The treatment of trauma can be some of the most complex work practitioners face.
And for years, this challenge was complicated by not having a clear picture of the impact that trauma has on the brain.
But scientific advances within just the past few years have opened the eyes of practitioners to what actually happens in the brain of someone who has experienced trauma.
And according to Bessel van der Kolk, MD, there are three major ways that the brain changes in response to trauma.
To find out what they are (and their impact on the body), take a look at the video below – it’s just 3 minutes.
Bessel is one of the world’s leading experts in trauma and PTSD. Because of his research, we have a deeper understanding of how trauma impacts both body and brain.
And this is crucial – it can help us target our interventions more effectively.
So now, we’d like to hear from you . . .
When it comes to the treatment of trauma, what do you want to know most? Please leave your comment below.
Hello. I find Soul Retrieval to be very beneficial for trauma clients. Journeying to locate the fragmented soul part and returning to the client effects a complete change in the essence and composure from crying and hopeless to joy, and feelings of wholeness. Many times it takes several sessions,. In South American culture Soul retrieval is done immediately to restore that part that has fragmented. There is much to learn. Thank you for this information.
When my anxiety is overwhelming and lasts for weeks and impacts my daily functioning what can I do.
Through therapy I know that my truama is very old… perhaps infancy because I have no words.
i try to let it pass over me but I can do that just so long before I become anxious about being anxious.
So,ething will happen in my current relationship and my reaction is over the top. My anxiety last long after I have worked out the conflict and my friend has moved on. The waves of anxiety are not connected anymore to conscious thought. They have a life of their own.
What about mental trauma that leads to the fear of loss of support and can cause physiological responses, that sinking feeling, a blow to the heart?
I work with Canadian veterans of the war in Afghanistan. Are there any differences in how one treats combat induced PTSD?
Thank you.
Are you talking about emotional trauma or physical trauma…emotional abuse or a concussion?
what do I want to know? everything.
over a year ago I was drugged and sexually assaulted by a once beloved cousin.
my life has changed.
I would like to know when sleep will be my companion; would like to know when trust will return; would like to know if being normal, goofy and happy will ever return to me.
Working with a young counsellor who is excellent but I think, forgets that I am in my 70’s and need someone to talk with.
your information has helped me a great deal and I appreciate the work being done……….more please.
treatment of trauma………..I do not want to end up with PTSD…….but feel this just may happen!!
thank you for all the information.
As I mentioned to my doctor…just because you are a senior does not make you safe….anywhere!!!!
sad, is it not?? to feel this way?
……I do try to meditate and do Reiki but something is missing…….will keep working on myself and then perhaps will be able to help someone else!!
Although my diagnosis is Bipolar Disorder, I suffer from the effects of long term complex trauma based on child abuse. I feel I have moved on with my life pretty well, despite the circumstances, but I am always interested in reading and learning more about it. Eventually, I’d like to write and speak publicly about prevention of child abuse and its detrimental effects on the child’s psyche. Thanks for your work.
When I am dealing with. Couple where both have experienced trauma and are responding out of the fight/ flight response how is the best way to manage that while working on building emotional as well as physical intimacy
Will I return to my previous level of cognitive functioning or is this post trauma level of functioning my new normal? I’ve been suffering from ptsd for 4 years and have been in therapy with a trauma expert. Im struggling to understand the balance between the exercise of patience in healing and the acceptance that I may not ever return to my “old self”. I long to find my pre trauma self and the life I had before. I’m consciously aware of the change in my mental capacity which feeds the depression I experience daily. This journey through trauma/ptsd has changed my family forever it seems. The weight of this disruption to my husband and children is an added stress to what I am already experiencing. Ive invested thousands of dollars in my recovery and expected better results. It seems I am able to cope with the ptsd better, however, recovery has not included a return of my previous cognitive function or mental health. Am I to assume my current cognitive and mental functionings are as good as they will get?
How can class projects in an elementary art class help high-poverty children address the effects of the traumas of growing up in poverty such as food/housing insecurity, family disruptions, and domentic violence?
