What is trauma? The author of “The Body Keeps the Score” explains | Bessel van der Kolk | Big Think

What is trauma? The author of “The Body Keeps the Score” explains, with Bessel van der Kolk
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Contrary to popular belief, trauma is extremely common. We all have jobs, life events, and unpleasant situations causing us daily stress. But when your body continues to re-live that stress for days, weeks, months, or even years, that stress changes your brain, creating trauma inside your mind, and that trauma can eventually manifest in your physical body.
As you can see, trauma isn’t what happens to you, but how you respond to the traumatic situation. Something that is traumatic to one person may be no big deal to the next. Whether something becomes traumatic or not has a great deal to do with who’s around you while you experience this event. Were you alone and scared, were you comforted by friends and family?
The problem with trauma is that it starts when something happens to us, but that’s not where it stops - it changes your brain. Once your brain changes and you’re in constant fight or flight mode, it can be hard to stay focused, feel joy, or experience pleasure until this trauma is healed. Luckily, modern psychological practices are developing innovative ways to heal from trauma that actually work.
Read the video transcript: bigthink.com/series/the-big-t...
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About Bessel van der Kolk:
Bessel van der Kolk is a psychiatrist noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s. His work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people. His major publication, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, talks about how the role of trauma in psychiatric illness has changed over the past 20 years.
Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Medical Director of the Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has taught at universities and hospitals across the United States and around the world, including Europe, Africa, Russia, Australia, Israel, and China.
Check out Bessel van der Kolk's latest book, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” at www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Sco...
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Read more of our stories on trauma:
Trauma in childhood leads to empathy in adulthood►► bigthink.com/mind-brain/child...
Been traumatized? Here's how PTSD rewires the brain►► bigthink.com/philip-perry/bee...
PTSD Doesn’t Only Reside in the Brain►► bigthink.com/philip-perry/pts...
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[@bismuth7398]

The worst part of being traumatized is that people expect you to behave as if you aren't.

[@elizabethwilliams6651]

Psilocybin saved my life. I was addicted to heroin for 15 years and after Psilocybin treatment I will be 3 years clean in September. I have zero cravings. This is something that truly needs to be more broadly used in addiction treatment.

[@advocate1563]

This man quite literally saved my life. I found a mind-body modality, did the work, and live the most peaceful and happiest of lives. It all started with The Body Keeps the Score. Thank you dr van der kolk for your work.

[@bigtimber]

I was hit by a truck 8 years ago and lost my arm and leg. While laying on the side of the road I thought, "thankfully I'm Canadian" and I knew I was going to be well cared for.

[@babyboy1971]

My mother tried to kill herself with a razor and I found her and saved her life. 3 months later she was dead of cancer. A year later, I lost my dad to a stalker, who married him, took all his money and later, dug up my mother’s grave. Then 9/11 happened. 14 years later, my dad died and I was in a car accident on the same day. Then I lost my job a month later. Trauma after trauma. No one can understand unless they’ve been through it. Chronic pain is something I constantly fight with, when I’m not frozen or wanting to run. The pandemic has only made it worse. Now I’m studying trauma, so I can get out and then, hopefully, help others.

[@petor95]

"The trauma is not the event that happens, it is how you respond to it."

[@watchingthebees]

As a child, I’ve been through a lot of emotional, verbal and physical abuse. Now I’m 19 and in a constant state of survival, I have no idea how I can live normally and healthily

[@newglowgurl]

Let's all unite here not by our differences in traumatic events, but by the strength and hope we all carry inside us for better days !

[@4cqueen74]

Trauma isn't just the bad that's happened to you. It's the good stuff that never happened but was supposed to.

[@blackaugust2035]

When we supposed to turn to our parents but they're the trauma itself 💀💀💀

[@CrimsonRose29]

Trauma isn’t always something so obvious either (rape, assault, traumatic accident, near death experience, etc…) it can be subtle but equally as harmful on our mind and body.

[@NhanVa]

Been wishing for healing all through these years, it's truly very crippling many people won't understand.

[@Nightdrives]

It’s weird that we can understand whats going on in our brain, we know what is wrong but we can’t change it by just thinking about this

[@dtheengineer2746]

I had a violent childhood. My mom shot my dad, and my step dad went to prison for murdering a man in a bar. My brother was 16 years older than me and a violent alcoholic.

[@tomsisson660]

The worst part of trauma (for me, for my own part) is that you never feel safe and secure no matter how much others you know say that they love you. Worse than that, is that every day, you feel unsafe and unsecure because the traumatic event keeps getting relived in your mind.

[@999timepass]

Workplace bullying also is a traumàtic experience.

[@derboihimself4830]

He forgot School, a place where prolonged conflict can also lead to such symptoms.

[@itskeagan3004]

“The Body Keeps The Score” started my journey from a jail cell into recovery and a life free of drugs! I thank Dr Bessel for his work on trauma!

[@FrankWade-np8er]

I could remember several years ago I suffered severe Trauma & depression and mental disorder. Was actually addicted to cigarettes and alcohol. Not until my wife recommended me to psilocybin mushrooms treatment. Psilocybin treatment saved my life honestly. 11 years totally clean. Shrooms are God- sents.

[@jackjackson3356]

Kolk links trauma to harsh social conditions, which is a break through ! Doctors tend sweep under the rug the social root cause of trauma in most cases !