The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
Honestly, they really need a new cover. It took me forever to read this because it looks like a textbook.
My friend Karianne told me about the book, which basically is like “Here are a bunch of things- some may work, some won’t, and you’ll probably need a lot of different ones at different times unless you have good attachment with your mom the first months of your life and never have trauma.”
So.
I think this book is like a primer for people who want to start learning about trauma. I also think that as a society, trauma information has been fed to us much more lately, and so I felt like a lot of this information I heard from other sources too—maybe even put better ways. But this book is a great starting point to rocket off of.
Part 1 summary: Trauma is a problem: it is like reliving the actual event over and over. Everyone thought science could deal with it: yay drugs! But not really: some work and some don’t for some people. The best it can do is help your body to calm down enough to deal with the issues (through some kind of therapy). It can’t actually ever solve the trauma.
Part 2 summary: Trauma makes you stuck in survival mode and so finally to get peace you disconnect in some way with your body. Some people do this by repressing the memory of the trauma all together: but still have to deal with the affects without knowing why.
Part 3 summary: It turns out the highest indicator for success/failure in a person is the first three months of life. If mom and baby connect well, the child has much less chance of ended up in jail, ever. It is also said that personality is set by age 3, and character by age 5.
“Lyons-Ruth concludes that infants who are not truly seen and known by their mothers are at high risk to grow into adolescents who are unable to know and see.”
“The gravest and most costly public health issue in the United States: child abuse (trauma happening to children). It’s overall cost exceeds cancer or heart disease and eradicating it 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.”
“Economists have calculated that every dollar invested in high-quality home visitation, day care, and preschool programs results in seven dollars of savings on welfare payments, health-care costs, substance abuse treatment, and incarceration, plus higher tax revenues due to better paying jobs.”
Part 4 and 5 summary: Here are some ways that help some people to connect with your body and connect with people (I would add connecting with your Creator as something that is needed as well):
Deal with the hyperarousal of the trauma on your brain
No mind without mindfulness
Relationships
Communal rhythms and synchrony
Get in touch
Take action
He then has lots of different methods that he’s used: cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt), desensitization, drugs/medications, the good and bad parts of “talking about it” and how writing, art, music, exercise and dance often help when talking doesn’t, or language is too limiting.
His favorite methods seem to be eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr), yoga (connecting with your body/mindfulness/self-regulation), self-leadership (a kind of therapy, basically connecting with the self that was traumatized and leading it out of the situation), creating structures (learning how to tell your story well), neurofeedback (rewiring the brain), and communal rhythms and theater (ways to find your voice and connect with others like choir, theater, sports, teams...)
“You can’t “treat” a war, or abuse, rape, molestation or any other horrendous event; what has happened cannot be undone. But what can be dealt with is the imprints of the trauma on body, mind, and soul: the crushing sensations in your chest that you may label anxiety or depression; the fear of losing control, always being on alert for danger or rejection; the self-loathing, the nightmares and flashbacks; the fog that keeps you from staying on task and from engaging fully in what you are doing: being unable to fully open your heart to another human being. Trauma robs you of the feeling that you are in charge of yourself. The challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind. This means feeling free to know what you know and feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed, enraged, ashamed, or collapsed. For most people, this involves (1) finding a way to become calm and focused, (2) learning to maintain that calm in response to images, thoughts, sounds, or physical sensations that remind you of the past, (3) finding a way to be fully alive in the present and engaged with the people around you, (4) not having to keep secrets from yourself, including secrets about the ways that you have managed to survive...some people get better using just one of these methods, but most are helped by different approaches at different stages of their recovery.”
“In order to regain control over yourself, you need to revisit the trauma: but only after you feel safe and will not be retraumatized by it. The first order of business is to find ways to cope with feeling overwhelmed by the sensations and emotions associated with the past. “ (Drugs often can help with the first part, therapy/healthy choices with the second).