Bertram The Body Keeps the Score Quotes

“...he realized they had stumbled upon the gravest and most costly public health issue in the [US]: child abuse. He had calculated that its overall costs exceeded those of cancer or heart disease and that eradicating child abuse in America would reduce the overall rate of depression by more than half, alcoholism by two-thirds, and suicide, IV drug use, and domestic violence by three quarters. It would also have a dramatic effect on workplace performance and vastly decrease the need for incarceration.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015

“Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. It changes our very capacity to think. Helping victims find the words to describe what has happened to them is profoundly meaningful, but not enough. For real change, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015

“Trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. I changes our very capacity to think; helping victims find the words is profoundly meaningful, but not enough. For real change, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015

“One of the hardest things for traumatized people is to confront their shame about the way they behaved during a traumatic episode, whether it is objectively warranted or not. [Most child abuse victims] suffer from agonizing shame about the actions they took to survive an maintain a connection with the person who abused them, particularly if the abuser was someone the child depended on. The result can be confusion about whether one was a victim or a willing participant.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015

“[The behaviors of trauma victims] are not the result of moral failings or signs of lack of willpower or bad character - they are caused by actual changes in the brain.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015

“Trauma, by definition, is unbearable and intolerable. Victims become so upset when they think about what they experienced that they try to push it out of their minds, trying to act as if nothing happened, and move on. It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.”
― Bessel van der Kolk M.D., Bertram The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Paperback – 8 September 2015