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

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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.

1. Communicate recent developments in neuroscience in relation to assessment and the treatment of PTSD.
2. Appraisethe efficacy of trauma treatment techniques, including physical mastery, affect regulation, attention and memory processing in trauma.
3. Critique the results of Developmental Trauma Disorder field trials and ascertain how this may inform clinical treatment considerations.
4. Articulate specific techniques clients can engage in to regulate their own physiological functioning in response to trauma.
5. Explain how traumatized people clients process information and articulate the impact of this on clinical assessment and treatment planning.
6. Determine how to integrate neurologically-based, body-oriented trauma treatment therapies into clinical practice.

Neuroscience & Brain Development

• Neuroscience research and the course of brain development
• How children learn to regulate their arousal systems
• Fundamental capacity of the brain to self-regulate
• Trauma, abuse and neglect: The derailment of developmental processes & brain development

Traumatic Imprints

• Storing of traumatic imprints in the sub-cortical brain areas
• Somatic re-experiencing of trauma-related sensations and affects
• Understand why and how trauma symptoms make sense (adaptations, memory equivalents, etc.)
• Understand why and how traumatic imprints perpetuate maladaptive coping behaviors

The Latest Clinical Research on Trauma-specific Treatment Interventions

• Neurologically-based, body-oriented therapies to resolve traumatic material
• EMDR
• Movement Therapies
• Neurofeedback
• Integrating various approaches during different stages of treatment
• The DSM-5® diagnoses and need to incorporate data from DESNOS/Complex PTSD and Developmental Trauma Disorder field trials
  • Behavioral and neurobiological implications of developmental trauma (child abuse/neglect)
  • Behavioral and neurobiological implications of complex trauma
  • Recognize and address the myriad of co-morbidities in the traumatized client