At Soul Echo Therapy, we believe healing is strengthened through thoughtful collaboration.
We are proud to partner with Malcolm Jenkins and share this insightful reflection with our clients and community. His work brings clarity, compassion, and practical understanding to the intersection of trauma, addiction, and nervous system care.
Malcom Jenkins
Outreach Coordinator & Advocate
Passionate about mental health, substance use awareness, and wellness, Malcom breaks down stigma through simple, adoptable strategies that empower organizations to drive real change.
Trauma recovery rarely follows a straight line—and when addiction is in the mix, that line can feel even more jagged. People living with dual diagnosis (a substance use disorder alongside a mental health condition like PTSD, panic disorder, depression, or bipolar disorder) often describe the same paradox: they want to heal, but their bodies don’t always feel safe enough to do the work.
That’s where sound healing can earn its place—not as a replacement for evidence-based addiction treatment, but as a nervous-system support that makes therapy, skills practice, and relapse prevention more doable. When the body comes out of “alarm mode,” the mind has more room to learn new patterns.
Trauma-informed recovery works best when we treat the whole system: the brain that learns, the body that reacts, and the nervous system that decides what feels safe. Sound healing, used thoughtfully, can help regulate arousal (the “on edge / shut down” swing), which can strengthen outcomes when paired with integrated addiction and mental health care.
Dual Diagnosis Is Not “Two Separate Problems”
In real life, PTSD symptoms and substance use don’t politely take turns. Hyperarousal can drive cravings. Emotional numbing can make it harder to connect in therapy. Nightmares can wreck sleep, and sleep loss can fuel relapse risk. Add shame and social isolation, and you’ve got a cycle that’s both understandable and exhausting.
Dual diagnosis care (sometimes referred to as co-occurring treatment) aims to address this overlap at the level where it actually operates: patterns of threat, relief-seeking, avoidance, and reinforcement.
If you’re exploring options, look for integrated, coordinated care (not “mental health over here, addiction over there”). A helpful starting point is a program designed specifically for dual diagnosis treatment, which treats both conditions simultaneously rather than sequentially.
How Sound Calms the Nervous System (Without Getting Mystical About It)
Many people hear the term “sound healing” and envision incense and positive vibes. Sometimes it is soothing and spiritual—and that’s not automatically a bad thing. But clinically, the part that matters is simpler: sound is a form of sensory input, and sensory input is one way we communicate safety to the brain-body system.
There are a few things that can help an individual regulate their emotions when listening to live music, as compared to listening to recorded music. When a person is physically in the same space as the musician, the body often regulates more easily.
Read more at the Frequency and Resonance page:
https://soulechotherapy.com/frequency-and-resonance/
Real-time audio from instruments like singing bowls, chimes, tuning forks, and live voice can help the individual feel calmer without becoming overwhelmed. The use of changes in orientation (positioning), area (space), and sound volume (loudness) assist in creating an experience that will best meet the needs of each person in the moment.
Visual observation of where the sound is coming from creates redundancy and predictability, which can reduce the potential for surprise. It offers a unique level of support to your body by connecting to its vibrations in real time and can provide an immediate and defined sensation that will help guide you.
Here’s what that can look like in trauma recovery:
- Rhythm and predictability: Trauma often trains the nervous system to expect surprise. Steady, predictable tones can become a practice ground for “nothing bad is about to happen.”
- Downshifting arousal: Many sound-based sessions (when done gently) support a move from high-alert states into calmer states.
- Nonverbal access: Some clients can’t (yet) talk about certain memories without flooding or dissociation. Sound offers a body-first route: regulation before narration.
At Soul Echo Therapy, this is part of why clinical sound work is framed as nervous system support—often using instruments such as crystal bowls, tuning forks, chimes, and voice.
For a practice-specific overview, see Sound Therapy:
https://soulechotherapy.com/sound-therapy/
What the Evidence Says About Sound-Based Interventions for PTSD (And What It Doesn’t)
When people are hurting, they deserve honesty—not hype.
Research on music and sound-based interventions for trauma is growing. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials found that music therapy was associated with reductions in PTSD symptoms compared with inactive controls, while also noting important limits in study quality and certainty (in other words: promising, but not a magic wand).
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=music+therapy+PTSD+systematic+review
A practical takeaway from that kind of finding is this: sound-oriented interventions may be a useful adjunct—especially for symptom clusters tied to arousal and emotion regulation—while core trauma and addiction work still needs a strong clinical foundation.
In trauma recovery, “adjunct” is not an insult. It’s often what makes the main treatment stick.
Why Sound Matters in Addiction Recovery: Cravings Live in the Body
Early sobriety is famously physical. Even when detox is complete, the body may still run “hot” for weeks: poor sleep, spikes of anxiety, startle responses, irritability, gut discomfort, restless energy. People can misread this as: I’m doing recovery wrong. More often, it’s the nervous system re-calibrating.
This is where sound healing can be paired with standard relapse-prevention tools:
- Use sound to reduce baseline tension
- Use sound to ride out acute craving waves
- Use sound as a pre-therapy primer
For clients who require structured support but do not need 24/7 residential care, outpatient care can be a practical setting to integrate skill practice, therapy, and medical oversight—while adding sound sessions as a stabilizing layer.
Hypnotherapy: Subconscious Reframing That Can Support Cognitive Therapies for Substance Use
Many people hold several views on hypnotherapy, both positive and negative. It is generally regarded as a state-based treatment that aids in altering behaviors by using techniques such as relaxation, focused attention, and therapeutic suggestions to break habitual thought patterns in a clinical setting.
There is published literature exploring hypnosis in substance use treatment:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=hypnosis+substance+use+disorder
At Soul Echo Therapy, this “subconscious + skills” philosophy is reflected in how clinical hypnosis is described.
More on that service approach here:
https://soulechotherapy.com/clinical-hypnotherapy/
In summary
- Sound healing can support trauma recovery by helping regulate the nervous system
- Evidence suggests sound/music-based interventions may reduce PTSD symptoms as an adjunct
- Hypnotherapy can support subconscious reframing when delivered ethically and clinically
- Best outcomes typically come from integrated care models
