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Top 15 Bessel van der Kolk Quotes (2025 Update)

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind.”

1. “The parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Featured in: Psychology Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Healing Quotes, Parenting Quotes

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “People have a range of capacities to deal with overwhelming experience. Some people, some kids particularly, are able to disappear into a fantasy world, to dissociate, to pretend like it isnt happening, and are able to go on with their lives. And sometimes it comes back to haunt them.”

2. “People have a range of capacities to deal with overwhelming experience. Some people, some kids particularly, are able to disappear into a fantasy world, to dissociate, to pretend like it isnt happening, and are able to go on with their lives. And sometimes it comes back to haunt them.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “You can’t see the glory of life if you haven’t seen the dark side of life.”

3. “You can’t see the glory of life if you haven’t seen the dark side of life.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health;.”

4. “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health;.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “The trauma that started “out there” is now played out on the battlefield of their own bodies, usually without a conscious connection between what happened back then and what is going on right now inside.”

5. “The trauma that started “out there” is now played out on the battlefield of their own bodies, usually without a conscious connection between what happened back then and what is going on right now inside.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Desensitization to our own or to other people’s pain tends to lead to an overall blunting of emotional sensitivity.”

6. “Desensitization to our own or to other people’s pain tends to lead to an overall blunting of emotional sensitivity.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning.”

7. “Language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “As we grow up, we gradually learn to take care of ourselves, both physically and emotionally, but we get our first lessons in self-care from the way that we are cared for. Mastering the skill of self-regulation depends to a large degree on how harmonious our early interactions with our caregivers are. Children whose parents are reliable sources of comfort and strength have a lifetime advantage – a kind of buffer against the worst that fate can hand them.”

8. “As we grow up, we gradually learn to take care of ourselves, both physically and emotionally, but we get our first lessons in self-care from the way that we are cared for. Mastering the skill of self-regulation depends to a large degree on how harmonious our early interactions with our caregivers are. Children whose parents are reliable sources of comfort and strength have a lifetime advantage – a kind of buffer against the worst that fate can hand them.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Trauma is the ultimate experience of “this will last forever.”

9. “Trauma is the ultimate experience of “this will last forever.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “In important ways, an experience does not really exist until it can be named and placed into larger categories.”

10. “In important ways, an experience does not really exist until it can be named and placed into larger categories.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “The idea that we’re asking our young people to go out in the world completely alone and call themselves independent is crazy. We need to teach them how to be interdependent, which means teaching them how to have relationships.”

11. “The idea that we’re asking our young people to go out in the world completely alone and call themselves independent is crazy. We need to teach them how to be interdependent, which means teaching them how to have relationships.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “People with PTSD have their floodgates wide open. Lacking a filter, they are on constant sensory overload. In order to cope, they try to shut themselves down and develop tunnel vision and hyperfocus.”

12. “People with PTSD have their floodgates wide open. Lacking a filter, they are on constant sensory overload. In order to cope, they try to shut themselves down and develop tunnel vision and hyperfocus.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “For many people the war begins at home:.”

13. “For many people the war begins at home:.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to further alienation.”

14. “Isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group promotes a view of others as irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst, which eventually only leads to further alienation.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside.”

15. “However, traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk Quote: “Bowlby himself told me that just such boarding-school experiences probably inspired George Orwell’s novel 1984, which brilliantly expresses how human beings may be induced to sacrifice everything they hold dear and true – including their sense of self – for the sake of being loved and approved of by someone in a position of authority.”

16. “Bowlby himself told me that just such boarding-school experiences probably inspired George Orwell’s novel 1984, which brilliantly expresses how human beings may be induced to sacrifice everything they hold dear and true – including their sense of self – for the sake of being loved and approved of by someone in a position of authority.”

— Bessel van der Kolk

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