Riassunto
A pioneering researcher and one of the world's foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing
Trauma does not just happen to other people - it happens to us, our friends and family and our neighbours. While humans are able to rebound from relentless wars, family violence and manmade disasters, experiences like these inevitably leave traces: on our minds, our emotions and even on our biology and immune systems. This matters not just to those who are directly affected, but to the people around them: the wives of men with PTSD tend to become depressed, abused children often go on to have violent relationships, soldiers are prone to terrorizing their families.
In The Body Keeps the Score, Dr Bessel van der Kolk shares thirty years of experience in dealing with the traumatized to offer a new paradigm for treating traumatic stress and restoring the capacity for pleasure, intimacy and joy. Standard talking and drug therapies, he argues, have not been proven to resolve the imprint of trauma in sufferers' lives. We now understand how traumatic experiences literally rearrange the brain's wiring and how, under the right circumstances, the areas of the brain dedicated to feelings of meaning, engagement, control and trust can be activated again. That understanding has allowed us to develop tools to help traumatized people regulate their emotions and engage fully in life, ranging from neurofeedback to trauma processing, mindfulness meditation to play and yoga. The Body Keeps the Score sheds new light on the impact of trauma that could alleviate the suffering of millions of people.
Dr Bessel van der Kolk is one of the world's foremost experts on traumatic stress. He is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Boston, USA, and director of the Complex Trauma Treatment Network. A past professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, Dr van der Kolk is the author of several scholarly books and over a hundred scientific articles.
Recensione
Van der Kolk draws on 30 years of experience to argue powerfully that trauma is one of the West's most urgent public health issues... Packed with science and human stories ... van der Kolk has a lot to say, and the struggle and resilience of his patients is very moving (New Scientist)
In this inspirational work which seamlessly weaves keen clinical observation, neuroscience, historical analysis, the arts, and personal narrative, Dr. van der Kolk has created an authoritative guide to the effects of trauma, and pathways to recovery. The book is full of wisdom, humanity, compassion and scientific insight, gleaned from a lifetime of clinical service, research and scholarship in the field of traumatic stress. A must read for mental health and other health care professionals, trauma survivors, their loved ones, and those who seek clinical, social, or political solutions to the cycle of trauma and violence in our society (Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York)
Every once in a while, a book comes along that fundamentally changes the way we look at the world. Bessel van der Kolk has written such a book. The arc of Van der Kolk's story is vast and comprehensive, but he is such a skillful storyteller that he keeps us riveted to the page. I could not put this book down. It is, simply put, a great work (Stephen Cope, founder and director, Kripalu Institute for Extraordinary Living; author of Yoga and the Quest for the True Self)
This is an absolutely fascinating and clearly written book by one of the nation's most experienced physicians in the field of emotional trauma. The Body Keeps the Score helps us understand how life experiences play out in the function and the malfunction of our bodies, years later (Vincent J. Felitti, M.D., chief of preventative medicine, emeritus, Kaiser Permanente San Diego; co-principal investigator, ACE study)
Breathtaking in its scope and breadth, The Body Keeps the Score is a seminal work by one of the preeminent pioneers in trauma research and treatment. This essential book unites the evolving neuroscience of trauma research with an emergent wave of body-oriented therapies and traditional mind/body practices that go beyond symptom relief and connect us with our vital energy and here-and-now presence (Peter A. Levine, author of In An Unspoken Voice)
Dr. van der Kolk's masterpiece combines the boundless curiosity of the scientist, the erudition of the scholar, and the passion of the truth teller (Judith Herman, M.D., clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; author of Trauma and Recovery)
This exceptional book will be a classic of modern psychiatric thought. The impact of overwhelming experience can only be truly understood when many disparate domains of knowledge, such as neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and interpersonal neurobiology are integrated, as this work uniquely does. There is no other volume in the field of traumatic stress that has distilled these domains of science with such rich historical and clinical perspectives, and arrived at such innovative treatment approaches. The clarity of vision and breadth of wisdom of this unique but highly accessible work is remarkable. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society (Alexander McFarlane, director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies, University of Adelaide)
The Body Keeps the Score articulates new and better therapies for toxic stress based on a deep understanding of the effects of trauma on brain development and attachment systems. This volume provides a moving summary of what is currently known about the effects of trauma on individuals and societies, and introduces the healing potential of both age-old and novel approaches to help traumatized children and adults fully engage in the present (Jessica Stern, policy consultant on terrorism; author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror)
As an attachment researcher I know that infants are psychobiological beings. They are as much the body as they are of the brain. Without language or symbols infants use every one of their biological systems to make meaning of their self in relation to the world of things and people. Van der Kolk shows that those very same systems continue to operate at every age, and that traumatic experiences, especially chronic toxic experience during early development, produce psychic devastation. With this understanding he provides insight and guidance for survivors, researchers, and clinicians alike. Bessel van der Kolk may focus on the body and trauma, but what a mind he must have to have written this book (Ed Tronick, distinguished professor, University of Massachusetts; author of Neurobehavior and Social Emotional Development of Infants and Young Children)
This book is a tour de force. Its deeply empathic, insightful, and compassionate perspective promises to further humanize the treatment of trauma victims, dramatically expand their repertoire of self-regulatory healing practices and therapeutic options, and also stimulate greater creative thinking and research on trauma and its effective treatment. The body does keep the score, and Van der Kolk's ability to demonstrate this through compelling descriptions of the work of others, his own pioneering trajectory and experience as the field evolved and him along with it, and above all, his discovery of ways to work skillfully with people by bringing mindfulness to the body (as well as to their thoughts and emotions) through yoga, movement, and theater are a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air and possibility in the therapy world (Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus, UMass Medical School; author of Full Catastrophe Living)
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