As founder and medical director of The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute in Brookline Massachusetts, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk has spent years working with those who have experienced horrific events. But as he told Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson, often treatments for conditions such as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) fall short, because they look at trauma as primarily a mental health issue.
Van Der Kolk says the body shouldn’t be ignored because after the trauma occurs, “your body keeps reacting as if you’re back there again.”
He writes in the book “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” that physical activities such as yoga, that help patients feel comfortable in their bodies, can help them overcome the effects of a traumatic event.
As the book comes out in paperback, we revisit this conversation.
Guest
- Bessel van der Kolk, psychiatrist and founder of The Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute. He’s author of “The Body Keeps the Score.”
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