Body Keeps The Score Summary

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk argues that traumatic experiences can disconnect the mind and body.

The mind might try to bury trauma to protect us, but the body remembers. The body keeps the score, holding onto the raw sensations, emotions, and survival instincts activated during the traumatic event. This can manifest as physical or emotional symptoms, signaling unresolved trauma.

Trauma is a Mind-Body Disconnection

Imagine your brain as a high-tech computer with different programs running.

One program is responsible for your thoughts and memories – this is like the thinking brain.

Another program controls your body’s automatic responses to danger – like your heart racing or your muscles tensing up – this is like the feeling brain.

Trauma is like a glitch in the system that disconnects these two programs.

The Body Keeps the Score emphasizes that trauma is not merely a difficult or unpleasant event, but rather a profound disconnection between the mind and body that occurs in response to overwhelming and threatening experiences.

While our thinking brain might try to shield us from the full force of a traumatic event, our body (feeling brain) remembers the emotional experience on a deeper level.

This creates a rift between our mental understanding of what happened and the physical and emotional sensations that linger.

The thinking brain might say, ‘I’m safe now’, but the feeling brain remains in a state of alarm, leading to hypervigilance, anxiety, and a range of physical and emotional symptoms.

This creates a profound disconnection between what we think about the trauma and what we feel about it.

This disconnection has lasting effects, shaping how we experience ourselves, the world, and our relationships.

The Body as a Record Keeper

Trauma Manifests in Physical and Emotional Symptoms

Even if our conscious mind tries to forget, our body holds onto the trauma and continues to react as if the danger is still present.

The body remembers and keeps the score; by manifesting the unresolved trauma in a multitude of ways, ranging from physical reactions to profound changes in how we relate to others and ourselves.

Shame prevents healing.

For trauma survivors, shame often becomes the dominant emotion. They may feel ashamed of what happened, our reactions, or not being able to ‘just get over it.’

The grip of shame can be incredibly powerful, keeping us stuck in the past and hindering our ability to live authentically and connect with others.

This shame can lead to hiding the truth from ourselves and others, further deepening the disconnection.

Healing from trauma requires addressing this shame at its core, cultivating self-compassion, and reclaiming a sense of agency and self-worth.

Trauma often involves a violation of boundaries and a loss of control.

This can lead to a deep sense of shame, a feeling of being fundamentally flawed or broken.

The shame, in turn, can fuel self-blame, self-hatred, and a belief that we deserve what happened to us, further eroding our sense of self-worth.

Trauma can disrupt our ability to trust ourselves and others.

This can lead to isolation, withdrawal, and difficulty forming healthy relationships.

The fear of being judged, rejected, or re-traumatized can keep us locked in a cycle of shame and secrecy, preventing us from seeking the support and connection we need to heal.

Trauma can lead to a distorted sense of self.

Trauma can profoundly shatter our sense of self, leaving us feeling fragmented, unworthy, and deeply ashamed.

The mind might create a narrative that protects us from the full impact of the trauma, but it can also warp our sense of who we are and what we deserve.

We might become overly compliant, fearful of asserting our needs, or adopt personas that mask our true selves.

The Tyranny of Language

Why Words Alone Can’t Heal Trauma

While language is essential for making meaning of our experiences and connecting with others, it can also become a barrier to healing trauma.

Since trauma is stored in parts of the brain that are not easily accessed by words, healing requires approaches that go beyond conventional talk therapy.

Healing from trauma involves bridging this gap between the mind and body.

By addressing both the physical and emotional impacts of trauma, we can regain a sense of internal coherence and reclaim our lives.

Van der Kolk emphasizes this by advocating for therapies that engage the body directly, such as movement, yoga, and EMDR.

Talking about trauma can reinforce the mind’s defenses.

When confronted with overwhelming experiences, our minds often employ defense mechanisms to shield us from the full emotional and physical impact of the trauma.

This can involve suppressing memories, distorting narratives, and blaming ourselves, all in an attempt to maintain a sense of safety and control.

Talking about the trauma can inadvertently activate these defenses, leading to further minimization or denial of its true impact.

Trauma is often a preverbal, bodily experience.

Trauma is a speechless experience, van der Kolk emphasizes, explaining that the raw sensations, emotions, and survival instincts activated during trauma are often beyond the reach of language.

These experiences are stored in the body, not the thinking brain, and therefore cannot be fully accessed or healed through words alone.

