The Truth About Trauma Healing: MDMA, EMDR + What ACTUALLY Works! | Bessel van der Kolk

Summary

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Healing + Human Potential with Alyssa Nobriga

Episode: Bessel van der Kolk: 7 Ways to HEAL Trauma + Feel SAFE in Your Body Again
Guest: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Date: March 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, renowned psychiatrist and author of The Body Keeps the Score, in a profound conversation about how trauma imprints on the brain and body. Alyssa Nobriga guides listeners through practical insights and groundbreaking research on trauma healing, the limitations of talk therapy, the promise of psychedelics and somatic therapies, and the essential role of community. The discussion blends neuroscience, clinical experience, and spiritual wisdom—offering a roadmap for reclaiming safety and presence in one’s body.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The True Nature of Trauma

• Trauma Is Not Just a Story:
  Trauma is fundamentally about how one's body and brain continually re-experience the past within the present, not just memories or narratives.
  • “Trauma is a story that you tell about your past. And trauma really is how your body continues to replay the past over and over again...” (16:12, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Present-Moment Suffering:
  The real impact of trauma is in how it shapes perception, causes hyper- or hypo-arousal, and distorts interactions with present reality.
  • “It's not primarily what happened to you back in the past. It's an issue of what's happening to you right now.” (00:00, Dr. van der Kolk)

2. Brain & Body Changes After Trauma

• Neurological Pathways:
  Trauma dysregulates areas responsible for threat detection and time orientation, making it hard to distinguish the past from the present.
  • “EMDR...activates your right temporal parietal area of your brain, and then it makes connection with your left insula...” (02:00, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Overactive/Underactive Warning Systems:
  Trauma can create either hyper-vigilant responses or blunted danger signals, both leading to vulnerability.
  • “Some people have underactive warning systems...their warning signals may not go off...the shutting down part is at least as important.” (02:50, Dr. van der Kolk)

3. Why Familiarity Feels Safer Than Safety

• Repeating Old Patterns:
  Humans, like animals, tend to return to what’s familiar—even if it’s dangerous—when under stress or in relationships.
  • “People choose what's familiar over what is safe...when the chips are down, they go home, oftentimes to a little trouble.” (03:25, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Moving Beyond Blame:
  True healing starts by recognizing unconscious participation in old dynamics rather than simply blaming others.

4. Therapeutic Approaches Beyond Talk Therapy

• The Need for Embodied Practices:
  Modalities like yoga, tai chi, qigong, EMDR, and neurofeedback are highlighted as essential for trauma processing because they address the body, brain, and nervous system directly.
  • “We measured [healing] after emdr, we measured after yoga, after neurofeedback, and after psychedelics. And once that sameness network changes, people don't get freaked out anymore.” (01:23, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Limitations of Medication:
  Medications like Prozac and Zoloft can help with focus or suppress symptoms, but they don’t resolve underlying trauma.
  • “You just take a chemical that suppresses certain things, but that doesn't really resolve anything.” (07:16, Dr. van der Kolk)
• What He Wishes Therapists Knew:
  Most psychology programs still don’t teach trauma-based, somatic, or psychedelic-assisted approaches.
  • “There is not a single psychology PhD program that teaches about trauma in America. That's just stunning.” (24:26, Dr. van der Kolk)

5. Psychedelics in Trauma Treatment

• MDMA, Ketamine, and Neuroplasticity:
  Psychedelics make the brain more malleable, unlocking new pathways and opening windows for deep healing—if combined with skilled therapy and integration.
  • “The brain tends to become quite rigid and stuck in certain patterns... psychedelics open up the windows of neuroplasticity.” (21:08, Dr. van der Kolk)
  • “The big thing...is a big enhancement in self-compassion. Stunningly so, actually.” (18:28, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Importance of Integration:
  The therapy and integration work during and after psychedelic experiences are as important as the substances themselves.
  • “People had 38 hours of psychotherapy.” (23:04, Dr. van der Kolk)

6. The Central Role of Community

• Healing within Groups:
  Humans are wired for connection—community is fundamental for recovery (e.g., group therapy, theater, mutual aid).
  • “Forming community is still the most important thing, because as humans, we are wired for connection.” (44:19, Dr. van der Kolk)
• The Limits of Individual Treatment:
  “The individual model of treatment that now is the prevailing thing is not the ideal model. The ideal model is to live in community.” (44:19, Dr. van der Kolk)

7. The Power of Somatic Practices

• Movement as Medicine:
  Engaging in activities like yoga, martial arts, tai chi, breathwork, theater, and even boxing or dance, helps harness the body’s inherent healing capacities.
  • “When you activate your imagination, you activate the same pathways of remembering the past.” (32:00, Dr. van der Kolk)
• Regulation and Self-Awareness:
  Somatic work rebuilds the capacity for self-awareness, emotional regulation, and presence.
  • “Learn how your mind works, learn how your brain works, learn how your body works...” (39:50, Dr. van der Kolk)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On What Changes After Trauma:

  “After you've been traumatized, you live in a different reality. Your brain has a hard time taking in ordinary stimuli.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (00:00)

