We can now develop methods and experiences that utilize the brain’s own natural neuroplasticity to help survivors feel fully alive in the present and move on with their lives. There are fundamentally three avenues: 1) top down, by talking, (re-) connecting with others, and allowing ourselves to know and understand what is going on with us, while processing the memories of the trauma; 2) by taking medicines that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or by utilizing other technologies that change the way the brain organizes information, and 3) bottom up: by allowing the body to have experiences that deeply and viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage, or collapse that result from trauma. Which one of these is best for any particular survivor is an empirical question. Most people I have worked with require a combination.
Clipping
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books > The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk MD)
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books > Revelation Space (The Inhibitor Trilogy) (Reynolds, Alastair)
an antiquated theory, centuries dead, which had proposed a link between the quantum processes of consciousness and the quantum-gravitational mechanisms which underpinned spacetime, through the unification of something called the Weyl curvature tensor…
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books > Radicalized (Doctorow, Cory)
When the best people were on top, things worked: they convinced the rational, cajoled the stubborn, and, frankly, forced the rest. It was for the greater good. Put one of the losers, the takers, at the top of the pile, and they’d lead the rest into catastrophe. One thing had been very clear to Martin through all his life: the takers were steering the ship, and they were going to crash it.