"One of the largest mitigating factors against getting traumatized is who is there for you at that particular time."

Trauma doesn’t vanish when danger does. According to psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, the body acts as an archive, holding fear, pain, and survival instincts long after the moment passes.

Van der Kolk explains why conventional treatments for trauma fall short, and the promising new pathways to healing that science is revealing.

Chapters:
0:00 Chapter 1: Trauma, explained
1:21 PTSD in veterans
2:09 Connecting with others after trauma
4:28 The prevalence of trauma
5:35 What is trauma?
8:19 The greatest protector of trauma
9:37 Trauma in the brain
11:46 Automatic responses
14:56 The brain and our experiences
16:52 Re-experiencing trauma
19:58 Brain development and trauma
27:29 Chapter 2: Shaping childhood trauma
28:27 Reenacting trauma in relationships
31:41 Understanding each other’s trauma
34:59 Long term effects of child abuse
36:34 Chapter 3: How to treat trauma
36:57 “A post-alcoholic culture”
37:27 Zoloft, Prozac, and other PTSD drugs
39:15 The Adverse Childhood Experiences study
40:48 Drug addiction
43:02 Eye movement desensitization
and reprocessing (EMDR)
45:48 Unconventional trauma treatments
46:30 The brain-body connection

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About Bessel van der Kolk:

Bessel van der Kolk MD spends his career studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences and has translated emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of treatments for traumatic stress in children and adults.

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