• On Familiarity & Trauma:

  “People choose what's familiar over what is safe.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (03:25)

• On Story vs. Embodiment:

  “Telling the story in and of itself does not make the story go away.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (11:21)

• On the Pitfalls of Talk Therapy Alone:

  “If knowing about our trauma would actually really help us, then therapists wouldn't have any issues.”
  — Host (13:22)

• On the Healing Power of Psychedelics:

  “The big thing that we saw is a big enhancement in self compassion. Stunningly so, actually...you did the best you could.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (18:28)

• On Community in Healing:

  “Forming community is still the most important thing, because as humans, we are wired for connection.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (44:19)

• On Importance of Movement:

  “To heal from trauma, need to live in a body that knows how to do things differently.”
  — Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (41:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – Trauma’s impact on present-moment experience
• 01:11 – The brain’s danger response and hypervigilance
• 02:00 – Neurological changes and EMDR explained
• 03:25 – Why we choose familiar patterns/partners
• 04:21 – Effective approaches beyond talk therapy (yoga, EMDR, etc.)
• 07:16 – Limitations of medication for trauma
• 16:12 – Misconceptions: Trauma as story vs. ongoing body response
• 18:28 – What MDMA and psychedelics do in therapy
• 21:08 – The critical window of neuroplasticity and therapy
• 24:26 – The lack of trauma training in psychology programs
• 26:46 – How trauma can hijack a person’s sense of aliveness
• 31:19 – Community, theater, and imaginative healing
• 33:25 – Psychodrama vs. revising memories
• 35:22 – What actually works for trauma: bodywork, EMDR, neurofeedback, community
• 39:50 – Teaching self-regulation as a “fourth R” in education
• 44:19 – The vital role of community
• 46:30 – Dr. van der Kolk’s new book, “Come to Your Senses,” and resources

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Practical Takeaways & 7 Ways to Support Trauma Healing

1. Engage Somatic Practices:
   Try yoga, tai chi, qigong, dance, psychodrama, martial arts—activities that ground and enliven the body.

2. Consider EMDR and Body-Based Therapies:
   EMDR is especially effective for single-incident trauma, but also useful as part of a broader approach.

3. Explore Psychedelics (Legally & Professionally):
   If accessible and appropriate, psychedelic-assisted therapy (e.g., MDMA, ketamine) can foster deep healing—always with integration support.

4. Practice Regular Breathwork:
   Breathwork and bilateral movement can regulate the nervous system and help separate past from present experiences.

5. Limit Dependence on Medication Alone:
   Medication may support functioning but doesn’t resolve underlying trauma—combine with experiential and relational treatments.

6. Prioritize Building or Joining Communities:
   Healing is amplified in group settings; seek out therapy groups, expressive arts, or mutual support communities.

7. Commit to Personal Practice and Ongoing Learning:
   “First thing is to really work on yourself...probably have to do some EMDR and somatic experiencing and psychedelics yourself to actually become a conscious human being.” (25:26, Dr. van der Kolk)

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Closing Thoughts

Dr. van der Kolk emphasizes that while trauma profoundly shapes our present reality, true healing is possible when we engage our bodies, nurture our capacity for self-awareness, and find meaningful connection in community. The path to feeling safe again in the body requires openness to new interventions, supportive relationships, and courage to move beyond familiar but limiting patterns.

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Resources & Connect

• Dr. Bessel van der Kolk:
  bestofindercorp.com
  traumaresearchfoundation.org

• Upcoming Book:
  “Come to Your Senses” – focusing on sensory self-awareness and trauma.

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Summary prepared from the full episode transcript, focusing exclusively on the educational discussion and omitting promos, advertisements, and announcements.

Transcript

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

After you've been traumatized, you live in a different reality. Your brain has a hard time taking in ordinary stimuli. It's not primarily what happened to you back in the past. It's an issue of what's happening to you right now. And so if you want to change that, aside from telling a story, you need to do something to rewire your brain.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Joining us is Dr. Bessel van der

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

Kolk, one of the world's leading trauma experts and author of the Body Keeps the Score.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Research has shown that EMDR is extraordinarily effective in adults who go traumatized for the first time. Ask people to call up what they saw back then, what they felt in their body. But you don't ask people to talk about it. You set up this inner sensation, and you have people move your eyes from side to side. You set up new pathways in your brain that allows that memory to be perceived as belonging to the past and not to the present.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about what trauma is?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

One big misconception is your work has

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

just changed the way that the world sees trauma and healing. And I just want to thank you in the way that you contribute. And I have lots of things I want to dive into. I wanted to start off by asking about what's happening in the brain and the nervous system. When our partners say something small, but it feels like an attack in the

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

brain, it tells you this is a sign of danger. And so when you trauma test, little things can become catastrophes.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And when people get better with how we measure that. When people. We measure it after emdr, we measure after yoga, after neurofeedback, and after psychedelics. And once that sameness network changes, people don't get freaked out anymore. They go like, oh, my husband is in bad mood, or, oh, he's had a hard day, or yes, there's issues. So let me see how I can best respond to that.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

