Trauma processing stands at the theoretical and clinical center of the depth-psychology corpus, yet the field speaks with strikingly divergent voices about what the term means and how the work should proceed. For Shapiro, processing is an information-processing event facilitated through dual attention and bilateral stimulation, a neurobiological activation that allows previously frozen material to be assimilated into adaptive memory networks. For Ogden and the sensorimotor tradition, processing is irreducibly tripartite: cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor levels must each be addressed, and top-down approaches alone consistently fail because subcortically encoded trauma is not primarily accessible through language or insight. Levine’s somatic experiencing framework insists that genuine processing is bottom-up in nature—rooted in bodily motor discharge rather than cognitive reframing. Herman’s phase-model legacy, consolidated by Courtois and elaborated across the Lanius edited volume, introduces a crucial complication: for survivors of complex and repeated trauma, the phase-oriented processing model must yield ground to stabilization, affect regulation, and relational repair before memory work is clinically appropriate—and may never become the primary vehicle of recovery. Rothschild adds the complementary argument that resources and client history are prerequisites, not afterthoughts. Across these positions, the recurring tension concerns sequencing, safety, and the body: when to process, through what channels, and whether ‘processing’ of the traumatic event itself is the goal or merely one element within a broader restorative project.