While language can help us make sense of our experiences, it can also become a tyranny.

We may feel forced to fit complex, overwhelming sensations and emotions into neat, socially acceptable narratives.

This process can lead to further disconnection from the bodily sensations and emotions where the trauma resides.

Understanding doesn’t always lead to change.

We can intellectually grasp the impact of trauma on our lives, but this doesn’t necessarily translate into a shift in our emotional and bodily responses.

As van der Kolk points out:

‘Knowing why you screwed up doesn’t necessarily stop you from being screwed up.’

We might know why we freeze, dissociate, or become enraged, but our bodies might still react in these ways, leaving us feeling trapped and out of control.

Healing Involves Reconnecting Mind and Body

Trauma is not just a story we tell ourselves; it’s encoded in the deeper, more primitive parts of our brain that are responsible for survival and threat detection.

These areas operate outside of conscious awareness, which is why talking therapy alone is often insufficient for healing trauma.

Healing from trauma requires addressing this mind-body disconnection. It’s not enough to talk about the trauma.

It’s essential to help the body process and release the trauma’s grip.

It is crucial to remember that there is no one right way to heal from trauma.

The best approach will vary depending on the individual and the nature of their experiences.

However, understanding the interplay between the thinking brain and feeling brain can provide valuable insights into the process of healing and help individuals find the most effective strategies for recovery.

The book explores a range of therapeutic approaches that can help reconnect the mind and body, including:

body-oriented Therapies

Body-oriented therapies can create a safe and supportive environment for individuals to access and process traumatic memories.

Somatic therapies, such as yoga, dance, and massage, help individuals reconnect with their bodies and regulate the nervous system, which is often dysregulated by trauma.

By calming the nervous system and rewiring the brain, these therapies help individuals approach these memories without being overwhelmed by fear or shame.

These therapies can create a sense of safety and agency, allowing individuals to gradually reclaim their bodies and process the trauma in a more grounded, embodied way.

This allows for a deeper understanding of the trauma’s impact and the opportunity to integrate the experience into a new, more coherent narrative.

Yoga

While van der Kolk acknowledges that yoga alone may not be sufficient to fully resolve the effects of trauma, he emphasizes its significance as a crucial element in a broader healing journey.

Through enhanced body awareness and nervous system regulation, yoga creates a foundation for individuals to gradually approach and process traumatic memories without becoming overwhelmed by their intensity.

Combining yoga with other therapeutic approaches, such as talk therapy, EMDR, and potentially psychedelic-assisted therapies, can provide a more holistic path towards healing and reclaiming one’s life from the grip of the past.

Yoga helps you reconnect to your body in a safe and gentle way:

Trauma often leads to a disconnection from bodily sensations, either through numbing or hypersensitivity.

Yoga encourages mindful awareness of the body and breath, inviting individuals to gently explore their physical experiences and restore a sense of agency.

It’s like turning your attention inwards and saying, ‘Hey, body, I’m here with you. What’s going on?’

This helps you become more aware of what you’re feeling physically and emotionally.

Yoga invites you to explore your physical limits with kindness and curiosity, not force.

It’s about honoring what your body can do today, and gradually building strength and flexibility over time.

Trauma can make you feel stuck, both physically and emotionally.

Movement can be really empowering, especially if your trauma involved feeling helpless or out of control.

Yoga’s structured, intentional movements can be particularly beneficial for individuals whose trauma involved physical violation or helplessness.

Yoga helps you break free from that stuckness by giving you a way to move your body in a way that feels strong and graceful.

The intentional movements of yoga help you reclaim a sense of agency – the feeling that you have control over your body and your actions.

The practice helps rebuild trust in the body and its ability to move through the world with strength and grace.

Yoga regulates the nervous system:

Imagine your heart rate like the beat of a song. Sometimes it’s fast and intense, other times it’s slow and chill.

This natural variation between heartbeats is called heart rate variability (HRV).

• Good HRV is like a song with a lot of different rhythms and pauses – your heart is flexible and can adapt to changes easily. It means you can handle stress better and relax more easily.
• Poor HRV is like a song that’s always the same beat – your heart is rigid and less able to adjust. This can make you feel stressed and anxious more easily.

Trauma can mess up your HRV, kind of like throwing off the rhythm of the song. It can make your heart rate stay stuck in a fast, stressed-out mode even when there’s no real danger.

This is where yoga comes in! Yoga helps you reconnect to your body and your breath.