What's the pattern that you found in your research? What is actually happening? Is it because by doing those things like yoga, emdr, psychedelics, they're more resourced, and so they're slowing down.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

So what we see on EMDR is it activates your right temporal parietal area of your brain, and then it makes connection with your left insula, which tells you about the state of the body. And then you get new track with your left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It helps you with getting a sense of time. And so after you do these treatments, you can place the trauma in time and know this happened then, it's not happening now.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

So it's like that the past is being triggered in the moment. And what I'm hearing you say is by actually doing those practices, we have more space to recognize that. How does that relate to the overactive smoke detector response that you share that happens after trauma?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

So the triggering is the overactive, but in some people they have underactive warning systems.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Underactive, Tell me, what does that mean?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

People don't pick up danger. If people have been raped in the past, they're much more likely to get raped again because their warning signals may not go off. They may have learned to squelch their warning circuits. And that's actually as big a problem as the hyperactive one is easy to see, but the shutting down part is at least as important.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I know that one of the things that you've shared about is that animals will go back to their home. Whether that's safe or it's frightening. Can you talk more about that in relation to how we choose partners?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, people choose what's familiar over what is safe. And so indeed that vet research was incredibly interesting to me. Like, oh, that's what happens to humans too when they find new ways and new friends. But when the chips are down, they go home. They oftentimes go home to little trouble.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And I can imagine people listening to this that may be like, oh, I'm choosing my past in partners again and again.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And besides, most people don't get it. So like I, my partner's an asshole. Don't like, oh, there's something about me that chose this guy because my father

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

don't have people say, yeah, yeah, I think that's an important piece. I think most of society is in blame consciousness. I know my audience is a bit more self aware and they're like, what did I do to participate in this? And even further, it's like, what would be the steps that you would encourage people as they're starting? Because obviously talk therapy is limiting. What would you recommend?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Oh, any number of things. So that we happen to study yoga. Yoga was quite helpful. I've seen a lot of Tai chi, qigong, quite helpful. Emdr. If I were a board type person, I'd make it a requirement that everybody who treats traumatized people very, very effective, easy treatment that you don't need to be an exceptionally skilled or smart person.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

For people that don't know what EMDR is or what a session looks like, can you just share?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, EMDR is a method where you ask people to call up what they Saw back then what they heard, what they felt in their bodies, what they were thinking. But you don't necessarily ask people to talk about it. And so you set up this inner sensations having to do with your trauma. And then you have people activate some bilateral movement. I happen to use my fingers and oculus. And what the research shows is that indeed when you move your eyes from side to side, you set up these new pathways in your brain that allows that memory to be perceived as belonging to the past and not to the present.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Do you know the research around how effective it is?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It was extraordinarily effective in adults who go traumatized for the first time. It was not nearly as effective for people with chronic histories of childhood abuse and neglect. But it's a useful auxiliary, useful, extra thing to do with long term trauma.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And what happens to somebody in terms of the body when they have prolonged stress or unresolved trauma. What's the long term effects?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

You really become very good in detecting danger or the whole danger Pisal goes down and your self esteem tends to be very caught up. I must be defective that all this stuff happened to me. And it really interferes with your openness and your generosity and also with your learning. If you remember the chapter on neurofeedback, I had a little graph there that shows that if you're traumatized, your brain has a hard time focusing on and taking in ordinary stimuli. So the problem with trauma is very important for people to know it's not primarily what happened to you back in the past, it's primarily an issue is what's happening to you right now. So after you've been traumatized, you live in a different reality. And as offended by likes to point out, he said living with trauma is like living in a darkened room that's very noisy and you don't know how to find the sources because it's too overwhelming what comes in. And so you live in the dark and you're confused.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

So I think a lot of people are stuck because they go to get support and they're given medication. And I'd love just to hear from you what you see is missing from that equation. And what are some other solutions?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

My first studies were on Prozac and Zoloft for PTSD and they were not useless. They helped a little bit to help people to focus and concentrate, but to suppress people's feelings so nothing gets processed. You just take a chemical that suppresses certain things, but that doesn't really resolve anything. And it's very sad that psychiatry got stuck in Just pharmacology, because there's money in pharmacology. I meet numerous people who say tango dancing really helped me. Doing yoga helped me. Doing ayahuasca, helped me. Doing any number of things that are not part of, but institutional medicine does.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

In terms of adult trauma, how. What's the percentage you think is connected to childhood trauma and what is like the Common Core root cause?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I first started working with Vietnam veterans in the 70s. We were working at the VA. The VA attributes everything to the war. But in fact, most of these guys, mainly guys had a lot of trauma in their background, and they went into the army in order to escape the trauma. Traditionally, the armed services in the US have always been a refuge for disadvantaged people. And so you go into the military and something happens to them, but their prior trauma makes them much more vulnerable to get the symptoms now.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And what are some of the most common root causes of trauma that you've seen?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

For most people, the root causes for trauma is trauma in the family. Explosive parents witnessing domestic violence, being beaten up, molested. Those are the common traits we see all the time in our practice.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I'm curious if you'd be open to sharing any of your story that led you into trauma research and what kind of inspired you to get into this work.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I'm one of five kids. None of my siblings share my interests. So I happen to love science, I happen to love history. And this was really a field where I could combine my great interest in how societies organized themselves with what's happening in neuroscience. And of course, we all have our share of our own experiences. Part of it, but better. Your own experiences lead you to become a researcher in trauma. Basically. All the people who I know who study trauma, of course have their own issues.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, I think sometimes, I mean, at least for me, I got into becoming a couples therapist to unconsciously help my parents heal.

