The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma
I have read this book twice now. The first read was to get a better understanding of what trauma is. Maybe to be more sensitive towards people? I cannot remember why now, but, it had Matisse on the cover which turned my head and that combined with interesting subject matter worth learning about. The human condition fascinates me and trauma can contribute significantly to how a person thinks, feels and acts. I am not going to go into great detail about the book as it is a complicated and sensitive subject that is best handled by an expert in the field. Me explaining trauma, even to the most rudimentary degree, would be like asking someone who had just been to a Billy Joel concert to recreate the show for you even though they are offering you a ticket to see the show for ten British pounds (the price of the paperback). Bessel Van Der Kolk offers an all-encompassing explanation of what trauma is, how it presents itself and pathways to recovery. This is framed within rigorous case studies and put into a historical context that makes sense of scientific developments related to trauma. The good doctor puts ideas across in a way that is unpatronising yet incredibly informative! I imagine someone with a greater level of knowledge than a chimp like me would still benefit from reading this book.
Someone with slightly more knowledge than me when I first read it was me the second time I read it! This time not just out of interest but to help understand myself. I had never really considered trauma as something that impacted on me as I only saw it as PTSD from war, the impact of domestic violence or something equally harrowing. I embraced my ignorance and this book helped me to build my knowledge from the ground up (alongside lectures and some useful therapy chats). I had an accident when I was younger and I blocked out a lot that I struggled to understand as a child. Until I began to work through this I kept returning to a state of fear and confusion in all sorts of situations as I bumbled through my teenage years. I felt totally stuck and this would play out in my body through crippling stomach pains and vomiting in even the most mildly uncertain situation. It seems ridiculous now but that was the reality of the situation until recently when it became more obvious what was wrong and decided I would not let it run my life. Talking to people has been helpful to understand what has happened and to open up, but it was things like running that helped me to mobilise my anxious feelings and meditation that helped me to process all the associated feelings.
It makes me laugh when I think that I read this book and managed to understand aspects without relating them to myself, but that obliviousness helped me to look at it in a completely different way the second time and see new value in it. When learning anything I like to get to the roots of it and grow from the ground up, reconnecting with the body is this particular baseline and it has done me a lot of good. I have attempted to put it simply here as that is the only way that I understand it but there is a lot to it and I will definitely dip into this book again as well as researching more widely on how trauma impacts the body.
