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this is pretty hokey and strange. It’s something invented by Francine Shapiro, who found that, if you move your eyes from side to side as you think about distressing memories, that the memories lose their power.

And because of some experiences, both with myself, but even more with the patients of mine who told me about their experiences, I took a training in it. It turned out to be incredibly helpful. Then I did what’s probably the largest NIH-funded study on EMDR. And we found that, of people with adult-onset traumas, a one-time trauma as an adult, that it had the best outcome of any treatment that has been published.

What’s intriguing about EMDR is both how well it works and then the question is how it works, and that got me into this dream stuff that I talked about earlier, and how it does not work through figuring things out and understanding things. But it activates some natural processes in the brain that helps you to integrate these past memories.

MS. TIPPETT: I mean, it sounds so simple. And even when I was reading about it, moving your eyes back and forth — I mean, is this something that you can do for yourself? Or is there something more complex going on?

DR. VAN DER KOLK: I imagine it can be done, but it’s usually better if you do it with somebody else who sort of stays with you, helps you to focus, makes eye movement for you by having somebody else follow your fingers. But it is astoundingly effective treatment. And it’s interesting that, even in the most biased studies, EMDR keeps coming up as this very effective treatment. It’s been very difficult to get funding to find out the very intriguing underlying mechanisms of it. And I think if we really find out the mechanism for EMDR, we’ll understand how the mind works much better. It’s an outstandingly effective treatment.

So if people have had one terrible thing that they cannot get out of their minds, that, for me, is the treatment of choice. Of course, the people who come to see me in my practice oftentimes have had multiple traumas at the hands of their intimates also, so then it gets much more complicated than just a memory issue. But if it’s just a car accident or a simple assault, it’s astoundingly effective.

MS. TIPPETT: That’s fascinating. Something else I read is you were reflecting on Hurricane Hugo, hurricanes in general or natural disasters, this phenomenon we see of people helping each other, of getting out there and helping each other — and you also look at that and see that it’s not just that people are helping each other; they’re moving their bodies. Again, there’s this physical involvement kind of as antidote to the helplessness of the situation, which is so manifest.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Good. I’m really glad you read it because people talk a lot about stress hormones. Our stress hormones are sort of the source of all evil. That’s definitely not true. The stress hormones are good for you. You secrete stress hormones in order to give you the energy to cope under extreme situations. So it gives you that energy to stay up all night with your sick kid or to shovel snow in Minnesota and Boston and stuff like that.

What goes wrong is, if you’re kept from using your stress hormones, if somebody ties you down, if somebody holds you down, if somebody keeps you imprisoned, the stress hormones keep going up, but you cannot discharge it with action. Then the stress hormones really start wreaking havoc with your own internal system. But as long as you move, you are going to be fine. As we know, after these hurricanes and these terrible things, people get very active, and they like to help, and they like to do things, and they enjoy doing it because it discharges their energy.

MS. TIPPETT: So we are healing ourselves. We don’t realize that, but we know how to…

DR. VAN DER KOLK: We are using our natural system, basically. We’re not only healing; we’re coping. We’re just dealing with what we need to cope with. That’s why you have that stuff. That’s why we survive as a species. What was disturbing in Hurricane Hugo, which was my first encounter quite a long time, and what we saw again in New Orleans, is how these victimized populations were prevented from doing something, and that’s really what the observation was.

MS. TIPPETT: Right. And that that compounded the trauma.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Yeah. So I get flown into Puerto Rico after Hurricane Hugo because I’ve written a book about trauma. I knew nothing about disasters, but nobody else knew anything either, so they flew me in. And what struck me — I landed in Puerto Rico, and everybody is busy doing stuff and building things, and everybody’s too busy to talk to me because they’re trying to do stuff. But on the same plane that I flew in with, officials from FEMA came in, who then made announcements, “Stop your work until FEMA decides what you’re going to get reimbursed for.”

And that was the worst thing that could have happened because now these people were using the energy to fight with each other and to pick war with each other instead of rebuilding their houses. That’s, of course, similar what happened in New Orleans, where people also were kept from being agents in their own recovery.

MS. TIPPETT: I wonder how you look at this world we live in now where it feels like there’s an acceleration of what you might call collective traumatic events or tragedies. It seems to be more and more predictable that around the corner there will be a bombing or a school shooting or a terrible event that’s involved with the weather. How does what you know about trauma help you think about this or…?

DR. VAN DER KOLK: I’m not sure if I share that view with you. I think there’s so much more news, so we’re much more aware of whatever happens at any particular moment. And of course, the news media, when you wake up in the morning, find the worst thing that happens somewhere in the world to serve it to you for breakfast. So we get served much more. I don’t think there’s more trauma, actually.

MS. TIPPETT: You don’t think more bad things happen? You just think that…?

