This supports Francine Shapiro's Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory of EMDR therapy that the brain moves toward health just like the rest of the body, unless blocked or hindered. Here he shares that our brain's adaptive response to stress leads to action and how trauma can overwhelm this healthy adaptive response. 26) He goes on to say that we can't get better until we ' know what we know and feel what we feel," recognizing the tremendous courage and strength it takes to remember.
" Most human suffering relates to love and loss so the therapist's job is to help people acknowledge, experience, and bear the reality of life, with all its pleasures and heartbreak." (p. He saw their experiences very differently than the prevailing dismissive approach of the mental health field at the time. These early experiences later helped him to have a 'trauma lens' when he began working with survivors of incest. Since EMDR deals with perception, this was a concrete example of how trauma distorts the brain's 'reality'. Van der Kolk's early research on veterans is impactful, particularly the case example of the trauma-distorted perceptions found in Rorschach tests. The title of this section is significant, underlying the knowledge about trauma and mental health being discovered by Janet and others in the late 1800's. We are all impressed with his passionate and heartfelt dedication to healing. He writes with openness about his own personal experiences with EMDR and other therapies, often leading to his next research and therapeutic interventions. He is able to admit mistakes which often then result in further learning, showing himself curious and continually searching for new and better ways to assist others. More than all of this, however, we read about a man working and sharing from his heart, one who exemplifies a deep respect for suffering people and a commitment to healing the whole person in front of him. Van der Kolk recognizes the value of language but emphasizes the greater importance of action that connects to the powerless, trapped, or frozen condition that is trauma's imprint on the brain. Other child specialists share his helpful explanation of the loss of identity of self through trauma. I learned more about the history of the DSM, its profit-rather than research-driven impetus, and why he was not successful in getting Child Developmental Trauma in the DSM V, after overwhelming research showing child mental illness has adverse experiences as its cause along with strong national support from child clinicians. 38):Ī) We have the capacity to heal each other that is equal to our capacity to destroyī) Language does give us the power to changeĬ) We can regulate our own physiology through breathing, moving, touching.ĭ) We can change social conditions to help people feel safe and be able to thrive. Here’s what he lists as losses from this paradigm shift (p. This led to primarily treatment by drugs to fix a chemical imbalance, now debunked, but still a part of our culture. I also agree about what we as a field have lost with the reductionist view of mental illness as a brain disease. I recall the same excitement he shares at being able to use medications early such as the early antidepressants to help people. I (Bonnie) began practice over 40 years ago so remember many of the changes and their impact on our the field.
This book is a history of his career as a psychiatrist, researcher and therapist and as such, becomes a history of the mental health field over the last 30+ years. Van der Kolk's extensive use of case examples from his therapy experiences powerfully expand this understanding. He uses simple terminology, such as calling the primitive brain the 'fire alarm', which can help our clients understand the brain impact of adverse experiences, particularly childhood abuse and neglect.
For that reason alone, the book is worth reading but there is so much more. This book has the most understandable explanation of the brain and trauma's impact on it of any we've read. Bessel Van der Kolk is the preeminant neuroscientist most influencing our understanding of trauma as the cause of so many mental health issues.