Bessel van der Kolk

CD45 cells are the “memory cells” of the immune system. Some of them, called RA cells, have been activated by past exposure to toxins; they quickly respond to environmental threats they have encountered before. The RO cells, in contrast, are kept in reserve for new challenges; they are turned on to deal with threats the body has not met previously. The RA-to-RO ratio is the balance between cells that recognize known toxins and cells that wait for new information to activate.

She had no sense of who she really was sexually, so she gradually withdrew from dating altogether

Children have no choice who their parents are, nor can they understand that parents may simply be too depressed, enraged, or spaced out to be there for them or that their parents’ behavior may have little to do with them.

Terror increases the need for attachment, even if the source of comfort is also the source of terror.

Understanding what is “wrong” with people currently is more a question of the mind-set of the practitioner (and of what insurance companies will pay for) than of verifiable, objective facts.

The preamble to the DSM-III warned explicitly that its categories were insufficiently precise to be used in forensic settings or for insurance purposes. Nonetheless it gradually became an instrument of enormous power

A psychiatric diagnosis has serious consequences: Diagnosis informs treatment, and getting the wrong treatment can have disastrous effects. Also, a diagnostic label is likely to attach to people for the rest of their lives and have a profound influence on how they define themselves.

Undeterred, Judy and I decided to finance the study ourselves

The first question Judy and I faced was: How do you take a trauma history?

Chris had placed a Gary Larson cartoon of a group of scientists studying dolphins and being puzzled by “those strange ‘aw blah es span yol’ sounds.” The data had convinced him that unless you understand the language of trauma and abuse, you cannot really understand BPD.