Dr Bessel van der Kolk – Trauma, Memory and the Restoration of One’s Self

Description

Bessel van der Kolk is that rare gift, a leading edge scientist who is also a masterful therapist. This is an engaging and remarkable presentation for therapists, healers and professionals involved in working with trauma from the cutting edge author of The Body Keeps the Score.

The evolutionary function of the human brain is to ensure our internal well-being and ability to connect to other human beings. Traumatic experiences, however, change the brain’s priorities: the ability to process information and engage with our environments is altered. Individuals become afraid to know what they know or to feel what they feel. Worse yet, they become afraid of other human beings, isolating to feel safe but at the cost of connection and comfort.

Dr Bessel van der Kolk

This recording explores how, because of their altered biological systems and rhythms, traumatized individuals can continue to be trapped by their histories long after the events are past. Current experiences and relationships are misinterpreted by the body as a replay of the past with no conscious connection to the trauma. 

With the help of videotapes, this workshop will explore ways to break the cycles of re-enactment and suffering by befriending inner experience.

We study the action of the newer therapeutic modalities for trauma, all of which emphasize the neurobiological legacy of trauma: mindfulness, EMDR, yoga, Internal Family Systems Therapy, sensorimotor therapy, theatre work, and neurofeedback. With an understanding of how “the body keeps the score,” we can more easily help children and adults overcome a traumatic past and regain the capacity to be fully alive in the present.

Contents include:

– Recovery from Traumatic Stress?
– Including Treatments for Trauma
– Disorders or Adaptation?
– How the Brain ‘Gets On With Life’
– The Amygdala
– Trauma Scripts
– Brain Function in Trauma
– Psychiatry, PTSD and the Politics of DSM categorization
– Immune Function with Incest History
– Childhood Trauma and Borderline Personality Disorder
– Predictors of Self-Destructive Behaviour
– Effects of Child Maltreatment on Health
– Childhood Trauma Alters Brain Development
– ‘You Cannot Do It Alone’
– Regulation of Arousal
and more..

NB: Some Video’s from the presentation are not included for Copyright reasons. However the substance of the content is intact.

Bessel van der Kolk: Trauma, Memory and the Restoration of the Self

BESSEL VAN DER KOLK, MD, is a clinical psychiatrist who has studied the impact and resolution of trauma on the minds and brains of children and adults since 1982. He is professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and medical director of the Trauma Center in Boston. He is author of the New York Times best seller The Body Keeps the Score. www.besselvanderkolk.com

Bessel van der Kolk: Trauma, Memory and the Restoration of the Self