Interestingly, I am surrounded by people affected by trauma. My fiancee has PTSD from serving in two tours in Iraq. I suffer from a traumatic childhood, and the students I work with suffer from traumatic life events.
I think I’m most interested in how to heal these traumas. Currently, my fiancee uses marijuana to deal with his anxiety. There is assistance from the VA for him, yet he is anxious even about receiving help. I have been working on self transformation for years, which is a lot of work, but worth it. And my students don’t even know that they’re being traumatized, they just see it as the way life is.
Our school district has invested in training us, but the previous training that I took advantage of let me know just what happens to the brain as a result of trauma. I need to know how to deal with the trauma on a daily basis. I need tools in my toolbox!
Very interesting. I myself am a survivor of childhood trauma (repeated sexual abuse from both parents ; spousal abuse and emotional abuse. I can appreciate the comment on the perceived fear of everything and everyone in my environment. Due to my prolonged abuse, I often feel very alone. I escape my aloneness if only temporarily by offering art and craft classes as a wellness tool to others suffering and living with a mental illness.
Dear Ruth,
I would like to understand what type of body work can be applied to heal and change the brain’s functioning, so that persons can reconnect to the whole range of their feelings?
I appreciate your blog and am keen to learn more about restructuring the brain after trauma has affected it. Another interesting question is why some people do not need interventions and are fine? Do their brains respond differently, have their brains different thresholds to hinder the restructuring of their brains’ responses? Many questions:)
Best wishes for 2016:)
With kind regards,
Gabriele B. Fitzgerald
Dip Psych Uni, BA Hons Sc, MA Hum, BA Ed, MBus (Admin Mgnt), MCASA
HDR PhD Candidate
Zero Waste SA Research Centre for
Sustainable Design and Behaviour (sd+b)
m: 0432 900 208
Level 4 Kaurna Building
City West Campus
University of South Australia (UniSA)
GPO Box 2471
Adelaide SA 5001
Australia.
So if drugs and self coping aren’t the answer to trauma what do you suggest? Extensive expensive therapy? How does one retrain the brain in this instance?
What is known about how “smart drugs” aka “nootropics” affect people’s brains and put them into a traumatized state of mind?
How can a person detox with Noopept, a dangerous drug available on-line and in health food stores?
How can we help a person not thinking straight come around to understanding they must detox for their safety and mental health?
In the case I’m referring to, the person now has the police and court system involved. I don’t think they know she’s been taking Noopept.
Does the passage of time and “normal” ongoing day to day life bring a person back from the gut wrenching terror? What steps and tools can one incorporate to untangle the trauma response?
What is the latest information about how nootropics affect the brain and how to detox from them?
Noopept is dangerous, creating negative thoughts, hallucinations and tunnel vision.
Does anyone know how to detox and convince a person taking Noopept in a mental crisis she/he is mentally sick needing to start detoxing?
I’m encouraged to see the attention to trauma that is being publised. The effects and the addition of the “freeze” response is so important to understanding it’s effects. Thank you for your interest and publishing your information. I have been in practice for almost 36 yesrs. This is great information!
Thank you for your offer to share our concerns about trauma.
How can people using nootropics, and Noopept, specifically, detox?
How can my daughter who started Noopept in Sept this year be persuaded to detox? to know she is not herself and thinking straight? She lives in Dallas and we fear for her safety.
She unaware she’s in trouble mentally, is now super-focused on incorrect, negative thoughts and going wild with them.
How can the whole family readjust, we’re all traumatized by what Noopept has done to her?
Thank you for the Bessel van der Kolk, MD, video.
Please get accurate captioning and tell him not to cover his mouth with his hands when speaking, we hard of hearing folks need to see speakers’ mouths.
Infinite Peace with Truth, Justice, Comprehension, Compassion, Alliance, Joy, and Gratitude,
Kathy Cummings
Bodywork, hands-on modalities that are proving effective for trauma.