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

And.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I do think that we can do something with our pain to be on purpose.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah, there's always something in your background that. That strikes you. Most male therapists I know want to retroactively cure their mothers.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Do you see there's a connection with mothers and sons in any way, or like daughters and fathers or the opposite, where if there's any parallels or things that you've noticed where the same gender parent might be more triggering for the child. Have you seen any correlations around that or curiosity around it?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

No. What we see a lot is that the more violent person may have been the father. Not always see a goodly number of people who were molested by their moms also. But in the long range, people tend to be more angry with the person who stood by and did not protect them than the person who actually assaulted them.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Why do you think that is?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Because you need a safety. And somebody didn't see what's going on with you and stood by pretending like it was nothing. The person who turned a blind eye. What is happening? Clearly, as a person who is an expert in denying reality. So telling your mom, hey, why did she always buy and didn't intervene? Yeah, she does not. Oh, I didn't do that. Or not. Like, oh, yeah, I remember standing by spacing out when your dad beat you up.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It is a conditioned response. That is Pavlov and his dogs were model. You ring the bell when people are. Dogs are eating and you ring the bell afterwards with food being taken away and they still salivate. That's how it goes. Very primitive wiring of your brain to react to certain things as if it's still happening. It's not. Because you understand this. And understanding comes way down the pike. And understanding may be helpful to know why you react in these weird ways, but telling the story in and of itself does not make the story go away.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I think that's a big part of what your work has done to help people understand that. Talk therapy is very limiting. And I do think awareness is helpful to a degree, but there's so much deeper work to be processed.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It's very important to be able to communicate how you feel, to communicate in the internal experience to somebody else. And part of what happens in trauma is people become very incapable of being aware of internal feelings. Very striking. My research, many other people's research, has shown that when you traumatized, your cognition is not very alive.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And one of the things that we and other people showed on different levels is that when you get traumatized, you mainly react to things with your emotional brain. So it's not, oh, this reminds me of something. No, this pisses me off. Or this scares me. Or. So to evaluate other people also according to how you make them feel and not for who that person is.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And I do think that sometimes with even just talk therapy going into the prefrontal cortex, then actually stops the natural healing process that's wanting to happen in the body.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I supervise young people oftentimes. I think they're very wedded to the prefrontal critics. They think that you can change the world by reason.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And I think that if knowing about our trauma would actually really help us, then therapists wouldn't have any issues.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah, it's helpful. It's helpful. But what we see is that the story changes as people dig deeper into themselves and their internal awareness. They. They become aware that things were always more complicated, but that people leave. People's leave story is one story. But in the course of really getting to know yourself better, the story usually changes in a major way.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And how do you see trauma shape our perception of reality differently? And are there certain behaviors that are misinterpreted because they're really just survival responses?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, we all live in our own reality, of course.

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It is a miracle that people can actually get on the same wavelength again. Part of what my research shows is that we really perceive the world quite differently. And if you look at something, you may pay attention to very different things. I do and like different things than I do. And so we get wired in very different ways. And indeed, if you get wired by trauma, your fear and terror response is probably quite an important response of you.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

What are some of the biggest misconceptions about what trauma is?

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

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[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

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[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

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[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I think one big misconception is that trauma is a story that you tell about your past. And trauma really is how your body continues to replay the past over and over again. And that it's not an issue primarily of the past. It's primarily an issue of how you perceive and interpret the world right now. And so if you want to change that, aside from telling a story, you need to do something to rewire your brain. And there's many different ways of doing that, including neurofeedback. But also if you can stand it long term, deep meditation is helpful. Takes much longer. Psychedelics are very powerful in helping people to access all kind of stuff that they didn't have access before. So there's many different ways of getting it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, I think my audience would love to hear about the psychedelics and what different psychedelics in the research you've done and what some common findings are.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, we don't know at this point what psychedelic is better for what, because like, I was a principal investigator of the big MDMA study, so I know mdma. I use ketamine in my practice because ketamine is a legal substance. I have indulged in some other ones also. But I ask this question all the time from my colleagues, what is better for what? And nobody really knows at this point. And so Johns Hopkins, they have been studying psilocybin for depression and end of life stuff and worked quite well. We studied MDMA for trauma. Other people studied ibogaine for addiction, but people haven't studied MDMA for addiction and people haven't studied ibogaine for depression. So in between questions, it's more a question of clinical impressions than anything else. And what's really stunning to me is that in our research we use mdma. We had fantastic results. In my practice, I use ketamine because it's legal and I don't miss other psychedelics with patients I work with. I'm very happy what ketamine does, even though it's a completely different biological substance

