“The silent treatment and stonewalling can have actual effects on the brain. Research indicates that such behaviors are a form of ostracism which activates the anterior cingulate cortex, the same part of the brain that detects physical pain. Being ignored can leave someone feeling injured – literally…”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“Walker states that for people with Complex PTSD, individuals develop four “F” responses when they are triggered by emotional flashbacks: they may fight, flee, fawn (seek to please) or freeze. These responses are protective, but they may end up further harming the survivor because the survivor might…”— Shahida Arabi, thoughtcatalog.com
“The brain gets very confused. And that leads to problems with excessive anger, excessive shutting down, and doing things like taking drugs to make yourself feel better.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“If you’re an adult and life’s been good to you, and then something bad happens, that sort of injures a little piece of the whole structure. But toxic stress in childhood from abandonment or chronic violence has pervasive effects on the capacity to pay attention, to learn, to see where other people a…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“It's about becoming safe to feel what you feel. When you're traumatized you're afraid of what you're feeling, because your feeling is always terror, or fear or helplessness. I think these body-based techniques help you to feel what's happening in your body, and to breathe into it and not run away fr…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“We just did a study on yoga for people with PTSD. We found that yoga was more effective than any medicine that people have studied up to now. That doesn't mean that yoga cures it, but yoga makes a substantial difference in the right direction.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“But if you're in an orphanage for example, and you're not touched or seen, whole parts of your brain barely develop; and so you become an adult who is out of it, who cannot connect with other people, who cannot feel a sense of self, a sense of pleasure. If you run into nothing but danger and fear, y…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“The human brain is a social organ that is shaped by experience, and that is shaped in order to respond to the experience that you’re having. So particularly earlier in life, if you’re in a constant state of terror; your brain is shaped to be on alert for danger, and to try to make those terrible fee…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, sideeffectspublicmedia.org
“The greatest hope for traumatized, abused, and neglected children is to receive a good education in schools where they are seen and known, where they learn to regulate themselves, and where they can develop a sense of agency. At their best, schools can function as islands of safety in a chaotic worl…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Mainstream trauma treatment has paid scant attention to helping terrified people to safely experience their sensations and emotions.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“The emotional brain initiates preprogrammed escape plans, like the fight-or-flight responses. These muscular and physiological reactions are automatic, set in motion without any thought or planning on our part, leaving our conscious, rational capacities to catch up later, often well after the threat…”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Trauma constantly confronts us with our fragility and with man’s inhumanity to man but also with our extraordinary resilience.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Traumatized people are afraid of conflict. They fear losing control and ending up on the losing side once again.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Chronic childhood abuse causes very different mental and biological adaptations than discrete traumatic events in adulthood.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“The most primitive part, the part that is already online when we are born, is the ancient animal brain, often called the reptilian brain.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Our rational, cognitive brain is actually the youngest part of the brain and occupies only about 30 percent of the area inside our skull.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their life.”— Bessel Van Der Kolk, amazon.com
“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task…”— Judith Herman, amazon.com