How to best serve coaching clients in divorce to lower the overwhelm. Divorce is a trauma to many of my clients, for a variety of reasons, and I think it is often not well-recognized or addressed. The impact is far reaching, especially if there are minor children.
Are there resources available, such as discussions of types of treatment and lists of practitioners in different areas? This video describes me exactly. I’d like to seek therapy in New York State. I live near Ithaca. Please let me know. Thanks!
Is it possible to for a person with severe PTSD to be able to de-escalate their feelings of rage toward their perpetrator without psychotropic medication that turns their brain into a “zombie-like” state of numbess and the inability to function or even perceive the environment?
Thanks:). One of the things I wonder about is how and if this information is relevant to what I am going to call silent trauma? or maybe little t trauma? What I am wondering about is those raised by dismissive parents or preoccupied parents and struggle with avoidant and ambivalent attachments because of this. There is no overt trauma and they can often find no reason for why they are feeling so bad. They defend their parents and deny problems. Yet struggle with crippling emotions. Is this included in your definition of trauma?’
Thanks!
Hi,
I would like to know if the reason why I feel (mostly) negative emotions so strongly. Is it possible I am reacting like a very small baby would? I read the emotions were so strong for them that if not contained by loving parent, they scare even themself. They become unmanagable in intensity and they take a long time to settle back to a reasonable level to be able of fonctionning. Basicly is limit personnality related to babies trauma of no parenting at all cause mother is not responding? Is it related to the fact that even good behavior as a baby is not granted with comforting? Is this why I am the way I am?
HI Bessel, nice to hear from you personally. When I am in a trauma/threat response, I find it very difficult to resource myself, as it almost feels like I am in a deep freeze/shut down. What do you suggest?
How to best help other professionals working with traumatized teens that their behavior is NOT always within their control. They are not purposely being “non-compliant, ODD, ADHD, etc and all the other dx put on them for years and years…
They hear the brain research but they (the adult caregivers) do not believe it!
Can I ever recover?
What I want to know is what are the most successful treatments for helping adults that were physically and mentally traumatised in their childhood (alcoholic and war neurotic father and also felt abandonment/unprotected by mother)? Specifically non drug related and that do not require the person to relive the experience all over again through story or talking or journaling ect. I know about EDMR, CBT and PSH and mindfulness and meditation. Are there any others? I finally got my husband to see someone. Not a medico as he had tried this a few times before along with prescribed drugs which do not work I found a man who performed a form of hypnosis known as PSH (private subconscious healing) which helped my husband enormously. However I still feel there is more to his recovery particularly in the area of self worth and self love.
I have similar background. Please explain the method that helped your husband. I hope you find peace.
Our son is non speakIng has autism and seems to have a tick
Or Parkinson’s pattern with getting through the day. Sime tasks,
Emotions all movements is very challenges. We are all in hell with the cycles because we feel
Helpless. We live northern il one hour south of madison Wisconsin. Are there people who can help us?
Hi, I am a survivor of severe domestic violence in my home of origin. I also was an attorney for battered women and their children for 23 years. And I taught in inner city schools for 7 years. A lot of PTSD experience. I LOVE Dr. Van Der Kolks book. Would he happen to know anyone in the San Francisco area who is utilizing his techniques? I need a psychiatrist or therapist. Thank you for your excellent work. LauRose Felicity
Thank you for your video! Considering that the first five years of development are crucial for healthy brain development, appropriate intervention is essential for working with young victims of trauma. Do you have any favorite techniques for working with preschool age children?
Thank you!
Any relationship to Hypnic headaches as result of physical trauma to head
I would love to know which areas of the brain specifically that Dr. van der Kolk refers to. I have been studying Neuropsychology for quite some time now and would like to add these particular findings to my store of information.
I am a licensed social worker specialized in addiction recovery. As an ex-professional dancer, teacher, and current yoga instructor, I am incorporating the use of movement in healing trauma and addiction in a group setting.
