The Body Keeps the Score

"The five men who saw nothing in the blots had lost the capacity to let their minds play. But so, too, had the other sixteen men, for in viewing scenes from the past in those blots they were not displaying the mental flexibility that is the hallmark of imagination. They simply keps replaying an old reel."

"After trauma, the world becomes sharply divided between those who know, and those who don't."

"Somehow, the very event that caused them so much pain, had also become their sole source of meaning."

"For real change to take place, the body needs to learn that the danger has passed on to live in the reality of the present."

"The limbic system is created in response to experience."

"Whatever happens to the baby contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that its developing brain creates."

"Those early explorations shape the limbic structure devoted to emotions and memory, but these structures can also be significantly modified by later experiences: for the better by a close friendship or beautiful first love, for example, or for the worst by a violent assault, relentless bullying, or neglect."

"Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually leads to further alienation. Gangs, extremist political parties, and religious cults may provide solace, but they rarely foster the mental flexibility needed to be fully open to what life has to offer and as such cannot liberate their member from their tramas. Well-functioning people are able to accept individual differences and acknowledge the humanity of others". p.93

"[..] but we get our first lessons in self-care from the way we are cared for." p. 131