30+ Best Bessel Van Der Kolk Quotes

“Mindfulness has been shown to have a positive effect on numerous psychiatric, psychosomatic, and stress-related symptoms, including depression and chronic pain.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Narrative, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, mindfulness, Depression, Toxic Stress

“The human brain is a social organ that is shaped by experience, and that is shaped in order to respond to the experience that you’re having. So particularly earlier in life, if you’re in a constant state of terror; your brain is shaped to be on alert for danger, and to try to make those terrible feelings go away.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear

Tagged: Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Effects of Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Toxic Stress, Toxic Stress In Childhood, Substance Abuse, Addiction

“We just did a study on yoga for people with PTSD. We found that yoga was more effective than any medicine that people have studied up to now. That doesn't mean that yoga cures it, but yoga makes a substantial difference in the right direction.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear

Tagged: Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Effects of Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Toxic Stress, Toxic Stress In Childhood, yoga, Alternative Healing Methods, Healing Trauma, Diverse Healing Modalities, Mind-Body Healing, Mind-Body Healing for Trauma, Trauma Treatments, PTSD, Treating PTSD

“It's about becoming safe to feel what you feel. When you're traumatized you're afraid of what you're feeling, because your feeling is always terror, or fear or helplessness. I think these body-based techniques help you to feel what's happening in your body, and to breathe into it and not run away from it. So you learn to befriend your experience.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear

Tagged: Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Effects of Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Toxic Stress, Toxic Stress In Childhood, yoga, Alternative Healing Methods, Healing Trauma, Diverse Healing Modalities, Mind-Body Healing, Mind-Body Healing for Trauma, Trauma Treatments, PTSD, Treating PTSD, Learned Helplessness

“Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Speechless, Annotated Quotes, Annotation Examples

“Trauma affects the entire human organism—body, mind, and brain. In PTSD the body continues to defend against a threat that belongs to the past.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present

“After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their life.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence

“Mainstream trauma treatment has paid scant attention to helping terrified people to safely experience their sensations and emotions.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Emotional Brain, Annotation, Annotation Examples, Annotated Quotes

“Dissociation is the essence of trauma. The overwhelming experience is split off and fragmented, so that the emotions, sounds, images, thoughts, and physical sensations related to the trauma take on a life of their own.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Hypervigilance, Aftermath of Trauma, Narrative, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Dissociation, Annotation, Annotated Quotes, Annotated Examples

“Our rational, cognitive brain is actually the youngest part of the brain and occupies only about 30 percent of the area inside our skull.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence

“Traumatized people are afraid of conflict. They fear losing control and ending up on the losing side once again.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Fear of Conflict

“When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Hypervigilance, Aftermath of Trauma, Narrative, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma

“When people are forced to submit to overwhelming power, as is true for most abused children, women trapped in domestic violence, and incarcerated men and women, they often survive with resigned compliance.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Learned Helplessness

“The best way to overcome ingrained patterns of submission is to restore a physical capacity to engage and defend.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Learned Helplessness, Physical Reengagement, Power of the Body

“Being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on—unchanged and immutable—as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present

“Chronic childhood abuse causes very different mental and biological adaptations than discrete traumatic events in adulthood.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Emotional Brain, Child Abuse

“Trauma constantly confronts us with our fragility and with man’s inhumanity to man but also with our extraordinary resilience.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Resilience, Quote of the Moment

“The brain gets very confused. And that leads to problems with excessive anger, excessive shutting down, and doing things like taking drugs to make yourself feel better.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear

Tagged: Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Effects of Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Toxic Stress, Toxic Stress In Childhood, Substance Abuse, Addiction

“It is enormously difficult to organize one’s traumatic experiences into a coherent account—a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Hypervigilance, Aftermath of Trauma, Narrative, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Quote of the Moment

“The stress hormones of traumatized people, in contrast, take much longer to return to baseline and spike quickly and disproportionately in response to mildly stressful stimuli.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance

“The most primitive part, the part that is already online when we are born, is the ancient animal brain, often called the reptilian brain.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence

“Adrenaline is one of the hormones that are critical to help us fight back or flee in the face of danger. Increased adrenaline was responsible for our participants’ dramatic rise in heart rate and blood pressure while listening to their trauma narrative.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Fight or Flight, Hypervigilance, Adrenaline, Stress Hormones

“The emotional brain initiates preprogrammed escape plans, like the fight-or-flight responses. These muscular and physiological reactions are automatic, set in motion without any thought or planning on our part, leaving our conscious, rational capacities to catch up later, often well after the threat is over.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Emotional Brain

“I can’t begin to imagine how I would have coped with what many of my patients have endured, and I see their symptoms as part of their strength—the ways they learned to survive. And despite all their suffering many have gone on to become loving partners and parents, exemplary teachers, nurses, scientists, and artists.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Trauma Response, Resilience

“The greatest hope for traumatized, abused, and neglected children is to receive a good education in schools where they are seen and known, where they learn to regulate themselves, and where they can develop a sense of agency. At their best, schools can function as islands of safety in a chaotic world.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Trauma Response, Hypervigilance, Past In The Present, Effects of Trauma, Effects of Chronic Violence, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Childhood Trauma

“Most great instigators of social change have intimate personal knowledge of trauma. Oprah Winfrey comes to mind, as do Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel. Read the life history of any visionary, and you will find insights and passions that came from having dealt with devastation.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Trauma Response, Resilience, Success Stories, Changemakers, Channel Your Adversity, Pain Into Purpose, Social Change

“Long after a traumatic experience is over, it may be reactivated at the slightest hint of danger and mobilize disturbed brain circuits and secrete massive amounts of stress hormones. This precipitates unpleasant emotions intense physical sensations, and impulsive and aggressive actions. These posttraumatic reactions feel incomprehensible and overwhelming.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Hypervigilance, Aftermath of Trauma, Annotated Quotes

“But if you're in an orphanage for example, and you're not touched or seen, whole parts of your brain barely develop; and so you become an adult who is out of it, who cannot connect with other people, who cannot feel a sense of self, a sense of pleasure. If you run into nothing but danger and fear, your brain gets stuck on just protecting itself from danger and fear.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear

Tagged: Childhood Trauma, Childhood Abuse, Childhood Emotional Neglect, Effects of Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Toxic Stress, Toxic Stress In Childhood, Substance Abuse, Addiction

“Silence about trauma also leads to death—the death of the soul. Silence reinforces the godforsaken isolation of trauma. Being able to say aloud to another human being, “I was raped” or “I was battered by my husband” or “My parents called it discipline, but it was abuse” or “I’m not making it since I got back from Iraq,” is a sign that healing can begin.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Tagged: Trauma, PTSD, The Body Keeps The Score, Aftermath of Trauma, Complex Trauma, Your Brain On Trauma, Healing, Healing Trauma, Silence

“After administering several courses of electric shock, the researchers opened the doors of the cages and then shocked the dogs again. A group of control dogs who had never been shocked before immediately ran away, but the dogs who had earlier been subjected to inescapable shock made no attempt to flee, even when the door was wide open -- they just lay there whimpering and defecating. The mere opportunity to escape does not make traumatized animals, or people, take the road to freedom. Like Maier and Seligman’s dogs, many traumatized people simply give up. Rather than risk experimenting with new options they stay stuck in the fear they know.”

— Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score

Tagged: Trauma, psych, Abuse