Bessel van der Kolk – Trauma, Attachment & Neuroscience with Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.: Brain, Mind & Body in the Healing of Trauma

This special seminar represents current research findings about how people’s brains, minds and bodies are affected by traumatic experiences and illustrate the principles of post-traumatic therapy. Join Dr. van der Kolk, the world’s leading expert in the field of traumatic stress, to explore specific techniques that address:

• Affect regulation
• The integration of dissociated aspects of experience
• Overcoming helplessness
• The re-integration of human connections
• Memory processing
• Disturbances in sensorimotor integration
• Complex trauma
• Developmental Trauma Disorder

The world’s leading expert in the field of traumatic stress, Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D. is a clinical psychiatrist who has studied the impact and resolution of trauma on human beings for the past 30 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 Complex Trauma Network. He is past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Dr. van der Kolk 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.
Effective treatment of post-traumatic problems needs to include addressing the imprint of trauma on the physical experience of the self as being 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.