DR. VAN DER KOLK: When I read about how Abe Lincoln grew up — he’d lost his mother, and they moved to houses all the time, and they were starving, and he had nothing. I mean, you read the stories about all the immigrants, all those people who died, and the number of assaults in New York City and around the country. I don’t think we live in the worst world. And I think people are also much more conscious today than they were, let’s say, 100 years ago.

No, I really have studied the history of trauma. My favorite human folly is the First World War. If you think the world is bad right now, think about the First World War. Unbelievable. So I don’t think things are necessarily worse, and I think — when I go around the country, and I see the number of programs that very goodhearted people have for school kids, etc., I’m continuously astounded by the amount of integrity and creativity and good will that I see everywhere around me.

At the same time that you see something as horrendous as in Philadelphia — the school system of the public schools in Philadelphia abolished arts programs, gymnastics, counseling, and music programs. I go, “Where have these people been in order to have a minded focuses?” You need to move your body. You need to sing with other people. And if you think that your kids are going to do better if you keep them stock-still in a classroom taking tests, you don’t know anything about human beings.

So you still hear about horrendous things all the time, but I see a great deal of consciousness at the same time. And I see that people are really trying to carve out more consciousness and more democracy in various places around the world.

MS. TIPPETT: I mean, you’re right. It’s all these things at once. But let’s say — something I’m aware of is how — and this would be different from the First World War era where we get these pictures, these vivid images with this immediacy brought to us, right? And I personally — and I think this is true collectively too — I don’t know what to do with those images. And what I often — it’s so disturbing, and then there’s also this impulse that you just have to cut yourself off from that feeling because I can’t do anything for that particular picture. And then there’s this guilt and this feeling that that’s not a satisfactory reaction. I mean, it’s altogether…

DR. VAN DER KOLK: See, there’s a very dark side to this also and that is that there’s a certain tropism, a movement towards misery in our lives so that, if things become too quiet, it becomes boring. When you see the preview of coming attractions in the movie theater, you go like, “Oh my god. What are these people watching?” People are drawn towards horrendous stuff all the time. So it is part of that dark side of human nature to want to live on that edge. It’s very hard. It’s hard to deal with.

MS. TIPPETT: It’s very hopeful that you spend your life working with trauma, with victims in this research. But you have a pretty refreshingly, hopeful feeling about us as a species.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Well, you see, part of that I get from my patients. What is so gratifying about this work is that you get to see the life force. People go through horrendous stuff everywhere all the time, and yet, people go on with their lives.

MS. TIPPETT: And you see that, you experience that again and again.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: I see it all the time. I see kids who grew up under terrible circumstances, and some of them do terribly. But then last week, we had our conference here, our annual conference in Boston, and somebody presented her work on doing meditation in maximum security jails. And you see these really bad-ass guys come to life because of this meditation program.

And I see people getting better with another program that I’m involved with is a Shakespeare program for juvenile delinquents here in Brookshire County where the judge gives kids a choice between going to prison or being condemned to be a Shakespeare actor.

And, I go to the Shakespeare program, and these actors do a beautiful job with these kids, and you see these kids come to life as they’re being valued as an actor and a person who is able to talk. What I see is the huge potential that people have to crawl out of their holes.

[music: “Frontiers” by Floratone]

MS. TIPPETT: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Today, with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk.

[music: “Frontiers” by Floratone]

MS. TIPPETT: I read your research, and I think about this whole picture that we’ve been discussing of all the different ways people are reaching out for methods to become more self-aware — yoga, meditation, using these insights of neuroscience. Sometimes I wonder if, 50 years from now or 100 years from now, people might look back on therapy, the way we’ve done it for 50 years or whatever, and see it as a really rudimentary step towards a much more profound, reaching for awareness and consciousness, mindfulness.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Well, I think people have always done good therapy, and our culture and our insurance structure is not really geared towards really very good therapy nor is our psychological training, which is there to fix people and get rid of their disorder as fast as possible. But therapy as in people really getting to know themselves very well and examining themselves and being seen and being heard and being understood has always been around. And I think it will always be around.

And I don’t think we’ll ever talk about it as necessarily primitive because the intimate interchange of people really talking about their deepest feelings and their deepest pain and having persons listen to it has always been, and I think it always will be, a very powerful human experience.

MS. TIPPETT: So the language people sometimes use about trauma would be — there’s a lot of spiritual language that we intuitively grasp for, “soul stealing.” I wonder how you think about the human spirit in the context of what you know about trauma and resilience and healing.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: That’s a very tough question.

MS. TIPPETT: I know. [laughs] I think you’re up to it, though.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Something that I tended to stay away from. But, I think trauma really does confront you with the best and the worst. You see the horrendous things that people do to each other, but you also see resiliency, the power of love, the power of caring, the power of commitment, the power of commitment to oneself, to the knowledge that there are things that are larger than our individual survival.

