Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
Among schizophrenic body hallucinations, the sexual ones are by far the most frequent and the most important. All the raptures and joys of normal and abnormal sexual satisfaction are experienced by these patients, but even more frequently every obscene and disgusting practice which the most extravagant fantasy can conjure up. Male patients have their semen drawn off; painful erections are stimulated. The women patients are raped and injured in the most devilish ways. . . . In spite of the symbolic meaning of many such hallucinations, the majority of them correspond to real sensations. This made me wonder: Our patients had hallucinations—the doctors routinely asked about them and noted them as signs of how disturbed the patients were. But if the stories I’d heard in the wee hours were true, could it be that these “hallucinations” were in fact the fragmented memories of real experiences? Were hallucinations just the concoctions of sick brains? Could people make up physical sensations they had never experienced? Was there a clear line between creativity and pathological imagination? Between memory and imagination? These questions remain unanswered to this day, but research has shown that people who’ve been abused as children often feel sensations (such as abdominal pain) that have no obvious physical cause; they hear voices warning of danger or accusing them of heinous crimes.
Quotes to Explore
-
My father really told me, seriously, if you want something, you can have it, but you may have to work harder than anyone else around you.
-
Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into carefully chosen ranks.
-
A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.
-
I wish I could say it's easy, but honestly, to get ready for a big championship is not as easy as it seems.
-
The interest on our debt is going to collapse this country.
-
It's really not my thing to go after what comedians are doing. Because I always feel like we're jesters at the end of the day.
-
It is fantastic to be found in a foreign country.
-
I've still got that little freedom part of me that wants to have a car that looks really sexy.
-
I'm not about my breasts; I'm just about good health, OK. I'm not afraid of doing what I need to do to stay here. I really don't understand women who are in denial, who don't want to go for a mammogram. I think it's stupidity. Sorry. I have no patience for that.
-
The Arab awakening was driven by youth, organized by technology, and fired by a hunger for political change.
-
New online formats gutted the newspaper-ad business. Why pore over tiny print looking for a job in the want ads when you can tap a few keywords into monster.com, then click through and apply? Why pay a steep per-character rate for a classified when you can hawk a whole garage full of used stuff on EBay or Craigslist for free?
-
Tackling still comes down to leverage and owning that leverage and making your hits.
-
I thought I was going to retire at 20, and I was going to be a surgeon.
-
I hate to travel with stuff.
-
I think my first hit was probably '24 is a Rubberband Man,' which was my second album. My first project, it was very well received in the Southeast region, all throughout the South and parts of the Midwest. It was very well received, but I didn't get national exposure on my second album.
-
Usually my characters, though young, tend to be street-wise.
-
You don't start shooting rockets at Israel and expect that we'll just sit back supinely and die.
-
On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not count for much. Sales made by conviction - by advertising - are likely to bring permanent customers. People who buy through casual recommendations often do not stick.
-
I find a lot of up-and-coming musicians I enjoy, present them to my viewers - and hopefully inflate the growth of these artists by putting them in front an audience that wouldn't have been aware of them.
-
I've learned through my own experiences that working toward an objective in your life can change who you are.
-
I look at writing and recording like going to the toilet.
-
Among schizophrenic body hallucinations, the sexual ones are by far the most frequent and the most important. All the raptures and joys of normal and abnormal sexual satisfaction are experienced by these patients, but even more frequently every obscene and disgusting practice which the most extravagant fantasy can conjure up. Male patients have their semen drawn off; painful erections are stimulated. The women patients are raped and injured in the most devilish ways. . . . In spite of the symbolic meaning of many such hallucinations, the majority of them correspond to real sensations. This made me wonder: Our patients had hallucinations—the doctors routinely asked about them and noted them as signs of how disturbed the patients were. But if the stories I’d heard in the wee hours were true, could it be that these “hallucinations” were in fact the fragmented memories of real experiences? Were hallucinations just the concoctions of sick brains? Could people make up physical sensations they had never experienced? Was there a clear line between creativity and pathological imagination? Between memory and imagination? These questions remain unanswered to this day, but research has shown that people who’ve been abused as children often feel sensations (such as abdominal pain) that have no obvious physical cause; they hear voices warning of danger or accusing them of heinous crimes.
