Sound Baths, Trauma Talk, and the Wellness Paradox in the USA

Yoga-informed sound bath providers orchestrate vibrations from singing bowls, chimes, gongs, and other simple instruments to promote client well-being – sometimes in ways that create a trauma trap. Drawing on immersive research with sound bath providers and receivers in California, USA, I explore how these ritual performances feed on and fuel narratives regarding trauma, stress, and dysregulation, diverting attention from structural and cultural factors creating said disharmony. Beyond thereby ensuring a market, they can perpetuate a trauma-informed self-identification and subjectivity that harmonizes with the American work ethic, diminishes nonproductive sensual enjoyment, promotes self-care over community care, undermines resilience, and amplifies suffering.