It’s like re-tuning your heart rate so it can play a more balanced and adaptable song.

Here’s how yoga helps improve HRV:

• Deep breathing: Many yoga practices involve deep, slow breathing, which directly impacts your heart rate and helps your body calm down.
• Mindful movement: Yoga poses help you become more aware of your body and how it feels. This awareness helps you tune in to your physical sensations and notice when you’re holding tension or stress.
• Relaxation: Yoga practices often end with relaxation, giving your body and mind a chance to fully let go and reset.

By improving HRV, yoga essentially helps your heart and brain communicate better, allowing your body to shift gears between ‘stress mode’ and ‘relax mode’ more easily.

This makes you more resilient to stress and better equipped to handle life’s challenges.

Mindfulness

Bessel van der Kolk sees mindfulness as a valuable tool for trauma recovery due to its ability to help individuals reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous system, and develop greater awareness of their internal experiences.

Van der Kolk consistently highlights how trauma fragments an individual’s experience, creating a disconnection between mind and body.

Traumatized individuals often struggle to inhabit their bodies, feeling numb, disconnected, or overwhelmed by physical sensations.

Their minds may race with intrusive thoughts, memories, or anxieties, making it difficult to stay present.

Mindfulness emphasizes paying attention to present-moment experiences with curiosity and non-judgment.

This practice encourages a gentle shift in awareness from the chaotic thoughts and feelings of the mind to the sensations and experiences of the body.

By grounding attention in the present moment, individuals can begin to feel safer and more connected to their bodies.

Through regular mindfulness practice, individuals develop greater awareness of their thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations.

This increased self-awareness helps them recognize early warning signs of distress and develop healthier coping mechanisms instead of being swept away by reactions.

The practice of non-judgmental awareness also fosters self-compassion, helping individuals observe their experiences with kindness rather than criticism.

This shift from self-judgment to acceptance can help soothe the shame that often accompanies trauma and build a foundation for lasting healing.

EMDR

Van der Kolk emphasizes that trauma is not just a mental or emotional experience; it profoundly impacts the body and brain.

Trauma can disrupt the brain’s normal functioning, particularly in areas responsible for processing emotions, memory, and bodily sensations.

One of the hallmarks of trauma is that individuals often feel like they are reliving the experience, rather than simply remembering.

This shift from ‘reliving’ to ‘remembering’ is crucial for healing.

Van der Kolk highlights that while talk therapy can help individuals understand their trauma, it doesn’t necessarily change the deeply embedded neurological imprints left by those experiences.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a neurologically-based therapy that uses bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or tapping, to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories.

EMDR, through bilateral stimulation, directly targets these imprints, facilitating the reprocessing of traumatic memories and reducing their negative impact.

This process reduces the vividness and emotional intensity of the memories, leading to a decrease in trauma-related symptoms.

Van der Kolk points out that trauma can lead to disconnection between different parts of the brain, creating internal chaos and dysregulation.

EMDR helps to integrate these fragmented parts, promoting a sense of internal coherence, emotional regulation, and self-compassion.

psychedelic-assisted therapies

Bessel van der Kolk views psychedelic-assisted therapies, like MDMA-assisted therapy, as a potential breakthrough for trauma treatment because they offer a unique way to address the core issues of trauma that often resist traditional therapies.

Trauma often traps individuals in a narrow world of fear, hypervigilance, and emotional dysregulation.

Their minds and bodies are constantly on high alert, anticipating danger, and struggling to find safety.

Psychedelics like psilocybin, ayahuasca, and LSD have the power to expand consciousness and create a sense of interconnectedness.

They offer a chance to experience a wider perspective, fostering a feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves, which is often lost in trauma.

Psychedelics, in a safe and supported therapeutic setting, can help individuals access and process traumatic memories that may be deeply buried or fragmented.

This allows individuals to move beyond simply understanding the trauma intellectually to experiencing it in a new way that facilitates emotional healing.

MDMA-assisted therapy has revealed a remarkable capacity to cultivate self-compassion.

While trauma often leads to self-blame and shame, MDMA helps people access a deeper level of empathy and understanding for themselves.

Van der Kolk acknowledges that more research is needed to fully understand the long-term effects and potential risks.

However, his research points to psychedelic-assisted therapies as a potentially transformative approach to healing trauma, offering hope for reconnection with self, others, and the future.

Cultivating Self-Compassion

Bessel van der Kolk highlights self-compassion as a crucial element in healing from trauma.