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

than mdma, what is kind of known in what has been researched.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

But what we saw in the MDMA study is that people's past becomes more vivid. They stop having flashbacks or nightmares, and so they become more mellow, more accepting of themselves. But the big thing that we saw is A big enhancement in self compassion. Stunningly so, actually. The people really, oftentimes we experience pieces of their past, oftentimes very painful. And they go like, I was so little, I was such a kid, I did not know what to do. Today I would be able to respond to it differently, but back then I couldn't. And so people really get in touch with that. They did the best they could. And that's a very big issue because generally people blame themselves and say, there's something wrong with me and I'm a bad person. And when you on psychedelics, you can really go there consciously or sometimes you unconsciously and go like, oh, that's just so horrible what that kid me had to go through. And oftentimes the next step is people say, and I feel so sorry for my dad, who was such a nut cake because he never got to enjoy having this beautiful kid like me. So they extended to the perpetrator, which is an amazing thing to see, actually.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, yeah. And that type of compassion is so powerful for the healing process. I think sometimes people think, if I knew better, I would have done differently. But I really hear it's not prefrontal experience, it's more embodied. It's like a deeper.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

But it really interprets the subcortical issues in a different way.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And so that's with the mdma, and that's what you've primarily studied. Is there anything, anything exciting that you're hoping to see from the research or starting. Things are starting to emerge?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, what's actually really infuriating is that we did this amazing study that won the prize of one of the 10 most important scientific advances in the world, like everything in science. And then the FDA decided not to legalize it. And that was just outrage, because we did. I've done lots of studies in my life. We were so cautious and so careful and so good in documenting everything, and the data were spectacular. But the FDA decided to legalize it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And MDMA started with therapy settings originally. Is that right?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Oh, we did a lot of therapy. And that's a very core issue. And this also became an issue with the fda. In psychedelics, the brain becomes very plastic, becomes very malleable, which is potentially very helpful because the brain tends to become quite rigid and stuck in certain patterns that are very difficult to change. So this is issue of imprinting. So these ducks that wake up, they see, convert Lawrence, and they follow that guy for the rest of their lives, but if they meet somebody else a week later, you don't get the same impression. So you need to get the right input at the right time in order to have a fully well developed brain. And that's why therapy can be so hard, because people are stuck in their habits that have extremely difficult to change. And it turns out it looks like very strong evidence for this, that psychedelics open up the windows of neuroplasticity. And so you can immediately rewire your brain to some degree. So the input that you get at the time of the psychedelics and shortly thereafter is critical. And so being in a capitalist society, there's a lot of people now who are trying to develop drugs that are not plant drugs so they can get a patent on it and make a lot of money on it. And those are all substances that are supposed to be administered like a pill and not as a consciousness expanding experience where you can really think and integrate what happens to you. And so the therapy piece is a terribly important part of the whole psychedelic experience. And I think our society being profit oriented will probably cut out the psychotherapy and we'll see a lot of very bad effects.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And in those studies that you're doing with MDMA is what's happening in the therapeutic setting, are they just on their own being somebody holding space, or they're actually doing therapeutic work?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Oh, no. Well, they lie there. You have two people who are with you the whole time. You have to be a saint to do that. And people go into their own world, but from time to time, you talk to the people with you. You have already gotten to know people before you. And after the experience, you really integrate what happened to you? This is what they saw, this experience. This was relevant to my life. And so people had 38 hours of psychotherapy.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

That's beautiful. And I think some people forget that. So I just want to highlight the importance of integration. Yes, Doing this work with a trained therapist and professional, but also having that integration afterwards is what helps create those new neural paths and create new ways of being.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

That's very important.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. What are you hoping to see or what are you excited about in this space in the next five to 10 years?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, of course, the exciting thing is that 40 years ago we knew nothing about treatments. We know now a fair amount of treatment. But we also see is that in graduate school to become a therapist, you learn almost none of these methods. We just did a survey that there is not a single psychology PhD program that teaches about trauma in America. That's just stunning.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I know.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

So they're really going on with, let's just talk and give you drugs and make it go away. But in the meantime, there's an enormous amount of knowledge. And so the question is, how do we spread that knowledge? And the way in our political climate, of course, is completely destroying all that possibilities.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

But what would be an ideal scene in your eyes?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Ideal is to get new governments. Serves the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. We know a lot of helpful things and people are working very hard to promulgate it and to work with it. And I imagine the world is more into somatic therapies than they were before. But in major institutions, yeah, it's still new, not happening.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

For people that are newer to somatic work, what would you say is so different than just talk therapy? That's really important for them to be including in the work.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

First of all, you have to do your own work. And that's a lot of therapists haven't done that and out of touch with themselves. So first thing is to really work on yourself and really get to know the nooks and crannies of your own mind. And that means that you probably have to do some EMDR and somatic experiencing and psychedelics yourself to actually become a conscious human being.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And then once you see how well it works for you, you can start applying it to other people.

