Bessel van der Kolk

Frontiers of Trauma Treatment
July 7-11

The majority of people who seek psychiatric care have histories of trauma, chaos, or neglect. In the past two decades there has been not only an explosion of knowledge about how experience shapes the central nervous system and the formation of the self, but also about what constitutes effective intervention. Advances in the neurosciences, attachment research and in information processing show how brain function is shaped by experience and that life itself can continually transform perception and biology. Overwhelming experiences alter the capacity for self-regulation and memory processing due to changes in subcortical, i.e., "unconscious", levels of the brain. The memory imprints of the trauma(s) are held in bodily states and physical action patterns, which causes the entire human organism to automatically react to current experiences as a replay of the past. While insight and understanding are useful to deal with confusion and secrecy, it rarely is enough to deal with the unspeakable, intolerable and unacceptable nature of traumatic experience.

Effective treatment of post-traumatic problems needs to include addressing the imprint of trauma on the physical experience of the self as helpless and in danger. Recovery needs to incorporate dealing with defensive efforts that helped ensure survival, incorporate physical experiences that contradict feelings and sensations associated with helplessness and disconnection, as well as an effective way of integrating fragmented memories of trauma. Experiencing physical mastery (as in yoga and specific body based techniques) often is necessary to initiate new ways of perceiving reality and promote new behavior patterns. Helping the organism to bring the traumatic experience to an end is the goal of treatment.

The goal of treatment is to help bring the traumatic experience to an end in every aspect of the human organism. This includes experiencing physical mastery to initiate new ways of perceiving reality and promoting new behavior patterns.

Monday
Trauma and developmental psychopathology. The acquisition of affect regulation, attachment and psychopathology, the breakdown of information processing in trauma.

Tuesday
Affective neuroscience for thoughtful clinicians. The nature of the threat response, attention and concentration. Lessons from neuroimaging and psychophysiology.

Wednesday
Recognition and treatment of survival action patterns. Assessment, treatment planning, stabilization techniques and trauma processing. Neural plasticity and rewiring brain circuitry.

Thursday
Specific stabilization and trauma processing techniques, including EMDR, touch, yoga, improvisational techniques, chi qong in the treatment of learned helplessness and dissociation.

Friday
From fight/flight to being alive to the present-integration of traumatic memories, including group and theater approaches.

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is a clinical psychiatrist who has studied the impact and resolution of trauma on human beings for the past thirty years. His research has ranged from developmental impact of trauma to neuroimaging and from memory processes to the use of EMDR and theater groups in PTSD. He is professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and medical director of the Trauma Center in Boston, where he also serves as director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Community Practice Site. He is past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He has taught at universities and hospitals throughout the world. He is author of over a hundred scientific articles, author of Psychological Trauma and co-editor of Traumatic Stress.

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