Bessel van der Kolk

#1 New York Times bestseller
“Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies
A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller
 
Trauma...

"People have a range of capacities to deal with overwhelming experience. Some people, some kids particularly, are able to disappear into a fantasy world, to dissociate, to pretend like it isn't happening, and are able to go on with their lives. And sometimes it comes back to haunt them." Bessel van der Kolk. In this program, Bessel van der Kolk and others examine how dissociation functions as a defense against overwhelming stress, how the mind processes...

Over the past several years, many therapists have found that working with clients to identify where and how they hold trauma in their body and helping them to release it can be far more effective than traditional talk therapy alone. They've learned that somatic approaches can help trauma survivors to befriend their body, which they so often have come to see as the enemy. In this three-part series, researchers and clinicians share their perspectives...

"While the therapeutic relationship is very important, and an important substrate to the patient doing his or her work, in some ways we may have to be more like plumbers than like priests. And the task of the plumber is to unplug the toilet, not to have a warm relationship with the person whose toilet is plugged. And so maybe the task of the therapist is to provide the patient the skills that allow them to manage their lives." Bessel van der Kolk....

"In order to investigate a case of suspected child abuse or litigate that case, you have to not only understand the legal issues, which are complex enough, but one really has to understand something about child development, about the impact of traumatic experiences on children, in order to understand how they react to it and to understand how we react to them." John E. B. Myers, JD. Abuse and neglect can have profound effects on children's neurological...

Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that's stressful...