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

Yeah, that's right.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I know when I was getting licensed as a therapist, there was only like 20 hours that I could count towards the 3,000 hours of getting license of doing my own work, towards therapeutic work. And that is such a backward way of doing it. In my coach certification program, they do a year of their own work. It's so important. It's the foundation of not projecting onto other people seeing your blind spots. And I think it just makes life more beautiful and we're freer as a result. Well, one of the things that I've loved about your work is that people are really understanding how important the body is in the healing. I think most people thought that they had to tell their therapist to all of the story. And yet they're recreating trauma and that you don't need to share so much of the story to actually heal it. And so if there's any other things like that that you want people to

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

know, it's actually a very important issue that actually was found out after the body keeps core, and that is that when you traumatize, your core state of self awareness tends to shut down and feeling alive. And then the default bulk network, it's called. So that's the core sense of who you are and what you see is when you expose traumatized people to the memory of the trauma that they become alive. And that was something I've seen over the years, is that trauma is horrendous, but it also gives you an energy. And so talking about the horrible thing that people did to me gives me a sense of righteousness, a sense of truth. And you have a therapist say, yeah, that's awful what they did to you. Like, whoa, let's talk a little bit more about it. And at some point, people can get hopelessly stuck in this anger, rage, and victim position, and that becomes a way of being alive. And I think the job of therapy is for people to feel alive when they play with their kids and when they put out the garbage and when you climb into bed with your honey, that is the job, is, how do you feel alive right now? And so if you keep doing trauma, trauma, trauma, that becomes a more and more important thing of your life, including many people who come to see me who say, I'm an incest survivor. And I said, good, that's terrible. Anything else? No. I'm an incest survivor. I'm a war veteran. I learned a lot from war veterans a long time ago, but a lot of them still have their little Semper Fi sticker on their car. It's okay, but it means that since I was 18 years old, now I'm 80 years old, that still is the most important event in my life. And then the question is, what's happened to the rest of your life? And has somebody helped you to be alive? And for the sense of being alive and here and present, you need movement, you need action.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I love that you bring that up, because I do think that sometimes people have almost getting some kind of payoff by telling the victim's story, and it does trap them. And I do think sometimes that the shadow of therapy is always reminiscing the past, at least in talk therapy. And there can be a sense of identity. And I'm getting something from being the widow, the one that survived the war and all of that. And so I think it's great that people are aware of that, because clearly they. The goal of therapy is to not live in the past.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It's tough to minimize the importance of the past, not to minimize the impact on how you. But the focus should always be. And how does that affect you right now? I often have people may tell me some horrible story, and they may say, huh? What happens in your body when you tell that horrible story? And they say, nothing. And I go, oh, but I'm feeling A crushing sensation in my chest. But that's the feeling that they should be having, not the thing that I should be having. And so story may not make you come alive. I think you see it in psychedelic therapy, you see it in effective treatment. The trauma memory pops up. But it pops up in the context of back then when I was so old, that happened to me and I did not have the following back then to protect me. But today I can do things that are different. So you need to really engage in actions that are the opposite of being helpless and out of it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. Not to invalidate it, but not to over validate it, to process it so you live more present.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

It's validation. But most of all validate people's current lives. Like I keep dating people and I feel nothing. How do we help you to feel alive when you go on a date? So you can, you can really feel the options and the pleasures and make decisions about what you do with it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I know that in today's world we're on our phones, we're totally disconnected. And I am aware that being in community, being in connection is part of our mental health. How do you suggest people can start creating more community in our modern day life?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Oh, we need to be part of communities and hopefully acting communities. I think maybe even a tennis club might do or a dojo with martial artists or singing in a choir or making music with other people. I'm very much into theater. We're hooked up a program called Shakespeare in the Courts where juvenile delinquents get condemned by our local judge in Pittsfield, Mass. To go to make a choice between going to jail or becoming Shakespeare and the actor. I live in a very civilized place.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I love that. So that they actually do something with their life and that creativity and that expression.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And yeah, they have to stand up there and do their roles very hard for them because these are very traumatized kids who either have to push and hit or who always shut down and now they stand on the stage and actually be a mighty king, be Lady Macbeth, maybe an oppressed woman. And you get to be feel, oh, that's what it feels like too. Now I know what that feels like. So you get a real sensory input of other possibilities. My favorite clinical activity is psychodrama also, where you really have people have experiences that they did not have. Say, oh, that's what it would have felt like if somebody would have protected me when I was three years old. You open up the imagination. And what we've learned also is that imagination is terribly important. You can really imagine new possibilities. What neuroscience has discovered is that when you activate your imagination, you activate the same pathways of remembering the past. And so what happened to you in the past to a large degree determines what you can imagine.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

So that's part of why psychodrama is so powerful.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

That's right. Because you give people new experiences so they can imagine new things. And psychedelics oftentimes also help you to imagine new possibilities.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

So would that also be true then? When you go, it's almost like a healing of memories. You go back to the memory and you bring in somebody that creates safety, or you change the story of the past.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

