Psychology Neuroscience Self-Help

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

by Bessel van der Kolk

Why does a combat veteran, safe in his suburban home, dive for cover when he hears a car backfire? It's not because he's 'remembering' the past. A brain scan would show that in that moment, the speech center of his brain shuts down while his emotional core, the amygdala, lights up like a Christmas tree. He isn't remembering trauma; his body is re-experiencing it as if it's happening right now. Trauma isn't a story we tell, but a physical state our bodies get stuck in.

You Can't Talk Your Way Out of a Bodily Problem

Trauma is pre-verbal. It's stored in the primitive, non-verbal parts of the brain as sensory fragments and overwhelming physical sensations. Traditional talk therapy, which relies on the brain's storytelling centers, often fails because it can't access these deeply embedded physical memories.

Van der Kolk describes patients who can rationally recount their trauma with no emotion, yet are crippled by physical symptoms like chronic pain or panic attacks. Their verbal brain is disconnected from their traumatized body. Healing only began when they used body-based therapies to address the physical terror they couldn't put into words.

Trauma Is a Failed Self-Defense

Traumatic events overwhelm our capacity to fight or flee. When we can't escape, the nervous system freezes, trapping immense amounts of energy in the body. This trapped energy later manifests as anxiety, rage, or physical illness.

A study on children who witnessed a school shooting found that those who froze in place had more severe PTSD symptoms years later than those who ran. Their bodies never completed the self-protective action of escaping, leaving their nervous systems stuck on high alert.

The Brain Can Be Rewired

Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change, is the key to healing. Therapies that create new, safe experiences can help rewire the brain's alarm system and integrate traumatic memories.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) helps patients process traumatic memories by having them follow a therapist's finger back and forth. This bilateral stimulation seems to mimic the brain's processing during REM sleep, allowing the 'stuck' memory to be filed away as a past event rather than a present threat.

Befriending Your Body Is the First Step

Trauma creates a war with one's own body, which is seen as a source of terrifying sensations. Re-establishing a sense of physical safety and self-awareness is fundamental to recovery.

Van der Kolk established a yoga program for trauma survivors. He found that the simple, predictable practice of holding poses and focusing on the breath allowed patients to learn to tolerate their physical sensations, rebuild a sense of physical agency, and feel safe inside their own skin for the first time in years.

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