Feeling listened to and understood changes our physiology; being able to articulate a complex feeling, and having our feelings recognized, lights up our limbic brain and creates an “aha moment”. In contrast, being met by silence and incomprehension kills the spirit. Or, as John Bowlby so memorably put it: “What can not be spoken to the [m]other cannot be told to the self.”

Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma
(via abrce)