No, we wouldn't do that.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

You wouldn't do that.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

But they would advocate. And some people do that. The Greeks originally, they were very war like people, and they would come back from war and they would do theater where they act as certain roles. And everybody could feel sympathy for those roles. They can feel those roles. And I'm in favor of people. When people write a play together, for you to act out the role that I wrote and for me to act out the role that you wrote so I don't get stuck in my paradigm. I get to feel what your paradigm. Paradigm is like.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I love that. That's great. Based on your research, what are things that you do find valuable in terms of the supporting, healing, and maybe what some things that people are doing that are common that you recommend not doing.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, the issue of basing your research is a tricky one.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Okay.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Because you can only get funding for research for something that is sort of mainstream. I've been able to do research in areas that I was able to get funding for, and luckily I get funding for yoga. I got some funding for neurofeedback, and then Rick Dublin collected all the money for psychedelics. But if it were, if I buy drugs and had unlimited access, I would study boxing for trauma, and I would study martial arts for trauma, and I even study tango dancing for trauma. I really, really broaden what we do much more. But we're in our paradigm in mainstream mental health science, that you cannot really move that much into people doing things.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

You won't get funding for it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. What are some of the things that you support or have found really valuable, and what are some of the things that most people do or a lot of people do in the therapeutic settings that you're not necessarily a fan of?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Neurofeedback can be helpful to regulate your brain. EMDR can be helpful to modify the memory. Body work can help you to be alive in Your body. Psychedelics can be opened up. So there's a whole bunch of different things that can do that. And they all do slightly different things. And I would. When people look for treatment, I always give the advice, check in with your friends to see what's been helpful. I think that's your best recommendation. And so I live in Boston. And so in Boston I know sort of what the resources are. I also know a lot of resources in la, for example. And so you have access to many things, but if you live in Sioux City, Iowa, you might not have access to any of these things.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

So it depends very much on what you have access to and also what you have money for. Very big issue. Like the insurance companies will only allow certain sort of treatment and fund you for it. And most effective treatments probably are not covered by insurance.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And looking at cultures across the world, we do similar things to support healing music, community plants.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And you see that like when you. I've been to China a bunch of times and the very first time when they're. Shortly after the Cultural Revolution came to an end. Tiananmen Square, a very oppressed society. But everybody was doing tai chi in the park. Last time I was in China a few years ago, everybody was too Tai chi in the park. And so when I there, I do tai chi in the park with Chinese, I go. These people have a very good way of calming themselves down. Then you go to Buenos Aires and you see people tend go down. So. And you go, wow, that's so cool. That must be good for trauma. But you don't go to Boston to do tango dancing. It depends very much on the culture. The story in my book about Nelson Bendela telling me how boxing had. How helpful had been for him. And then you go to Brazil, you see all these young kids do caperer. We are actually supporting a Brazilian study right now for the effect of capoeira on mental health. Actually, that is very good. Actually.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

That's great. When I was going through a pretty traumatic experience when I was in middle school, I would just do. I would punch a. One of those teardrop things. And it would just help me express the anger. So I didn't hold it in my body. And I also wasn't then getting mad at somebody, but I was allowing the energy just to come up and out.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I got that really helpful.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And I see you make the movements.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I do.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

So you're reliving the pleasure of doing it.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

It was pleasurable. It felt empowering in a place that I didn't feel like I Had a lot of power. And so it, it gave me that back in a safe way to feel the anger. And I think also just at least western society, from what I've seen, isn't necessarily supportive of anger. And yet, just like violence is a behavior and anger is an emotion, we want a healthy expression of our emotions. What is some of the science, because you brought up yoga and movement and breath work, what's some of the fascinating science you can share about those practices?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, there's a lot of evidence for breath work of calming down the autonomic nervous system and getting you more in a, in a concentrated mode. So breath works very helpful. There's research, I did research in yoga and we also showed how the brain changes in yoga, that the connection with your insula, which is sort of your communications channel with your body, gets altered by doing yoga. So you can interpret your body much better. You can take care of your body much better.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

I was just learning about the bilateral movements too, and I know you do that in yoga and that helps shift your brain.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

We only studied eye movements and found that eye movements really quite significantly changes certain pathways in the brain to help you to feel like something happened in the past instead of right now.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Obviously, like over the years we can see that the human spirit is resilient and we've been able to adapt over time with different trauma that happens in our lives. Is there anything that you're hopeful for, for moving forward based on what you've seen, we've been able to heal from as a society?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I actually myself got an education like that and sent my kids to have education like this. And what I really believe in, that every child should learn the four Rs from K through 12, reading, writing, arithmetic, and self regulation. With laboratory sessions that you learn how your mind works, learn how your brain works, learn how your body works, and you learn what it feels like to throw a ball with somebody. What does it feel like when we sing together? What does it feel like when we dance together and move together and to really become aware of this creature that you are and learn about this creature that you are and really say, oh, now I'm getting scared. Oh, that means that the danger system, my brain is lighting up and then now my muscles automatically start engaging to hit somebody. Oh, interesting. So if I don't really want to hit somebody, I can be. Pay attention to that and I may go kick a ball or say healthier ways to express.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, I know we started talking about AI before we started, but I just keep imagining if there's a way to make healing more accessible to more people. Imagine the world we would live in. The family being the foundation, each of us doing more of our nervous system integration.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

