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Quotes from The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma — Bessel van der Kolk

born 1943 Netherlands

← All quotes by Bessel van der Kolk

13 quotes

One thing is certain: Yelling at someone who is already out of control can only lead to further dysregulation.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

A major challenge in recovering from trauma remains being able to achieve a state of total relaxation and safe surrender.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Scared animals return home, regardless of whether home is safe or frightening.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

It takes enormous trust and courage to allow yourself to remember.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on—unchanged and immutable—as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Change begins when we learn to "own" our emotional brains. That means learning to observe and tolerate the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Mindfulness not only makes it possible to survey our internal landscape with compassion and curiosity but can also actively steer us in the right direction for self-care.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Bessel van der Kolk (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.