The 7 SURPRISING Ways To Heal Trauma WITHOUT MEDICATION | Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk

My guest today is someone who I’ve been wanting to speak to for a very long time. Dr Bessel van der Kolk is a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and President of the Trauma Research Foundation in Massachusetts.

CAUTION: This conversation contains themes of an adult nature and references to sexual assault.

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DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

[mysterydiaz]

I’ve done yoga, tai chi …and everything under the sun. I believe I order to heal trauma you need to tell your story out loud and be heard, felt and seen.

[nicolesavioz]

"Trauma is about shame and being disconnected from other people" - that resonated!

[denise]

Even having super strict parents who were emotionally unavailable can be traumatic to sensitive people like me because we didn’t get the emotional support to be able to process our difficult emotions and to feel safe.
I am now learning to do this for myself through the work of these gentlemen, and others like Drs Gabor Maté and Dr Peter Levine. Thank you for this great interview.

[heatherwall]

It’s not only those traumatic events….its also emotional neglect and being around constant anger of a parent, where zero love was shown…that affects us on a daily basis as a kid…fearful of a parent …my mother was a nightmare to be around and passed her own unresolved issues onto me. Never felt she cared about me and I wondered why she even had me. She was never someone I could turn too…I used to go to work as a teenager and cry….the issue got worse when all my older siblings left. All I grew up in was turbulence. Zero love and constant arguments between my parents. I shut down completely. This affects me in all my relationships as I didn’t know how to form healthy bonds and turned to substances to get a better feeling, not knowing I was just trying to avoid my pain that needed deep healing ….im 60 now and live totally alone. I’ve been suicidal over the years too as I crave some connection with another human being, but most have their own issues they are dealing with and cannot hold that space where I feel connected. It’s incredibly lonely and painful 🙏❤️

[jellybellyfun]

12:40 He nailed it. A trauma-informed school system is absolutely necessary. That would reduce bullying and gun violence. Even the medical system should be built based on a trauma-informed system.

[andrearovenski]

really appreciate how the show starts RIGHT into the conversation instead of doing a long introduction. Really great.

[fobsixi]

My little dog has helped me, I enjoy petting her and going for car rides with her and taking care of her helps take my mind off of the past.

[neeaforsgren]

I have fibromyalgia and one of the first things my rheumatologist asked me if I had any trauma past. I had just been diagnosed with cptsd after my marriage and a bit after the fibromyalgia started. He told me I might get better after I would get my nervous system and mind healed. And he has been right. Getting better all the time as I heal mentally. I am blessed to have him as my doctor and to live in Finland so it costs next to nothing.
Loved this episode❤

[billmiller]

As someone who just spent 18 days in the hospital, I REALLY appreciate that you brought up the lack of trauma training in med school! This has to change!!

[drironmom]

He is so right. I was bullied in school. When I tried to tell my parents they asked me what I’d done to deserve it. I realized I had no one to help me. For three years I endured the bullying in silence. I considered suicide. The pain and shame is still with me in adulthood

[madremia]

I was an unwanted child (to my mother, not my father). When I was about 6 or 7 years old she told me about her suicidal thoughts during pregnancy. She wanted to jump off the train on her way to work. As an adult woman of 55 it is still not easy for me to move or breathe the way I’d like to. As if it was forbidden to make the world notice that I exist. It is stuck in my body. I am grateful for doctor van der Kolk’s work. It is because of his ideas that I began to see a connection between my trauma experience and my body.

[pugglepooch]

I think creative people like artists, actors and musicians are sensitive and feel things intensively..on another level.

[jellybellyfun]

What is evil, cruel and ignorant about society is how most people blame the victims of traumatic events of having CPTSD & PTSD. That is like blaming a victim of a car accident or assault who ended up with broken limbs, and humiliating them for that limb not being whole and healthy, and for not walking/running within a year of that broken limb/s.

[joofark]

EMDR was the first therapy I received that actually helped me. Before I went through it, I was totally locked in traumatic fear. Psychiatric drugs made things worse for me. I will always be deeply grateful that my therapist was trained in EMDR.

[kateking]

People don't go around telling others about the bad things that happen in their lives. Catastrophic accident, bad choices that lead to hard lives, tragic losses, frightening illness. If you don't have family or a partner to share the burden, the result is cumulative stress leading to trauma and hypervigilance.

[kmcq]

1:23:23 what a beautiful observation he quotes…”Victims are members of society whose problems represent the memory of suffering, rage, and pain in a world that longs to forget.”

[goodquestion]

I’m a 53 year old narcissistic abuse survivor,
The last four years of lockdowns and fear mongering and now wars, I feel will leave our children with severe trauma later in life, , the last four years has been so traumatic fir humanity, now we must sit and watch the outcomes… it’s so heartbreaking

[arunagreen]

I know a clinical psychologist who said " singing is silly" when i said i was going for lessons. My choir conductor said " yes it is silly and thats great"

[erinward]

Trauma robs us of so much time and so much potential. Living in the present becomes this astronomical impossibility. Functioning becomes dysfunctional functioning. Life feels so different. It’s extremely difficult to manage my life now, especially when others don’t understand or respect it.

[TheresaMueller]

One year ago I listened in an online trauma congress, where an amazing finding stuck still to my mind: They found, that when we experience traumatizing situations as children and we were comforted by embracing, then the traumatic experience doesn`t stick to us, because our body releases the tension and it is not being stored in our cells.