#thebodykeepsthescore

[thelibraryoflittleredwriting]

“The brain disease model overlooks 4 fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.

When we ignore the quintessential dimensions of humanity, we deprive people of ways to heal from trauma and restore their autonomy. Being a patient, rather than a participant in once’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self.”

-Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D., The Body Keeps The Score

[lettersxcaffeine]

"You cannot help, fix, or save the young people you are working with. What you can do is work side by side with them, help them to understand their vision, and realize it with them. By doing that you give them back control. We're healing trauma without anyone ever mentioning the word." -Paul, The Body Keeps the Score

[professionalnooneatall]

#TheBodyKeepsTheScore #AFireUponTheDeep #CallfortheDeadbyLeCarre #SymbiontbyMiraGrant

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[secondguessings]

It's awesome how it you don't process it in your waking hours you'll just dream about it #thebodykeepsthescore

[theblackautist]

For #WorldMentalHealthDay, I recommended reading #YourBodyIsNotAnApology by @sonyareneetaylor and #TheBodyKeepsTheScore by @bessel_van. Both books are helping me a lot with my mental health #autizzy #MentalHealth #actuallyautistic #BlackAutisticJoy https://www.instagram.com/p/CjjweItMtP4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[seasonofposttraumaticgrowth]

Each day feels exactly the same to me… I guess this is what trauma does… but the good news is I don’t believe this is my forever. This is temporary. The brain has the ability to heal itself. Healing is possible and one day I will experience true healing and when that happens the processing shall begin.

[sometimesiread]

Can we pretty please retire the phrase "oh, that didn't hurt"? Pain is inherently subjective, meaning no one can feel or measure the severity of pain except the person who is experiencing it. It is completely and utterly ridiculous to claim the right to tell others what they do and do not feel.

[adifferentwordforeverything]

Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.

Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score

[jessereklaw]

#diary #draweveryday #illustratedjournal #illustrateddiary #artjournal #artjournaling #webcomics #webcomic #diarycomics #autobiocomics #draweverday2018 #comic #comics #thebodykeepsthescore #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #childhoodtrauma #powerbook #soycurls (at Portland, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrJfF4whjF7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=tn0319u7681r

[skatepunkanthi]

Το σώμα δεν ξεχνά | Bessel A. Van Der Kolk, MD

«Το σώμα δεν ξεχνά» αποτελεί ένα επιστημονικό βιβλίο γραμμένο από τον κλινικό ψυχολόγο Bessel Van Der Kolk, ο οποίος ειδικεύεται στην θεραπεία του ψυχικού τραύματος. Ο Bessel Van Der Kolk είναι ιδρυτής και διευθυντής του Κέντρου Ψυχικού Τραύματος στο Μπρούκλαιν της Μασαχουσέτης. Είναι τα τελευταία χρόνια καθηγητής Ψυχιατρικής στην Ιατρική Σχολή του Πανεπιστημίου του Χάρβαρντ της Βοστόνης. Όπως…

[dailykashf]

[adifferentwordforeverything]

The Brain is a Fine and Splendid Place, By Louisa Borecki 2019

[strongwithoutrealising]

Have you learnt how to listen to your body? #ancestralwisdom #itsinyourdna #quotestoliveby #thebodykeepsthescore #thebodyknows #qotd🌸 https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd6lyDAhaSU/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[binches-incorporated]

Life has been so busy, I went on a trip to the “big city” (big by Alaska standards, anyway) and haven’t had time to be on social media. I’m finally back home and back to the ‘gram! While I was in the city I made sure to hit up @barnesandnoble and get some new books! 🖤📚🗺 . . . #bookishbitchblog #books #travel #barnesandnoble #bookhaul #fiction #cozymystery #nonfiction #truecrime #bookworm #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #thekilljar #jreubenappelman #thebodykeepsthescore #besselvanderkolk #thesparrow #marydoriarussell #reading #thesecrethistoryofwitches #louisamorgan #purrdershewrote #cateconte https://www.instagram.com/p/BonLq8THrSK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=7ctov4x2yfne

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

What’s Trauma Got To Do With It?

Note on the text: I used Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma as published in 2015 by Viking Penguin. 

Humans are incredible resilient. When you look at everything that has happened to us, both as individuals and as a species, the fact that we survived at all is astounding. Since “time immemorial we have rebounded from endless wars, countless disasters (both natural and man made) and the violence and betrayal in our own lives (1). Yet the residue that these traumatic events leaves on both our mind and our bodies is very real. Research shows time and time again that trauma affects not just our mind but our bodies too, down to our immune system. We are mind and body, what affects one affects the other. 

At its heart, a traumatic event is an event that is frozen in time. It’s imprint on us is so strong that we continue to carry it with us long after the event in question has passed, even if only on a subconscious level. Biologically speaking our job is to survive and, as I said before, we are very good at our job. Which means that we are constantly updating our system regarding how to survive things that could otherwise kills us. Which means that events that threaten our existence in any way, which is what a traumatic event is, get encoded into our system along with the defense mechanisms that we developed endure to survive said hardships. Which means  that traumatic events have “on going consequences for how the human organism manages to [continue to] survive [into] the present” (21). 

The human organism has a hard time really letting go, even if it is only subconsciously, of things that have ever threatened its existence. For many people who have undergone trauma in fact, their body and mind remain on high alert, as if the threat is ever-present, for months or even years after the threat has passed. The reason that war veterans duck for cover when a car alarm goes off for example is because subconsciously their body still thinks that it’s a bomb and forces them to act accordingly. That’s why a traumatic moment is, as I said before, one that has been frozen in time, because it continues to live in us in some way shape or form long after the event in question has passed. So the question remains, how does one heal from trauma?

Now there are a bunch of ways to heal from trauma, many of which are detailed in this book. There is everything from simply talking about it, to various evidence based practices, to yoga, all of which have been proven to be effective at one time or another. What they all have in common though is that they teach the practitioner how to live in the moment in a way that allows the practitioner to get some amount of “space” from whatever their trauma is. Being in the moment allows the person in question to remember that the circumstances which gave birth to the trauma are no longer present, and in doing so allows the person to potentially breakaway and change the way in which they live. In talk therapy for example, we are able to take that traumatic event, analyze it, get a deeper understanding of it, figure out how it works, and what we want to do moving forward. That’s essentially what happens in talk therapy. Practices like deep breathing or yoga work because they ground us in our bodies and our bodies are in turn tied to the present. You can’t breathe into tomorrow anymore than you can into yesterday, your body can only experience things in the present. So you get in touch with the anxiety that lives in your breath for example and the simple act of focusing on our breath, as you do in deep breathing, forces you to let everything go because your body cannot do anything different. In other words, regardless of what particular practice you use, in order to heal from trauma your body “needs to learn that the danger has passed and how to learn in the reality of the present” (21). 

Everyone has undergone some level of trauma. You live on this planet long enough and you will have encountered some form of trauma. It is inevitable. What is not inevitable though is how you grow from that trauma. You have the power there. You have the ability to how you will respond to what has happened and the type of person that you will become. Your past does not have to become your future. You get to choose.