I would like to learn more about the benefits of movement and dance therapy in healing of Trauma and addiction. I would like to meet Dr. Van-DerKolk and maybe share some of my work and obtain some feedback from him. Probably attend some of his training’s.
Daniela Riccelli, LCSW,CAP,ICADC, Eng.
561-543-1028
riccellidan@gmail.com
Do you have any information on the results of trauma experienced by individuals from Romanian orphanages Or is Trauma is trauma is trauma?
I am interested in learning more about identifying trauma that was preverbal or pre-memory and working with that. At this point, I utilize similar methods as you spoke to in the last document.
since the brain is an organ of the body, with physical neuro pathways, how can massage therapists help with PTSD? Massage produces changes in the mind, as well as in heart rate, respiration, serotonin, and some other neuro transmitters.
I would love to see more information and research on massage and PTSD.
Thanks!
Being a trauma survivor, I find Tibetan Buddhist vajrayana meditation technique to have had the deepest, most meaningful healing for me. And I’ve tried plenty in my day.. Studying this and practicing meditation..Green Tara, as taught by Lama Migmar Tseten, Buddhist Chaplain of Harvard University, is healing and truly rewiring my brain. I’ve been attending his teachings for almost 5 years. My PTSS is fading from a violent and abused childhood. I am grateful beyond words.
Your explanations are spot on. Having experienced trauma I found relief in martial arts and have seen so much success in adults and children with trauma issues over the last 25 years.
Does it ever go away?
I ask this question with tears in my eyes because I’ve had continuous relapses into fear that as I got older were so much harder to overcome. I understand perfectly what the Dr. Is describing. Authentic Joy is so difficult to maintain when hyper vigilance steps into the picture.
Sincerely,
Catherine Chang
Addiction, eating disorders and trauma? Also images of the brain under trauma
Agreed. I had a client whose life was changed by a single deep kiss by her father. Affected all her relationships. I’m glad to see scientific validation for what I have so often observed. Anything that causes a dramatic and cellular change in all aspects of a person must be measurable. Thank you for doing the research.
Schools, especially, large public schools, are problem places for my clients with trauma. Nearly all of the foster and juvenile justice youth I serve are victims of trauma. The responses of school staff often trigger trauma responses. Are there effective models of intervention to support students with trauma in public schools?
I would like to see more that shows levels of severity of complex/relational trauma and the development of PTSD/Combat Trauma in the military, both men and women. And then, treatment alternatives to the VA’s use of Exposure Therapy.
I would like to learn more treatment options for helping clients in session learn how to deal with body dysregulation .
Often, especially working with youth in the Juvenile Justice system, I find the aspects of physical and relational trauma “covered over” by diagnoses that rewrite the story of the youth’s self-perception. My question is how do we parse together a focused trauma therapeutic in the midst of accepted narrative confounding as trauma is enveloped in system-based rewiring of self? This being situated in the true best interests of the youth and not just speaking to a diagnosis. Thank you.
I have seen this happen over and over with my daughter. She was raped when she was 17 by someone that she barely knew. It has been 10 years, most of it hellish, and if there is one thing that the experience has is that people over write her experiences. We are fortunate to find a therapist with skill in trauma and it made a world of difference.
What is an effective way for identifying triggers and then interrupting the trauma response in the body once the trigger is identified? Also, can triggers be neutralized so that they do not cause negative responses and associations? Thank you
how to help people focus attention on the underlying ENERGY of the trauma -not the image or thoughts about it-but only the experience of sensations in the body?
I want to know how to measure the impact of therapeutic art interventions on those brains (really on those people) who have suffered trauma. Will it be enough to interview and assess pre-treatment intervention and post-treatment intervention? How can one ethically do that research with a control group? Would you be able to produce evidence-based treatment results if your control group was able to receive treatment in rotation? Just curious. I’m still a student.
Can I find happiness again. I lost a child 3 years,ago and I’m not in hysteria any longer but I find NO happiness. I’m just dragging myself thru life