Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has devoted his career to studying how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences, and has adapted emerging findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of stress treatments. traumatic in children and adults.
In 1984, he established one of the first clinical and research centers in the United States dedicated to the study and treatment of traumatic stress in the civilian population, from which he has trained numerous researchers and clinicians specialized in post-traumatic stress and has investigated the impact and effective treatment interventions. He did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD; he was a member of the first neuroimaging team to investigate how trauma changes brain processes, and he did the first research linking PTSD and self-harm to early childhood trauma and neglect.
Much of his research has focused on how trauma impacts differently at different stages of development. In order to promote a deeper understanding of the impact of childhood trauma and to encourage the development and implementation of effective treatment interventions, he initiated the process that led to the establishment of the National Childhood Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). A congressional-mandated initiative that now funds approximately 150 centers that specialize in the development of effective treatment interventions and their application in a wide range of settings.
Dr. van der Kolk has focused on the study of treatments that stabilize physiology, increase executive functioning, and help traumatized individuals feel fully in the present. This has included a NIMH-funded study on EMDR and an NCCAM-funded study on yoga, and, in recent years, the neurofeedback study to investigate whether the systems of attention and perception (and the neural pathways responsible for them) they can be altered by changing EEG patterns.
His efforts resulted in the establishment of the Trauma Center which consisted of a well-trained clinical team that specialized in treating children and adults with histories of child abuse.
You can keep up to date with Dr. van der Kolk's events by visiting his website https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/
Bessel van der Kolk is the author of The Body Keeps Score. He contributes to the prologue to Trauma and Memory. He contributes a chapter on Clinical Applications of Polyvagal Theory.
