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.
I’d like to understand my trauma response and paths to recovery with a lifetime as an highly sensitive person who didn’t even know until well into my 50’s that most of the information I experienced as trauma wasn’t even mine.
I’d like most to know about effects of mental and emotional domestic abuse as a child and adult on professional educated people, in particular who appear outwardly to be “coping” and “succeeding” in life. Counsellors mentioned the terms “child-hood trauma” and “disenfranchised grief” to me. Thanks.
I’d like to better understand what happens in trauma-specifically head trauma that seems to trigger autoimmune illnesses-at least it has in me. I found myself in your video and hope to hear more!
Can the brain every recover? You know I see my clients appear to recover and lead more normal lives and when it comes to making a big life changing decision they go back to the role they took on in their childhood trauma.
It seems possible to me that although I am now in early seventies.and remain a very active creative woman, nevertheless the trauma of my dear mother dying when I was thirteen remains in my psyche. Awareness of this and daily meditation certainly mediate,, but occasionally when a panic attack arises – which is due to that underlying fear and insecurity, and despite all evidence to the contrary lack of confidence that my world works . . . Still the panic attack has its own power – it will subside no doubt, but it is also undoubtedly very unhealthy for the body and mind.
Do you have any suggestions perhaps?
I want to know ways to help someone overcome the addictions that seem to come about as a way of coping with the feelings following trauma.
i have undergone a lot of psychothepy for trauma and my therapy has touched on the three areas you mention it is exhilarating to hear such a consice analysis of my life’s work to recover and my original problem was hearing voices i want to hear more about trauma and it’s impacts on our functioning from the child to the adult
Can a tramatic event bring on Bipolar Illness?
What are the specific scientific names of the areas that you are speaking of, Dr. Kolk, in this video? I’m thinking the Amygdala, Hypothalamus and hippocampus, but I’m not sure of the third. Are you willing to clarify?
Sincerely,
Yiana
ps. I experienced PTSD from a suicide five years ago.
We need guidance on counteracting ongoing inflammation…specific things the change about diet, exercise, lifestyle, supplements to shut off the stimuli to self destruction of these precious brain cells.
I would like to see local physicians In he U.S. start to pick up the recent academic journals and get educated on this issue. It discomforts me as caregiver to see doctors not eager to learn about the advances in understanding that I am reading about here and in PubMed. Why are they so patient with using outdated information when this field is on fire with specific discussions of the inflammatory issues of continuation of brain damage after he injury.
Thank you for your information on trauma it is helping me to understand myself and others
Can treatment for trauma be drug-free? Can long-term damage such as refugee trauma ever be treated successfully?
Great resource! Thank you. Too bad I am just retiring.
My question has been how to help people with chronic, long term, trauma-so called
Complex PTSD. For instance, childhood of abuse, soldiers, years of domestic violence.
How can I help myself get over trauma?
How to teach self regulaion to someone who has been
Tramatized and any perceived attatchment is seen as a threat
the video did not play in full so only heard 1 point of brain change
I understand that applying acupuncture with imagery, one can re-wire the brain and re-set the traumatic brain to a neutral starting point. What do you say?
I have been to two wonderful conferences with him
I work full time with combat vets and went with dr patch Adams and his wonderful clown staff on a 9 day experience clowning with the vets in guatamala
It was wonderful. Would you be interested in
Working together with this experience?
Tank you
Mark s Kane phd
In addition to schizophrenia I experienced trauma as a child and young woman. I don’t live the ‘normal’ life, but after 41 years of outpatient psychotherapy and medication, extensive creative outlets and a profound Christian faith, I have reached the grand old age of 74 and am happy and healthy. Also lots of physical exercise and ‘passage meditation.’ Thanks for your insight.
