talk Therapy Doesn’t Work?

It is here that interoceptive-based approaches may offer new traction. While still an emerging area, the hypothesis is clear: by training the system responsible for sensing and interpreting internal states, we may restore a pathway into therapeutic engagement – particularly when other approaches fall short. But, the important distinction is that it ought not be viewed as a silver bullet or a replacement, rather as a complementary access point to emotion, connection, and change.

What Are the Clinical Opportunities and Limits of Interoception and Mental Health Treatment?

There is growing enthusiasm for interoception-based interventions across the mental health field. But as interest grows, so too does the risk of oversimplification. Interoception can often be mistaken for general “body awareness” or mindfulness – when in reality it is a complex, bidirectional system involving the continuous interpretation of internal bodily states by the brain, shaped by developmental history, trauma exposure, and individual neurobiology.

It’s also important to recognise that not all individuals may experience the mental health benefits equally from interoceptive techniques, such as yoga^43-45 or breathwork^46-49. For some, particularly those with unresolved trauma or a high baseline of physiological arousal, turning attention inward can feel overwhelming, and sometimes even re-traumatise. This reinforces the need to move away from unstructured or generic approaches.

The clinical opportunity of interoception and mental health lies not in the modality itself but in the way it is delivered. Structured, integrative models that account for an individual’s cognitive, emotional, and trauma profile are far more likely to support therapeutic change. For instance, interoception may be particularly useful in cases where the patient presents as highly articulate but emotionally dissociated.

At Harbor, we don’t view interoceptive work as a standalone recommendation. It is not about simply “adding in some yoga.” Instead, it is assessed, scaffolded, and integrated into a broader therapeutic model, often when verbal processing alone is no longer yielding clinical movement.

When carefully applied, interoception can help to support emotional connection in patients who seem emotionally ‘cut off’ since offers a route back into the body and, in some cases, back into feeling.

How Could Interoception Reshape Mental Health Treatment?

As our understanding of interoception and mental health deepens, so too does its role in clinical practice. One emerging use is as a clinical marker – where a patient’s interoceptive capacity is assessed not just for diagnostic insight, but to determine readiness for trauma processing or deeper therapeutic work. This offers a more objective measure to guide pacing and intervention planning.

In practice, interoception may prove particularly valuable for individuals presenting with somatic symptoms or dissociation^{26, 39-41}, where traditional talk-based therapy often struggles to gain traction. It can also be useful in emotionally “flat” presentations, where the individual is unable to offer a coherent emotional narrative, or in cases where the person has an intellectual understanding of emotions but remains cut off from the felt sense of them^50-51. This pattern is frequently observed in presentations involving Autism⁵⁰ or psychotic disorders⁵², where emotional resonance is often diminished despite cognitive awareness.

Introducing interoceptive training in the early phases of mental health treatment may support emotional stabilisation and grounding. It can help individuals develop the capacity to recognise, tolerate, and regulate internal states, creating a stronger foundation for subsequent therapeutic work. This scaffolding may be especially useful for patients who have previously disengaged from therapy due to distress intolerance or overwhelm.

What Role Will Interoception Play in the Future of Mental Health Care?

Interoception and mental health is still a relatively young field, but its clinical relevance is gaining traction. As research continues to map its role in emotional regulation and psychopathology, there is strong potential for it to become a core feature of neurobiologically informed care, particularly in complex or treatment-resistant cases.

Future protocols will need to ensure that interoceptive approaches are applied safely and with nuance, tailored to each individual’s psychological and physiological in a way that truly refines how we understand the mind–body interface in clinical work.

At Harbor, the relationship between interoception and mental health is explored not as a standalone intervention, but as part of a scaffolded therapeutic process. For patients who struggle with emotion recognition, body awareness, or verbal processing, it can offer a meaningful and measurable entry point into care.

Its role in psychiatry is likely only just beginning.

References

1. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/interoception
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39423429/
3. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Interoception+mental+health&btnG=
4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00429-010-0258-9
5. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00252-9/fulltext
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735809001147
7. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763424003920
8. https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(21)00718-2
9. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.focus.20230007
10. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1355442/full
11. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938420304224
12. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-71238-001.html
13. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-12575-009
14. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399917311443
15. https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/2512-8442/a000062?journalCode=ejh
16. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-022-01318-3
17. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/3/10/150664/36458/Alexithymia-a-general-deficit-of
18. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0310411
19. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917307389
20. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032718323723
21. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.01028/full
22. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00426-020-01369-2
23. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030105111530079X
24. https://www.proquest.com/openview/93f036b33f29ec39e59117d0c124668c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
25. https://cove.army.gov.au/article/brain-body-connection-why-it-important-resilience-and-cognition
26. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00093/full
27. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00423/full
28. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00798/full
29. https://francescasciandra.com/blog/embodied-wisdom-an-exploration-of-interoception
30. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4316402/
31. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661322000626
32. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187892931630127X
33. https://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/fulltext/S0166-2236(20)30238-1?fbclid=IwAR1Gas7MduJ4Ap8VwaVvHWawLTW4vxmgsG3wczZSSMupZ83kXm4KRXJJCFo
34. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763417303573
35. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25333721-000-interoception-this-sixth-sense-could-be-key-to-better-mental-health/
36. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7615164/
37. https://www.hgi.org.uk/articles/inner-sense-how-the-new-science-of-interoception-can-transform-your-health/
38. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451902217302343
39. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38755513/
40. https://pacja.org.au/article/146359
41. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6054486/
42. https://www.academia.edu/29577943/Yoga_and_Mental_Health_An_Underexplored_Relationship
43. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Farah-Shroff/publication/316946652_Yoga_and_Mental_Health_A_Review/links/5954b6120f7e9b2da1b38dbe/Yoga-and-Mental-Health-A-Review.pdf
44. https://journals.lww.com/ijoy/fulltext/2011/04010/Effect_of_yoga_on_mental_health__Comparative_study.3.aspx
45. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arun-Singh-69/publication/320079457_Yoga_for_Mental_Health_Opportunities_and_Challenges/links/5b0fd10fa6fdcc80995c6693/Yoga-for-Mental-Health-Opportunities-and-Challenges.pdf
46. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-27247-y
47. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19349637.2021.2010631
48. https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/amhca/jmhc/article-abstract/42/1/78/389756/A-Practitioner-s-Guide-to-Breathwork-in-Clinical?redirectedFrom=PDF
49. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10879-011-9180-6
50. https://www.autistica.org.uk/what-is-autism/anxiety-and-autism-hub/alexithymia
51. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326451
52. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3340922/