Bessel van der Kolk
Dutch-American psychiatrist whose forty-year career studying the effects of trauma on the body, brain, and human relationships has reshaped the modern field of integrative healing. Born in The Hague in 1943 to a family marked by the German occupation of the Netherlands, he has been a clinician and researcher at Boston University and Harvard, and is the founder of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. His 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score — combining clinical case studies, neuroscience, and the somatic, contemplative, and creative therapies that traditional talk therapy cannot reach — has sold over three million copies, spent more than 200 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and become the foundational text of the contemporary trauma-informed movement that now shapes therapy, education, and contemplative practice.
quotes in library
Quotes by Bessel van der Kolk
101 quotes“Healing requires new experiences in the body.”
“Trauma is the body's frozen no.”
“Recovery is the slow restoration of yes.”
“To breathe consciously is to begin to heal.”
“The vagus nerve is the bridge between body and brain.”
“Safety is the precondition of all healing.”
“In safety, the body remembers how to play.”
“Play is essential, not optional, for the recovery of trauma.”
“Children play their way back to integration.”
“Adults need play too. We have forgotten this.”
“Trauma is the inability to be present with yourself.”
“Healing is the slow restoration of presence.”
“What is felt cannot be hidden. The body always knows.”
“Many traumatized people develop a numb relationship with their bodies.”
“To feel again is the great work of recovery.”
“Mindfulness is not a luxury. For the traumatized, it is medicine.”
“Listen to your body. The body is always speaking.”
“The simplest practice is to feel your feet on the ground.”
“Trauma teaches the body that the world is dangerous. Practice teaches it otherwise.”
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