I’ve been seeing therapists on and off for decades and was never diagnosed as having had trauma yet all the symptoms you describe are what I experience — I am especially aware of my lack of clear emotional response to just about everything. I use marijuana to access my emotions -/ have not been able to connect any other way
I REALLY APPRECIATED THIS SHORT VIDEO AND FOUND IT HELPFUL. IT BROUGHT TO CLEAR AWARENESS HOW I HAVE REACTED TO TRAUMA ALL THROUGH MY LIFE. I AM A SENIOR NOW AND I HAVE MANY PHYSICAL AILMENTS TO COPE WITH THAT KEEPS ME BUSY PRETTY MUCH FULL TIME. IT MAY JUST GET WORSE. THIS WILL AFFECT MY VERY TROUBLED EMOTIONAL LIFE MORE AND MORE AS WELL. WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MOST IS HOW TO OFFSET THIS POTENTIAL DOWNHILL JOURNEY INTO WHAT MAYE BECOME UNBEARABLE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL PAIN. I HAD A TASTE OF IT FOR A FEW MONTHS LAST YEAR. I ALREADY HAVE A PROFESSIONAL OPINION THAT THIS IS WHAT AWAITS ME. WHAT I EXPERIENCED WAS AWFUL. IF IT WERE TO GET WORSE, I AM NOT SURE HOW I WILL COPE WITH IT FOR WHAT MAY AMOUNT TO YEAR AFTER YEAR OF UNDENDING WORSENING CONDITIONS. I AM SURE I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE GOING THROUGH THIS. AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION MAY BE OF HELP TO OTHERS, BOTH THOSE LIKE ME WHO SUFFER AND THOSE WHO DO THEIR BEST TO HELP THE FORMER COPE WITH THEIR CONDITION. THANKS!
Yes but how do you move out of that emotion.
Aboriginal Children in Foster Care in Australia generally experience low resilience and very poor outcomes for relationships education health and enjoyment I believe largely due to unaddressed early trauma . Can you tell me some of the best ways you have found for helping young children without good family resources recover from trauma .
Thank you for the wonderfully informative video.
I have had several traumatic brain injuries, starting when I was very young.
I have been told there was great trauma around those times.
I am going to be starting to work with a therapist very experienced in PTSD, and trauma.
My question to you is, “Can old traumatic responses be healed, and in your experience what has been most effective in doing that?”
Thank you,
Leslie Miller
Thankyou i had a couple of clients today that will benefit from this information. Do you run a course on trauma therapy?
I’ve just escaped a psychological, emotional, isolation and physical abusive 20 years mariage.
I lost my own Mum due to suicide when i was 3 years of age, she jumped from the 4th floor leaving me locked in my bedroom (her last love gesture, I could follow her in her jump!). Dad was and still is at 84 years of age very authoritarian. I was abused by my brother when I was 14 years of age. I married the brother of one of my friend, we migrated in Australia from Belgium 12 years ago. Belittling and other sarcasm were my daily bread. He overbudgeted a renovation that he couldn’t finish. He stopped working for 5 years to finish the renovation while I started working for the first in English and in Australia as an account assistant (initially I’ve got a financial an commerce bachelor). He’s physics engineer (high distinction) and got even an MBA from Columbia.
I got a pulmonary embolism on 11/5/15 and he didn’t have again a job. He left me at the waiting room of the emergency bringing my daughter back home (she’s 16 and she was bored at waiting). Knowing that he didn’t have a job and that the hospital is at 15 minutes of where we lived…. he didn’t come back when I was admitted in ressuscitation room pretending that he had to feed the children (15 and 18 at the time) and there was a fantastic tv program.
After that he left me alone with the kids, signing for a contract at 2,500 kms (townsville in australia we lived in South Australia) just 15 days after the embolism. that we havent’ got any family here and only few friends, well ! Then he put me in a respite house (initially I refused since it echoed my own Mum) after I was admitted at the hospital in severe depression at risk of harming myself.
2 weeks in respite house alone then 1 month in psy ward.
Do you know what’s the best now : I’ve left him, we’re separated and I feel at peace with myself.
They were several suicide ideation since when he went back home he could tell me :Oh you are praying to the mecca when I was in tears on the floor begging him (and the kids) to stop mimicking my tears and stop belittling me. Police was involved several times but three of them told police that i was assaulting him till the moment my own daughter grabbed me by the throat at my new place and admitted it to the police.
They found something was wrong between her behaviour and what she used to tell them.
