The New York Times bestseller The Body Keeps the Score transformed our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring. In this work, author Dr. Bessel van der Kolk shows how these areas can be reactivated through a range of innovative treatments that can lead to lasting healing. In a conversation moderated by Lineage Project’s Jessica Mingus, Dr. van der Kolk will focus on how his research and treatments free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past. They will also discuss the increasing mental health issues related to the pandemic. Join us on Thursday, May 13, at 6pm EDT for this discussion.
About Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
Bessel van der Kolk M.D. is a pioneer clinician, researcher, and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress. His work uniquely integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic, somatic, and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. Dr. van der Kolk has published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles on such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, developmental trauma, yoga, theater, and EMDR. He is founder of the Trauma Center (now the Trauma Research Foundation) in Boston, past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. He regularly teaches at universities and hospitals around the world.
About Jessica Mingus
Jessica Mingus, LMSW (she/her) is the Director of Programs at Lineage Project, a non-profit that shares trauma-sensitive mindfulness with young people, ages 11–24, navigating serious challenges and the adults who work with them, as a way to cultivate well-being, inner and collective resilience, and community bonds. In her role, she develops programs inside youth incarceration sites, schools, shelters, foster care agencies, and community organizations, and provides ongoing support and resourcing to Lineage Teachers. She is an emergent Somatic Abolitionist committed to embodied anti-racist practice and culture-building. A licensed social worker with clinical training in child and adolescent trauma treatment, Mingus is also a Qualified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher through the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at UMass Medical School.