The Body Keeps the Score Quotes

“Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. We have discovered that helping victims of trauma find the words to describe what has happened to them is profoundly meaningful, but usually it is not enough. The act of telling the story doesn't necessarily alter the automatic physical and hormonal responses of bodies that remain hypervigilant, prepared to be assaulted or violated at any time. For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Transformation of Trauma / Hidden Healing Powers Of Super & Whole Foods: Plant Based Diet Proven To Prevent & Reverse Disease

“Even years later traumatized people often have enormous difficulty telling other people what has happened to them. Their bodies reexperiences terror, rage, and helplessness, as well as the impulse to fight or flee, but these feelings are almost impossible to articulate. Trauma by nature drives us to the edge of comprehension, cutting us off from language based on common experience or an imaginable past... Sooner or later most survivors... come up with what many of them call their "cover story" that offers some explanation for their symptoms and behavior for public consumption. These stories, however, rarely capture the inner truth of the experience. It is enormously difficult to organize one's traumatic experiences into a coherent account - a narrative with a beginning, middle, and an end.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Transformation of Trauma / Hidden Healing Powers Of Super & Whole Foods: Plant Based Diet Proven To Prevent & Reverse Disease

“But maybe the mother's kisses that soothe her child's scrapes are "just" a placebo as well.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Transformation of Trauma / Hidden Healing Powers Of Super & Whole Foods: Plant Based Diet Proven To Prevent & Reverse Disease

“The acting-out kids tend to get attention; the blanked-out ones don't bother anybody and are left to lose their future bit by bit.”
― Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Transformation of Trauma / Hidden Healing Powers Of Super & Whole Foods: Plant Based Diet Proven To Prevent & Reverse Disease

“Being a patient, rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Transformation of Trauma / Hidden Healing Powers Of Super & Whole Foods: Plant Based Diet Proven To Prevent & Reverse Disease