Anyway I’m alive but wanted to share my own experience with others in order to tell that’s possible to be a survivor. Being a victim will not help me, seeing me as a survivor will give me the strength to fight for the divorce and my rights (house is sold and I’m the lucky one, I’ve got enough money to survive before finding a new job since I lost my job in the turmoil.
My ex still thinks that there is nothing wrong from his side even if police got evidence , photos of his
4 fingers on my tigh.
I’d like now to support other victims since I’m a survivor and lucky since I’ve got money (I got 1/2 title and found after 6 months (the dissonance was so big at home) that I got a protection income but he used to tell me do not take one.
Anyway I liked to share this with you and if my experience can help other people, do not hesitate to contact me.
Trauma therapy
I would like links to the papers that articulate both the biological impacts of trauma and what interventions are useful in targeting these three impacts on the brain. If there is any relationship to the research on Mindfulness that I think is very useful in treating trauma these would also be very helpful. Thanks you for such a valuable resource and and disseminating this information.
I would like to know how to heal the effects subtle early childhood abandonment with a non-nurturing, emotionaly absent mother and phyisically absent father from age 0-2, i.e. how cope with and heal its lifelong effects such as triggers, mild dissociation, lack of sense of self, fear of connection, sense of personal safety, self-worth, self-esteem and so on in later life. I have struggled with these issues for years despite therapy and even EFT.
I would like to know what the best methods of healing trauma are. I have been on a journey to understand my experience of child abuse, and how to heal from this. This kind of trauma is complex PTSD which is more complicated to heal as it is not as a result of just one event.
I want to know if there is validated research in the works to connect the effects of trauma to adrenal insufficiency or addisons disease. I know that many clinicians recognize the effects of trauma on adrenal fatigue, but the medical community discounts this because there has not been anything validated to link these two. So what we are talking about is a step up from what we consider to be adrenal fatigue to full blown Addison’s Disease, which can be proven by ACH tests.
I have been seeking an answer to this question too – for Adrenal Insufficiency secondary to Hypopituarism, and Addison’s Disease.
How can you change the brain, heal the brain now the we understand the effects trauma had on the brain. Do you have research of the brain of persons who have been traumatized and have healed the brain? What does that look like? What can we expect?
These are clear, understandable and useful reports, particularly in relation to my clinical practice and a book I am working re: the development of self-wholeness.
Good Morning,
Thank you for your email. I would like to know how i can help my eighteen year old son who has had one trauma after another all his life. Presently he has shut me out of his life, he believes that i am the cause of his fathers problems. His father is facing life imprisonment for fraud/mispronunciation, he is presently wanted by the uk police. My son is in UK he does not answer any calls or messages. Needless to say this is also traumatic for me. He is a bright boy straight A finishing off sixth from in UK. I feel helpless. When a situation is so serious one can’t expect advice from anyone as i do not know anyone who has experience such trauma. When i try to stay focused and listen to my intuition for guidance i realize that i am emotionally destroyed from the turn of events during the last 10 years. I have had no medication during all this time, nor has my son. I have had tremendous support. I would appreciate your expert advice at this very difficult time. Much love and Light Sylvana Xuereb from Malta Europe
Recommended therapeutic approaches to support individuals from children to adults.
I work with women and children who have fled domestic abuse. We find that many exhibit trauma.
Many have experienced early childhood trauma that has replayed into adulthood. We would like to learn simply techniques that would help them when they have been triggered in a panic or anxiety attack.
What are nonverbal means of reassuring the traumatized that this will end? That he or she can identify steps allowing and celebrating forward progress ?
What can one do before the next trauma comes up? And it will.
Most of us cannot afford to go for effective therapy ; from experience, there are not enough highly trained practitioners to help deal with PTSD.
Breathing exercises do help.
Are there DVDs available that can be used?
I am still trying to get affordable therapy.I live in a small town.
I bought one of Dr.van der Kolk’s books years ago. It opened a new window.
There is new research showing meditation and yoga has helped men who have been in war zones and have PSTD and those types of practices have helped them.
I’ve always felt that my experience of child sexual abuse, and having to keep the secret – not being able to articulate and tell my story – has messed with my brain. Thanks for this knowledge, gives me understanding to what is going on inside me.
