Markis Hernandez’s Reviews > The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma > Status Update

Correlating low serotonin levels with prolonged cortisol levels in post-traumatic patients piqued my interest. Another thing that stood out to me is how those who experienced a traumatic event or a precarious upbringing tended to seek out instances similar to past events. There is a sort-of conditioning that derives pleasure from the past endured. Part of this is also a "comfort" in an experience we know.

Something that struck me was how intense a flashback is than just a memory. Bessel was trying to understand why these memories remained so vivid and visceral and didn't diminish like typical memories. He also makes the correlation that women who endured incestual experiences as children behaved similarly to the Vietnam vets.

One thing that really stuck out to me is that the vets could only see their flashbacks or did not see anything in the Rorshach test, but more so, what that meant. It meant that they could not access their imagination. Imagination is a vitally important component for creating one's purpose or feeling a sense of it. It's how we evoke things that we care about. It made me realize how much I underestimate my imagintation

We start off with what drove Bessel to pursue this lifelong career with Tom, his first wartime patient at the VA. Bessel made the connection that a lot of vets have simiar physiological symptoms including his father and uncle. BY reading a book written by Kardiner, he found the term "physioneuroses" which essentially means that the truma endured created not, just a mental effect, as presumed, but also a physical one.

The preface had me drooling to read more! The book's already driving the point home that not processing trauma leads to all kinds of interpersonal problems when we get older. There's also 3 ways to deal w it: 1) top down; gaining understanding of what is going on w us, 2) meditation and procedures that can dampen parts of the brain, and 3) bottom up; letting the body have experiences that contradict them feelings

Here we goooooo. Reading the praise alone got me super hyped to read this. Based on that alone, it looks like I'm in for a clinic on the mind-body relationship that stems from the trauma of the past. I'm buckling up my seat belt.