Alex Howard explains how unresolved trauma dysregulates the nervous system and shares a practical framework for healing anxiety, burnout, and chronic stress.

Alex Howard shares his personal journey from chronic fatigue and severe anxiety to deep trauma healing, revealing how unresolved childhood experiences can dysregulate the nervous system and shape adult health. He introduces his ECHO model of trauma, explaining why symptoms like panic, depression, addiction, and chronic illness are outcomes—not root causes. This conversation offers a grounded roadmap for restoring safety, self-regulation, and emotional resilience. 

Alex is the Founder and CEO of The Optimum Health Clinic (OHC), one of the world’s leading integrative medicine clinics with a team of 20 full-time practitioners supporting thousands of patients in 50+ countries. Alex and the research team at OHC have published research in a number of leading journals, including British Medical Journal Open, Medical Hypotheses, and Psychology and Health. A randomised controlled trial on the OHC approach has NHS ethics approval and is currently underway in the UK.

Along with founding and leading the OHC practitioner teams for the past 17 years, Alex Howard is an immensely experienced psychology practitioner, having delivered over 10,000 consultations. He has also led the Therapeutic Coaching practitioner programme since 2005, training the next generation of psychology practitioners. Since March 2020, Alex has been documenting his therapeutic work with real-life patients via his In Therapy with Alex Howard YouTube Series.