In 2014, Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk released The Body Keeps the Score and introduced a new theory to the masses: experiencing trauma severs the connection between the mind, which wants to forget what happened, and the body, which can’t. This idea that psychological trauma moulds a body that gets stuck in fight, flight and freeze mode has since piqued the interest of more people than Kolk ever expected. The book is a bestseller, sitting near the top of the New York Times paperback nonfiction list for more than 248 weeks and counting, and selling 3 million copies worldwide. The concept itself has also deeply infiltrated the way we discuss our nervous systems and emotional dysregulation today, fuelling the current online obsession with the “stress hormone” cortisol. Since it’s clear we collectively can’t get enough of talking about how trauma manifests itself within our bodies (even without our conscious awareness), it should come as little suprise that there’s a growing interest in how to relieve or release this trapped trauma. Enter Human Garage. 

Human Garage began as a clinic in Venice, California, and was founded by Garry Lineham, Cynthia Leavoy, Jason Van Blerk and Aisha Rodrique. In 2020, they released a movement process called the fascial manoeuvres (a mixture of intention, movement and breath) to the public, claiming they can reduce stress and release trauma “in minutes”. The original Human Garage clinic has since shut down and moved online: with nearly one million followers on Instagram and over one and a half million on TikTok, their videos include showing people how to “unlock trauma” in their hips, assisted jaw releases to release anger and frustration, and shoulder movements for easing anxiety. 

The building blocks of Human Garage’s social presence are the bold claims behind the fascial manoeuvres. Lineham, who has become the face of the collective online, has said that all diseases and dysfunctions are emotional and that fascial manoeuvres can reduce 75-90 per cent of stress in your body within minutes. “Reducing stress twice per day for 30 days, there isn’t a disease that won’t improve,” one Human Garage caption says. (They offer one, three, seven, and 28-day reset programs online.) Then there’s the cult-like ambience in every video, where large groups of people lay hands on each other, and people even pass out on camera due to “processing emotions”. Within private Human Garage Fascial Maneuvers Facebook groups, people trade trauma stories, not asking for mental support but rather recommendations for movements that will improve everything from dysregulated nervous systems and torn ligaments, to tumours and Cerebral Palsy symptoms. 

Human Garage is currently hosting a Transforming Trauma world tour, where participants can receive, assist, and perform hands-on fascial manoeuvres for $450 across the US, Canada, Indonesia, Ireland and more. Fascial manoeuvres are also becoming more prevalent across the wellness space, with Humanst-block-12 Garage coaches offering astrology-specific fascial manoeuvres with affirmations and a cacao ceremony over Zoom. While some individuals in the comments of TikTok videos say the movements result in an “instant release”, cause them to pass out at home, or “spontaneously sob uncontrollably”, Shaili Jain, a PTSD specialist and author of The Unspeakable Mind, says there’s no magic bullet when it comes to PTSD. “When you have people living with trauma, you have people who are in a lot of psychological pain and are desperate for a solution,” she says. “No one person is the same, and no one person's trauma is the same.” 

Jain says it is common for PTSD to manifest with somatic signs and symptoms, like a headache or back pain, and there’s evidence that trauma can disrupt health on a biological level. Despite this, she says the relationship between trauma and physical illness is far more nuanced than social media would often have us believe. “The idea that this happened to you and now you have this pain spot here to relieve and everything will be fine doesn’t gel with my experience as a PTSD clinician,” she says. Jain says there are various treatment options for those dealing with PTSD, some of which involve dance programs, meditation, and other physical exercises alongside other treatments. “Those come under what we call adjunct treatments and they can be incredibly helpful to people, but it’s adjunctive to more formal traditional treatments,” she says. “There’s no date to support them as stand-alone treatments.” 

The way people discuss dysregulation online often lumps together traumatic experiences with stressful experiences. According to Jain, however, stress is very different from trauma, with differing impacts on the body. Yet, Human Design seems to have perfectly tapped into people’s desire for a quick 15-minute fix for all of the most difficult elements of modern living. Going through a breakup? There’s breathwork for that. Are you sensitive to gluten? There are fascial manoeuvres to heal that. They even recommend “releasing” birthing trauma by stretching your C-section scars, performing an “organ reset” on your six-month-old child to “rehydrate” them on the cellular level, or an “anal sphincter release” (along with butthole sunning) to even out your hips. This is where the content can enter into dangerous territory when it comes to consent. “Informed content from a licensed clinician involves stating why you are choosing a treatment, what the scientific evidence is for those treatments, and outlining the risks upfront,” says Jain. “Without that process, I just don’t think you have a basis for a therapeutic relationship.” 

Regardless of whether or not you think a baby has acquired enough trauma within mere months of its life to require a full-body reset, the idea that all diseases come from our emotions is a morally slippery slope. Under this mindset, people can become blamed for their own conditions and, in a desperate attempt to look for solutions, stumble upon misinformation and potentially exploitative content online. That’s also not to say that physical movement hasn’t drastically improved the day-to-day lives of some people with PTSD. It’s also not to discount the lack of access to healthcare and poor living conditions that can lead people down the road to experimental practices. As Human Garage puts it: “The world is currently in a major health crisis. Where are we to turn when the medical system fails, inflation continues to rise, and our food, products, and water are poisoning us?” Apparently, now is the moment to “reconnect back to ourselves” – only we should never have to follow any 28-day program to do so.