“We’re people, not parts of people”: Severance, trauma, and the stories our bodies tell

*Spoilers for Severance Series 2 ahead*

I’ve just finished watching the second series of Severance, Apple TV’s psychological work-place thriller. It centres on the lives of employees at Lumon Industries, a biotechnology company where some workers have undergone a medical procedure, the titular “severance.” Once a chip has been implanted in their brains, a strict division is created between their professional and personal lives. Employees have no memory of their personal life while at work, and no awareness of their work life outside of the office. As a result, each individual essentially splits into two separate personas: the “innie,” confined to the workplace, and the “outie,” who experiences life beyond Lumon.

The end of Series 2 reaches an emotional and psychological peak that has left me with questions about trauma, identity, and the relationship between the body and mind. Here, I’ll consider the character of Gemma/Ms Casey, as I think her journey has something to tell us about the way that trauma impacts both the mind and body.

“Cold Harbor”

As someone who works in the growing field of trauma theology, the concept of severance is a fascinating one. Trauma is a kind of mental and physical suffering that lingers long after a stressful, distressing, or dangerous event.^[1] It’s characterised by ongoing and sometimes lifelong effects. Psychologist Bessell Van Der Kolk describes it as “the current imprint of that pain, horror, and fear living inside people.”^[2] For this reason, in the field of trauma studies, ideas of “healing” that involve being completely free of the symptoms of trauma are treated with caution. But Severance offers a hypothetical question: what if it were possible to sever your past traumas entirely? What if you could be rid of your trauma, with no need to employ coping mechanisms, or work with therapists?

This question is explored through the story of Gemma, the presumed dead wife of main character Mark Scout. In the first series, Gemma is revealed to be alive, but existing solely within the severed world as “Ms Casey,” a wellness counsellor for severed employees. Later, we find out that Gemma is a subject on Lumon’s testing floor, where she is sent each day to different rooms where new “innie” versions of her are created and made to endure unpleasant experiences. These “efficacy tests” are intended to test the severance barrier; in other words, can Gemma experience pain, then forget all about it? The tests mimic compartmentalisation, a defence mechanism that separates conflicting and painful thoughts in the mind. 

This culminates in the ultimate test. Gemma is taken to a room (named “Cold Harbor”) containing a baby crib and asked to dismantle it. The crib is a symbol of hope, failure, and grief. It is the very same one that Mark and Gemma (in the “outside” world) bought, built, and took apart as they tried and failed to conceive. If Gemma has no negative feelings that “pierce” the severance barrier, this is considered a success; an eradication of the effects of trauma, and a step towards Lumon’s “eternal war against pain.”

The mind-body problem

There’s a problem with this storyline. The “severance barrier” holds and Gemma carefully dismantles the crib without showing any signs of emotional recognition. Here, the effects of trauma appear to be confined to the brain, so when the severance chip is activated, they disappear. In reality, this is not the case: trauma also impacts the body. It interferes with neurobiological development, exacerbating hypervigilance, increasing stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, and resulting in a constant state of “fight or flight,” flashbacks, dissociation, panic attack, anxiety, and other fear-type responses. In other words, our bodies remain hypervigilant long after the initial trauma has passed.^[3]

While trauma has deep somatic (physical) impacts, theology has not always captured the relationship between body and emotion well. This phenomenon of theological “disembodiment” has been influenced by Plato’s mind-body distinction, and Descartes’ idea that the mind holds truth while the body is limited by its needs and desires. Reformation scholars emphasised this, pointing to the mind as the sole place in which God could be grasped and understood. Christianity has historically overlooked the place of the body in human experience, and even where embodiment has been considered, it has often been abstracted. Bonnie Miller-McLemore notes that theologians:

talk a lot about embodied theology or embodied knowing but less so about the body itself or what it means to know in and through material bodies. Ironically, the term embodied seems impaled on the very dualism between flesh and spirit, body and soul, body and culture that many scholars hoped to disrupt using this term.^[4]

By contrast, trauma theology rejects this abstraction and instead focuses on the concept of bodymind: a way of understanding the integration of the mind and body which resists Western-centric ideas of dualism. It centers embodiment, and by extension the effects of trauma in and on the body, because ideas of embodiment are central to divine revelation. In the incarnation, God comes to earth enfleshed in Jesus Christ. God’s “radical embodiment” in the body of the earthly Jesus underscores the importance of humanities’ connection with God, particularly in its reflection of God’s image (Imago Dei). As such, bodies hold huge significance in God’s plan.

Could severance help with trauma?            

When we understand that trauma affects both the mind and body, Gemma’s storyline in Severance becomes more complicated. Even if she didn’t remember her past trauma, or part of her brain was shut off to isolate it, it is likely that her body would remember and respond. Does Gemma’s body hold clues to her trauma? There are subtle signs of this when she appears as Ms Casey, such as moments of hesitation before speaking and lingering gazes. This could hint at the body’s retention of memories that the mind cannot access.

Ultimately, Lumon’s wellness model is not designed to foster awareness or growth, but to detect memory leaks, repress curiosity, and reward passivity. For Gemma, it creates emotional and intellectual flatlining — a kind of peace without meaning. Similarly, compartmentalisation can sometimes help trauma survivors to move forward, but disengaging with emotions is not recommended as a long-term solution. In general, the more someone avoids triggers and reminders of their trauma, the worse their symptoms avoidance become. The act of avoidance could get in the way of properly dealing with these memories and lessening the strong emotions connected to them.

Trauma is experienced in both the body and the mind, so it is likely that, even if the severance process were to exist, our bodies would give too many clues as to our traumas. This is something for practical theologians to remember as we work with people who may be living with trauma. In the words of Mark Scout, speaking to Gemma as Ms Casey:

“We’re people, not parts of people…No one gets to just turn you off.”

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^[1] Katie Cross, “Waiting, Witnessing, Embodying: A Trauma-informed Approach for Theological Qualitative Research,” International Journal of Practical Theology (2025): https://doi.org/10.1515/ijpt-2023-0084

^[2] Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma (St Ives: Penguin, 2015).

^[3] For more about the impact of trauma on the body, see Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (London: Penguin, 2021). Menakem’s work deals with the separation of the mind and body as both colonial and racist.  

^[4] Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, “Embodied Knowing, Embodied Theology: What Happened to the Body?” Pastoral Psychology 62 (2013).

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© Katie Cross, 2025.

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Cover Image: provided by the author, via: https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/originals/severance/episodes-images/ (image can be used for personal or editorial/non-commercial use).