But you need to move.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And AI keeps you locked in full of screen. And that. That really worries me a lot.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, it does worry you.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Although we do neurofeedback, you are on the screen also to regulate your brain. So. So it's. There's something to be said for it. But to heal from trauma, need to live in a body that knows how to do things differently.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. Yeah. And the end presence really being in that. You were talking about connection. That that's really the healing transformative power.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And so it's things like you played game of tennis. If you don't concentrate, you lose the game. Martial arts, if you don't focus on you now, you lose the game, you get hit. So doing. Doing exercises and procedures that really force you to just be in the moment, to really pay attention is probably always good.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons why people love traveling because everything's new, so they're more present. And when we're present, we're safe and we're less flipped into trauma from the past.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah. But it's hard for traumatized people to try out new things because there's deep sense of insecurity and fear of what will happen. So they tend to be on the defensive side and to not say, oh, let me try to do this, because your core orientation is I'm going to get hurt. And so that makes it hard to be curious. And that's why I think we have much more active systems that engage people. We had the theater program in the Boston Institute School. Boston. It's a wonderful program. We researched it, showed how well it worked. But always worried. There were always three kids in every class who stood behind the wall and who did not engage with the group. And they're the people who needed it most. So how do you engage people who naturally don't want to engage? And that is really by giving people a lot of care and a lot of feeling of I can trust this person. But then we have to go do it and just say, oh, why can you take your class? Makes you feel better. Doesn't make them feel better.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, yeah. I really love the invitation to just see what's available in your area, but also try things on and see what actually works for you when you feel safe enough to engage. And I'm also thinking of people. So there's those who kind of freeze. But there's also people with unresolved trauma that are running so fast away from their trauma. So they can also mobilize to try to outrun it. And they're scared to slow down. And oftentimes I found that they're very scared, successful, because they don't shut off because they're scared. So it can really go.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

They can work all the time and make a good amount of money.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. And then they're being validated for their successes. And there's another addiction that comes on with that. So it can go both ways.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Absolutely.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And that takes time. And I've met with people said, well, I'm able to do. I'll spend five minutes on this. No, actually, to rewire yourself needs to practice, and it takes time.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And then there's more enjoyment in life as a result. Just in closing, if there's. If there's something that we didn't touch on that you think that would be really valuable for people to know.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Well, I think a very critical issue is the issue of community. And I think Charles Tab programs were great in that regard. If you identify yourself as a drug addict, alcoholic, you can go anywhere in the world and find a meeting of people who struggle with the same things. And I was hoping that something similar would happen with incest survivors, but they couldn't get it together because there's so much disruption of being able to negotiate things with other people that didn't work. But finding people who can share your experience with you is to have the importance of. And that was very big when I worked at the va, had the veterans talk to each other. And I think the individual model of treatment that now is the prevailing thing is not the ideal model. Actually, the ideal model is to live in community. We do our psychedelic trainings in community. People always meet other people they feel close to. We do our somatic workshops. People always meet other people who you feel close to. So forming community is still the most important thing, because as humans, we are buyers for connection. And when you talk about AI, I see how fantastic AI is and how much it can do by total awe of it. But it will not help us to get closer to other people.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And may turn out to be, despite its amazing capacities, that we may be worse off with it, actually. Yeah.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. More disconnect rather than feeling really connected. Yeah. I think there's a way to use it as a companion, but I don't think it'll ever really replace human connection and presence and somatic work. And I really do hope that we start going back to some of our original roots of just being in nature, being in community, and more natural ways of healing.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

And I know my audience is going to want to stay connected. Talk to us about what you're up to and how they can stay connected.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

What I'm up to?

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

I'm writing another book. It's called embody self awareness and the next book is going to be called come to your senses. It's about your sensory world that we live in.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

That's great.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

And how we activate our sensory world and how trauma does nasty things are sensory world.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah. What's the best way to get connected?

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Yeah. Bestofindercorp.com or traumaresearchfoundation.org we have a lot of resources. The Trauma research Foundation website.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Such a blessing to have you here. Thank you for being here.

[Dr. Bessel van der Kolk]

Thank you.

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

Yeah, thank you.

[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world, starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference. And if this podcast has supported you, one of the most impactful ways to

[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

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[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

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[Host (possibly Alyssa or a similar name)]

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[Podcast Announcer/Promoter (possibly Alyssa Briga)]

we are so grateful. You can also leave a review on Apple or Spotify and take a quick screenshot and upload it at Alysonobriga.com forward/podcast. And as a thank you gift, we'll send you one of the most impactful tools for transforming your fear into freedom so that you can step more fully into your potential. There is so much more magic ahead and I cannot wait to share it with you. But for now, I just want to say thank you for being a living example of what it means to walk through the world with an open heart and mind. I am so grateful that you're here and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode.