Mastering Change | The trauma, mental health & wellbeing podcast

How childhood trauma causes chronic illness – and how to heal it | Oliver Barnett | #007 Mastering Change

6 snips

Mar 25, 2025

Oliver Barnett, a functional medicine practitioner blending somatic therapies with trauma-informed care, explains how childhood trauma can prime the immune system and show up as chronic illness. He discusses nervous system dysregulation, body-held emotion and integrating IFS, somatic work and functional medicine. He also explores prevention through parenting, schools and multidisciplinary care.

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INSIGHT

Toxic Relationships Perpetuate Illness

Relationships often interact with trauma to sustain or worsen illness.
Oliver finds many patients stay in familiar toxic relationships that undermine health.

ADVICE

Create Multidisciplinary Teams

Build multidisciplinary clinics to bridge trauma, functional medicine and psychotherapy.
Oliver runs a collaborative team model and encourages scaling similar services.

ANECDOTE

CEO With Cancer Missed Integrative Options

A well-informed CEO with cancer hadn't been told about integrative options by specialists.
Oliver used this example to highlight widespread gaps in conventional care.

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What if the pain in your shoulder wasn’t just a physical sensation but unresolved negative emotion stored in your body? What if you could rid yourself of chronic pain by addressing past trauma? What if we viewed energy healing or somatic work, such as yoga or meditation, not as ‘woo-woo’ fringe concepts but as essential tools for transformation?

We still have a way to go, but the evidence increasingly shows that trauma – down to a cellular level – can shape our immune system, gut health and overall wellbeing.

We explore all the above in the latest episode of Mastering Change.

"99% of my patients with chronic illness have a history of unresolved trauma,” says functional medical practitioner and this week’s podcast guest, Oliver Barnett. He’s a leading expert in integrative health and has uncovered patterns in chronic illness where unresolved emotional trauma manifests in the body as physical ailments.

We explore

How childhood trauma, immune system priming and nervous system dysregulation contribute to long-term health issues.
The limitations of mainstream medicine and how traditional psychotherapy often misses key healing factors
Why integrating somatic practices, functional medicine, and trauma-informed care is the future of holistic health.
The changes needed in the school system and environment so that from an early age, children feel psychologically safe enough to achieve

The future of medicine must be trauma-informed – or it will continue to fail people. And this is the reason we’re bringing these kinds of conversations to the fore. Enjoy our discussion with Oliver!

Moment of Care: This episode discusses sensitive episodes related to trauma, mental health and potential distressing experiences. If you feel triggered at any point, please take a moment to check in with yourself and seek support.

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