The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel A. van der KolkMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
We humans share many aspects of our biology with other animals, but we are unique in one distinct way. We are born into the world completely vulnerable, defenseless and fragile. If something goes wrong at this early stage, then there will be a great price to pay. The way things look to me, its not that you must be unlucky for something to go wrong it is that you must be lucky for things to go right.
If you were not lucky enough to be born in a safe environment, chances are you will go through an experience that will most likely instill a lifelong imprint on your psychology and as a result dictate how you interpret the world around you. Many of us will not have leave our house in order to experience psychological trauma. Research shows that one in five Americans were sexually molested as a child, one in four get beat to the point of a mark being left on their body and one in three couples engage in physical violence. Trauma is truly everywhere.
When one goes through a traumatic experience, the mental faculties responsible for objectivity and emotional regulation go offline causing the subject to be stuck in a hypervigilant or numbed out state that is prepared to be assaulted at any time. It might be that the individual is completely unaware of their mental state due to complex coping mechanisms that tend to push traumatic experiences out of conscious awareness, but the body will always find a way to express the underlying condition of the psyche. Among other things, this will lead to a cascade of problems in the human organism causing mental and bodily diseases.
This book is about how trauma affects who we are at the core of our being and what we can do about it if we wish to change. What was most surprising for me was the interlinked relationship between the mental and the physical. When something (traumatic) happens to you and you go through an experience, your memory might forget it, but the experience will stay in your body forever as the body will always keep the score.
As above, so below
View all my reviews