The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

by Bessel van der Kolk

When I asked her to summarize what the treatment had done for her, she said: “It calmed me down. It stopped the dissociation. I can use my feelings; I’m not running away from them. I’m not held hostage by them. I can’t turn them off and on, but I can put them away. I may be sad about the abuse I went through, but I can put it away. I can call a friend and not talk about it if I don’t want to talk about it, or I can do homework or clean my apartment. Emotions mean something now. I’m not anxious all the time, and when I am anxious, I can reflect on it. If the anxiety’s coming from the past, I can find it there, or I can look at how it relates to my life now. And it’s not just negative emotions, like anger and anxiety—I can reflect on love and intimacy or sexual attraction. I’m not in fight-or-flight all the time. My blood pressure is down. I’m not physically prepared to take off at any moment or defend myself against an attack. Neurofeedback made it possible for me to have a relationship. Neurofeedback freed me up to live my life the way I want to, because I’m not always in the thrall of how I was hurt and what it did to me.”