Running as a Therapy for Trauma, with Dr. Natae Feenstra
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| Dr. Natae Feenstra, "Therapy Steps" Counseling Founder |
In this episode of the Running Anthropologist podcast, our conversation explores how running can become a powerful ally in healing from trauma with Natae Feenstra, PhD, LPC, NCC—school counselor, counselor educator, and Certified Run Walk Talk® therapist. She shares her movement origins, how she found running as part of her therapeutic toolkit, and why her original research suggests that simply running regularly—at any pace or distance—may significantly reduce trauma symptoms.
The episode also explores more of the emerging field of running therapy, the legacy of Dr. Thaddeus Kostrubala’s work, and the role of the International Association of Running Therapists in advancing movement-based mental health practice.
Meet Dr. Natae Feenstra
Dr. Natae Feenstra is a licensed professional counselor and nationally certified counselor who has worked across school, community, and clinical settings. Her professional background includes school counseling, counselor education, and movement-informed therapeutic practice.
She is also a Certified Run Walk Talk® therapist, integrating walking and running intervals with counseling conversations in a trauma-informed framework.
In the conversation, Natae reflects on how movement became central to both her life and her clinical imagination. Her own experience of running as a source of clarity, regulation, and emotional processing helped shape the questions she later brought into counseling and research.
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| Running Mothers Group founded by Dr. Natae Feenstra |
Running Therapy and IART- That path led her to the writings of Dr. Thaddeus Kostrubala, whose work proposed that sustained running can alter consciousness, open access to intuition and memory, and function as a meaningful adjunct to psychotherapy. This framework helped her see running not only as exercise, but as a relational and therapeutic space.
As she explored this work further, Natae connected with the broader field of running therapy, an approach that combines movement and psychotherapy under the care of trained mental health professionals. This also led recently to the renewed International Association of Running Therapists, or IART, which serves as a professional community for education, collaboration, and the development of running-informed clinical and therapeutic practice.
IART presents running therapy as more than fitness or coaching alone; it is a therapeutic modality that integrates psychological support with embodied movement. Its mission includes promoting training, ethical practice, and research for clinicians who use running and walking as part of mental health treatment.
Why Running Matters for Trauma- Evidence and EMDR
Feenstra’s study begins from the understanding that trauma affects both mind and body, with consequences that can extend into physical health, emotional regulation, and daily functioning. Her literature review argues that trauma treatment should therefore include a psychophysiological lens rather than relying only on cognitive or verbal processing, including the powerful effect of bilateral stimulation of all kinds.
A key concept in the study is bilateral stimulation, the alternating left-right sensory activation used in approaches such as EMDR. Because body movement naturally produces bilateral stimulation, running may offer a built-in physiological rhythm that supports trauma processing and symptom reduction.
Study Summary & Results
To test these ideas, Feenstra conducted a quantitative cross-sectional study examining whether trauma symptoms among runners were comparable to those of people who had completed EMDR or had received no psychotherapy and no regular exercise. All 265 participants were adults who had experienced trauma at least one year before the study.
The sample included 92 runners, 81 people who had completed EMDR, and 92 comparison participants with trauma histories but no psychotherapy or exercise regimen. Trauma experience was confirmed using the Trauma History Questionnaire, and trauma symptoms were measured with the Trauma Symptom Checklist-40.
The overall results are striking. Across all three groups, the runners reported the lowest trauma symptom scores, with a mean TSC-40 score of 36.043, compared with 44.609 for the comparison group and 53.914 for the EMDR group. Statistical testing showed that these differences were significant, and the study found no homogeneity violation despite the EMDR group’s smaller sample size, allowing the analysis to move forward with confidence.
More specifically, post hoc analysis showed that the runner group scored significantly lower than both of the other groups. Compared with the comparison group, the effect size was medium, and compared with the EMDR group, the effect size was large. In practical terms, this means that in this sample, runners who had experienced trauma reported fewer symptoms than participants who had neither exercised nor received therapy, and also fewer symptoms than those who had recently completed EMDR.
At the same time, Feenstra is careful not to overstate the findings. The EMDR results were unexpected, and she notes that participants who sought EMDR may have been dealing with more severe trauma, something the screening measure did not fully capture. She also points to limitations such as lack of random assignment, unequal group size, and a participant pool that was predominantly female and white.
Another important result is what did not matter statistically within the runner group. Feenstra tested whether outdoor versus indoor running, weekly mileage, number of days running per week, and years of running experience predicted lower trauma symptoms, and none of these variables reached significance. That finding suggests the benefit may not depend on hitting a certain mileage threshold or training at a particular intensity, but may be tied more fundamentally to the repeated, bilateral movement of running itself.
Outdoor running deserves special mention because the article also reviews literature on ecotherapy and nature exposure. While outdoor running was not a unique predictor of lower trauma symptoms in this study, Feenstra notes that time in nature is often associated with calmer emotions, improved mental health, and accessible therapeutic benefit. In other words, the study does not prove that running outside is better than running indoors for trauma recovery, but it leaves room for the possibility that natural settings may still support healing in ways this design could not isolate.
Taken together, the study supports running as a promising therapeutic treatment for trauma, while also suggesting that the simplest interpretation may be the most important one: regular running itself appears to matter more than specialized training variables. Feenstra even suggests that the innate bilateral stimulation of running may help explain why trauma symptoms were lower among runners regardless of setting, mileage, years, or weekly frequency beyond the study minimums.
Why This Matters: What You Can Do
For listeners, counselors, educators, and anyone interested in embodied healing, this conversation offers a practical takeaway: movement can be part of recovery, and it does not have to begin with performance goals. The study points toward the value of consistent running itself rather than elite mileage, speed, or a perfect training environment.
What can be done with that insight is simple and accessible. A person recovering from trauma might begin with a gentle run-walk routine, focus on rhythm rather than pace, and pay attention to what kinds of movement feel grounding and sustainable. Clinicians and school counselors may also consider how movement-based approaches, when used ethically and within proper training, can complement more traditional forms of care. Published article link in peer reviewed Counseling journal will be placed here June 2026.
Links to Discover More:
Therapy Steps Counseling: www.therapy-steps.com
International Association of Running Therapists (IART): www.sites.google.com/view/iartusa/