And some of the most spiritual people I know are exactly traumatized people, because they have seen the dark side. And in some ways, I don’t think you can appreciate the glory of life unless you also know the dark side of life. And I think the traumatized people certainly know about the dark side of life, but they also, because of that, see the other side better.

MS. TIPPETT: You said somewhere that PTSD has opened the door to scientific investigation of the nature of human suffering. That’s a profound step, right? I mean, to me, that’s the spiritual way to talk about this field with a profound understanding of what the word “spiritual” means.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Yeah. Well, I think this field has opened up two areas. One is the area of trauma and survival and suffering, but the other one is also — people are studying the nature of human connections and the connection between us, also, from a scientific point of view.

As much as trauma has opened up things, I think the other very important arm of scientific discovery is how the human connection is being looked at scientifically now and what really happens when two people see each other, when two people respond to each other, when people mirror each other, when two bodies move together in dancing and smiling and talking.

There’s a whole new field of interpersonal neurobiology that is studying how we are connected with each other and how a lack of connection, particularly early in life, has devastating consequences on the development of mind and brain.

MS. TIPPETT: And it’s true isn’t it from your study that, that if people learn to inhabit their bodies, to be more self-aware, that these qualities and habits can serve, can create resilience, can serve when trauma hits. Is that right?

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Absolutely. So if you particularly — there’s two factors here. One is how your reptilian brain — if you breathe quietly in your body and you feel your bodily experience, and stuff happens to you, you notice that something is happening out there, and you say, “Oh, this really sucks. This is really unpleasant.” But it’s something that is not you. So you don’t necessarily get hijacked by unpleasant experiences.

The big issue for traumatized people is that they don’t own themselves anymore. Any loud sound, anybody insulting them, hurting them, saying bad things, can hijack them away from themselves. And so what we have learned is that what makes you resilient to trauma is to own yourself fully. And if somebody says hurtful or insulting things, you can say, “Hmm, interesting. That person is saying hurtful and insulting things.”

MS. TIPPETT: But you can separate your sense of yourself from them.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Yeah, but you can separate yourself from it. I think we are really beginning to seriously understand how human beings can learn how to do that, to observe and not react.

MS. TIPPETT: I think I just want to come back as we close to this idea that somehow, the point of all of this, the take-home for you, and I’m not finding the quote, is that we have to feel safe, that we have to feel safe and that we have to feel safe in our — that has to be a bodily perception, not just a cognitive perception. And that somehow everything comes back to that.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: It is the foundation, but you need to actually feel that feeling. You need to know what is happening in your body. You need to know where your right toe is and where your pinkie is. Your body — you need to sort of be aware of what it’s doing.

MS. TIPPETT: It’s very nitty-gritty. Is that what you’re saying?

DR. VAN DER KOLK: It’s very, very basic but sorely lacking in our diagnostic system is simple things like eating and peeing and pooping because they’re the foundation of everything, and breathing. These are foundational things, all of which go wrong when you get traumatized. The most elementary body functions go awry when you are terrified.

So trauma treatment starts at the foundation of a body that can sleep, a body that can rest, a body that feels safe, a body that can move. And I love the example of your guy who’s paraplegic and who does yoga because, even when your body is impaired, he can still learn to own it and to have it.

MS. TIPPETT: Yes. he says he’s not cured, but he’s healed. And here’s a striking statement you’ve made that “victims are members of society whose problems represent the memory of suffering, rage, and pain in a world that longs to forget.”

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Did I say that?

MS. TIPPETT: You did.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: That’s brilliant. [laughs]

MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] And I find that so worthy of reflection.

DR. VAN DER KOLK: Well, that’s the literature we read, that’s the movies we watch, and that’s what we want to be inspired by. That’s what we observe is that spirit. Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou and these people can talk very articulately about having dealt with and stared adversity in the face and still maintain that humanity and faith. That’s what’s it all about.

[music: “Enjoy the Calm” by Drew Barefoot]

MS. TIPPETT: Bessel van der Kolk is medical director of the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Massachusetts. He’s also a professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. His books include Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on the Mind, Body, and Society and The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

[music: “Trifle (Consoles Because A Trifle Troubles)” by Infradig]

STAFF: On Being is Trent Gilliss, Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Mariah Helgeson, Maia Tarrell, Marie Sambilay, Bethanie Mann, Selena Carlson, and Rigsar Wangchuck.

MS. TIPPETT: Our lovely theme music is provided and composed by Zoe Keating. And the last voice that you hear singing our final credits in each show is hip-hop artist Lizzo.

On Being was created at American Public Media. Our funding partners include:

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And the Lilly Endowment, an Indianapolis-based, private family foundation dedicated to its founders’ interests in religion, community development, and education.