Summary of The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. - Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma #719037

A Comprehensive Summary of The Body Keeps the Score


Introduction
In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explores the much publicized—but not so well understood—concepts of trauma and associated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
Drawing from his multi-decade, firsthand experience working with patients of trauma, Dr. van der Kolk deeply analyzes the visible and inner agony that trauma victims of war, domestic and social violence, and incest and other sexual molestation face and sometimes live with throughout their entire lives.
The book relates the success stories of dozens of patients across both genders ranging from children to adults, and soldiers to civilians, who have courageously embraced and turned around the pain of trauma in the course of their lives. In handling stress, the book discusses how the patient loses their control of the body and mind as a coping strategy, illustrates how this scenario constantly endangers their development, and explains how they can regain control of their body, mind, and brain through talking and attunement with people they trust.
In using science to understand and treat trauma, van der Kolk starts by looking deep into the brain to show how trauma is registered and kept—specifically the role of the amygdala and frontal cortexes in responding to trauma. From his analyses, the heart rate variability and its role in trauma management lays an important platform for the use of yoga, music, art and dancing in healing trauma. Other crucial tools for trauma management include the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) used for letting go of the past, and communal rhythms used to reintegrate with society and feel secure in facing the life ahead.
This book is about management of trauma for people of all ages. In the US, one in five people were sexually molested as children, twenty-five percent have body marks sustained from assaults in the home, thirty-five percent of couples have experienced physical violence, one in four people has had close relatives who were alcoholic, and one in eight people saw their mother physically assaulted while growing up.


to be continued...