Trauma often leaves individuals feeling deeply ashamed, blaming themselves for what happened or for their reactions to the traumatic experience.

A common consequence of trauma, particularly childhood trauma, is the internalization of negative messages.

Individuals may come to see themselves as inherently flawed, unworthy, or damaged.

Self-compassion offers an antidote to these negative self-perceptions, allowing individuals to treat themselves with the same kindness, understanding, and care they would offer to a friend in need.

Trauma survivors often struggle with feeling safe in their own bodies and minds.

They may experience intrusive memories, flashbacks, and hypervigilance, constantly on guard for potential threats.

Self-compassion creates an inner space of safety and acceptance, allowing individuals to acknowledge their pain and suffering without judgment.

This inner refuge can help to regulate the nervous system, reduce feelings of threat, and promote a sense of calm and grounding.

Self-compassion helps to soothe and regulate emotional storms, enabling individuals to navigate the ups and downs of their healing journey without becoming overwhelmed.

When individuals can approach their emotions with compassion, they are more likely to engage in positive self-care, seek support when needed, and make choices that support their well-being.

This shift from self-criticism to self-support empowers individuals to reclaim their agency and move forward.

Van der Kolk emphasizes that cultivating self-compassion can be challenging, especially for those who have experienced significant trauma.

However, through practices like mindfulness, self-soothing techniques, and therapeutic support, individuals can begin to develop a more compassionate relationship with themselves.

His research on MDMA-assisted therapy provides compelling evidence for the impact of self-compassion on trauma healing.

Studies found that MDMA facilitated a significant increase in self-compassion among participants, allowing them to access and process traumatic memories with kindness and understanding, leading to significant reductions in PTSD symptoms and improved overall well-being.

Social Support

Bessel van der Kolk emphasizes the critical role of supportive relationships in healing from trauma.

Trauma often shatters an individual’s sense of safety and trust, particularly in relationships, making healing dependent on re-establishing connection with others.

Van der Kolk recognizes that trauma often originates in relationships, especially in childhood when caregivers are the primary source of safety and security.

When those relationships become sources of fear, abuse, or neglect, the developing child’s sense of trust and connection is profoundly damaged.

This early relational wounding can have lasting impacts on an individual’s capacity for forming healthy and secure relationships later in life.

Supportive relationships provide a foundation of safety and trust that allows trauma survivors to begin to heal.

When individuals feel seen, heard, and validated by others, they can start to dismantle the feelings of isolation, shame, and self-blame that often accompany trauma.

Van der Kolk stresses the importance of co-regulation in trauma recovery, particularly for children.

Co-regulation involves the mutual exchange of calming and soothing energy between individuals.

Supportive relationships offer opportunities for this co-regulation, helping to regulate the nervous system, reduce hypervigilance, and promote a sense of calm and groundedness.

Through supportive relationships, individuals can integrate their traumatic experiences into a coherent life narrative and develop a more integrated sense of self.

This process of meaning-making helps survivors move beyond feeling fundamentally different or isolated, reminding them they are worthy of love and connection.

Van der Kolk’s observations on the negative effects of social isolation in the aftermath of events like 9/11 and his emphasis on group therapies for trauma survivors further underscore the vital role of supportive relationships.

While therapy provides a structured environment for healing, it is often through authentic connections with others – partners, friends, family, and community – that trauma survivors find strength and resilience.

Van der Kolk acknowledges that finding and maintaining supportive relationships can be challenging for trauma survivors.

They may have difficulty trusting others, setting boundaries, or allowing themselves to be vulnerable.

However, he emphasizes that the healing power of connection makes the effort worthwhile and encourages individuals to seek out safe and supportive communities where they can practice vulnerability.

Reading List

• Nicotera, N., Connolly, M. M., Jawdat, L., & Ostrow, L. (2024). A qualitative study examining the lived experiences of stress among female sexual assault survivors in an 8-week trauma-sensitive yoga intervention. Traumatology, 30(2), 153–163. 
• Moosburner, A., Cramer, H., Bilc, M., Triana, J., & Anheyer, D. (2024). Yoga for Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis. Depression and Anxiety, 2024(1), 6071055.
• Hui, B. P. H., Parma, L., Kogan, A., & Vuillier, L. (2022). Hot yoga leads to greater well-being: A six-week experience-sampling RCT in healthy adults. Psychosocial Intervention, 31(2), 67–82.