What can be done to help an adopted child (now a 22 yr old adult) overcome the trauma that he experienced in being in an orphanage from birth to 13 months old, which began producing symptoms appearing to be related to reactive attachment disorder at age 20…No obvious symptoms before then…Academic difficulties in college and the breakup of a five year relationship with his girlfriend seems to have triggered his symptoms…He was adopted by us at 13 months of age…
I will just add that I have DID.
What I’m hoping to glean are ways of (further) healing myself. I have had a great deal of therapy from an excellent, insightful psychiatrist, but I find I am extremely reactive and I shut down when faced with certain challenges.
I do understand that text and talks do not take the place of one-on-one therapy!
I want to thank you for such an excellent, rich site. I’m not sure how I came across it but I’m so grateful I did. Thank you.
when I’m working with couples how can I help them heal eachothers trauma?
Thank you for sharing this. What I woudl like to know I guess is if others report that they feel as if their personality has split in two as a result of truama as my husband did? In ohter words is that common?
My experience is that dissociation, what you are talking about, is quite common as a result of trauma. The difference is in the degrees of dissociation, depending on the length and severity of the trauma. It is not uncommon to actually have many more than two distinct “personalities” or sometimes fragments of the whole.
I Always hear from survivors especially post war veterans with PTSD that the trauma has actually changed their brain. While I know this is true I also know the brain has incredible plasticity. The simple fact that it was possible to change the brain is proof that the brain can change again and be healed. I say this as someone with a great deal of experience with trauma survivors but I am also a trauma survivor who spent years not understanding this process and trapped in it. It is taken an incredible amount of time to find healing. Most of the people that I started this journey with have either committed suicide or buried themselves and drug and alcohol abuse. I know that it is difficult to find people who have healed and hung in there on the long journey but I now know that it is possible. I want you to start telling people that healing as possible and to educate them on the fact that yes their brain changed but It can also change back with treatment and healing. A lot of our veterans don’t realize that healing is possible. We have lost many soldiers and survivors because of that misbelief. Please help get the word out. Healing as possible. You just have to hang in there, find the right treatment and care and not engage in destructive behaviors that will sabotage the process. I saw this gentleman in the above video speak at a conference on trauma. He is an amazing and kind hearted man.
I’d be interested in what you think of this method of dealing with trauma:
Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE): A revolutionary new method for stress/trauma recovery Paperback – May 3, 2005
by David Berceli (Author)
I’m not a clinician and I’ve never experienced trauma, so I can’t try it on myself. Have any of you tried it and does it help/work?
I have done the exercises, both with a survivor and alongside her. I absolutely love this book with one caveat. The release of stored trauma in the body can require the presence and skill of a trauma-focused therapist to process those body memories.
these brain changes, arethey reversable or just manageable?
Thank you! I have always had a sense of this. I was traumatized by finding my mother a suicide at age 10. Since then my dad pushed me toward success. No therapy until 17 years later. One major breakdown and plenty of schooling. Undergrad grad grad etc. How can I live now. Videos if you help tremendously. I am glad now on ssdi to be able to use my skills toward a more peaceful life. I want the best life now. And to handle people around me better.
You can heal from that. It’s not like you’ll get over it and not care. That’s not healing but you can process the trauma that you were unable to process at 10 years old. That is the secret: to experience the feelings you had it 10 with support of a trained professional while staying present. You can bring those feelings up to the present day with your adult mind you can integrate experiences into your brain and find Healing n peace. I promise. I am so very sorry that this happened to you. I have a 10-year-old daughter. I cannot even begin to imagine what that experience must’ve felt like. What a horror for such a young beautiful child. I know with all my heart that your mothers pain clouded her ability to know the impact it would have on you. As a mother I know that no matter what she would want you to find healing and peace. Perhaps the healing in the piece that she was unable to find herself. (((Hugs)))
I work in a community health setting. It’s difficult to expand the conservation beyond psychotropic medications for clients who are having difficulty adhering to our program, engaging in behaviors that interfere with progress, and especially those who seem stuck in dysfunctional relational patters. I work with people labeled as having severe, persistent mental illness in a out-patient forensic setting. I should had the majority have experienced sexual, physical childhood trauma as well as the trauma of being poor.