Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
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Those new disciplines are neuroscience, the study of how the brain supports mental processes; developmental psychopathology, the study of the impact of adverse experiences on the development of mind and brain; and interpersonal neurobiology, the study of how our behavior influences the emotions, biology, and mind-sets of those around us. Research from these new
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As we’ve seen, the essence of trauma is feeling godforsaken, cut off from the human race.
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The organism itself also has a problem knowing how to feel safe. The past is impressed not only on their minds, and in misinterpretations of innocuous events (as when Marilyn attacked Michael because he accidentally touched her in her sleep), but also on the very core of their beings: in the safety of their bodies.
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Most human beings simply cannot tolerate being disengaged from others for any length of time. People who cannot connect through work, friendships, or family usually find other ways of bonding, as through illnesses, lawsuits, or family feuds.
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The most important predictor of how well his subjects coped with life’s inevitable disappointments was the level of security with their primary caregiver during the first two years of life. Resilience could be predicted by how lovable mothers rated their kids at age two.
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Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies.
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It is amazing how many psychological problems involve difficulties with sleep, appetite, touch, digestion, and arousal. Any effective treatment for trauma has to address these basic housekeeping functions of the body.
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The essence of trauma is that it is overwhelming, unbelievable, and unbearable. Each patient demands that we suspend our sense of what is normal and accept that we are dealing with a dual reality: the reality of a relatively secure and predictable present that lives side by side with a ruinous, ever-present past.
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If you’ve been hurt, you need to acknowledge and name what happened to you.
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Is it possible to help the minds and brains of brutalized children to redraw their inner maps and incorporate a sense of trust and confidence in the future?
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How do horrific experiences cause people to become hopelessly stuck in the past?
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For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.
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In a statement released in June 2011, the British Psychological Society complained to the APA that the sources of psychological suffering in the DSM.
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Porges coined the word “neuroception” to describe the capacity to evaluate relative danger and safety in one’s environment.
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Our sense of Self depends on being able to organize our memories into a coherent whole.
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Trauma increases the risk of misinterpreting whether a particular situation is dangerous or safe. You can get along with other people only if you can accurately gauge whether their intentions are benign or dangerous. Even a slight misreading can lead to painful misunderstandings in relationships at home and at work. Functioning effectively in a complex work environment or a household filled with rambunctious kids requires the ability to quickly assess how people are feeling and continuously adjusting your behavior accordingly. Faulty alarm systems lead to blowups or shutdowns in response to innocuous comments or facial expressions.
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Generally the rational brain can override the emotional brain, as long as our fears don’t hijack us. (For example, your fear at being flagged down by the police can turn instantly to gratitude when the cop warns you that there’s an accident ahead.) But the moment we feel trapped, enraged, or rejected, we are vulnerable to activating old maps and to follow their directions. Change begins when we learn to "own" our emotional brains. That means learning to observe and tolerate the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation. Only after learning to bear what is going on inside can we start to befriend, rather than obliterate, the emotions that keep our maps fixed and immutable.
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When I go to Europe to teach, I often am contacted by officials at the ministries of health in the Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, or the Netherlands and asked to.
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There is something very empowering about having the experience of changing your brain’s activity with your mind.
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It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.
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It is not possible to manage life and maintain homeostatic balance without data on the current state of the organism’s body. Damasio calls these housekeeping areas of the brain the “proto-self,” because they create the “wordless knowledge” that underlies our conscious sense of self.
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Some of them had hardly developed a sense of self—they couldn’t even recognize themselves in a mirror.
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It is not possible to manage life and maintain homeostatic balance without data on the current state of the organism’s body.”9 Damasio calls these housekeeping areas of the brain the “proto-self,” because they create the “wordless knowledge” that underlies our conscious sense of self.
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The structures along the midline of the brain are devoted to your inner experience of yourself, those on the side are more concerned with your relationship with your surroundings.