Frank Anderson, MD

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I’m genuinely excited to offer this rare opportunity to learn from Bessel van der Kolk live and explore together where o...
07/31/2026

I’m genuinely excited to offer this rare opportunity to learn from Bessel van der Kolk live and explore together where our understanding of trauma and healing stands today.

Bessel and I have known each other and worked in this field together for more than 30 years. On September 3, we’ll come together for a live conversation that moves beyond The Body Keeps the Score to explore:

• What the latest trauma research is revealing
• What EMDR, somatic work, neurofeedback, psychedelics, movement, psychotherapy, and other approaches can offer
• Why different people may need different forms of support
• How psychological, relational, body-based, and experiential approaches can work together

Then you’ll have a month to reflect on the teaching, explore what feels relevant, and notice what questions remain.

On October 5, you’ll return for a live Integration Session with me to discuss what became clearer, what was difficult to apply, what worked, and what you still want to understand.

This Learning Lab is for clinicians, helping professionals, and individuals who want a deeper and more practical understanding of trauma and healing.

Comment PAST and we’ll send you the details.

Healing doesn’t erase what happened. It can change the patterns you developed in response to it.What began in childhood ...
07/28/2026

Healing doesn’t erase what happened. It can change the patterns you developed in response to it.

What began in childhood may continue into adulthood through overgiving, avoiding conflict, staying quiet, or working hard to keep people close. When these responses have been repeated for years, it can be difficult to imagine relating any other way.

Change might look like speaking more honestly, allowing someone to be disappointed without immediately overriding your own needs, expressing anger without causing harm, and staying connected without dismissing what you feel.

These shifts often happen gradually. With time, support, and practice, new ways of relating can become more available, more familiar, and easier to access.

07/23/2026

To be clear, working 70 hours a week does not automatically mean someone has unresolved trauma.

People may be responding to real demands, supporting their families, building something meaningful, or choosing an intense season of work. A behavior alone can’t tell us where it comes from.

But for some people, socially rewarded behaviors can also serve a protective function.

Constant productivity may keep grief or helplessness at a distance. Perfectionism may reduce the risk of criticism. Overfunctioning may help someone feel needed without having to depend on anyone else.

It can also look like people-pleasing, chronic overpreparing, rigid routines, emotional self-sufficiency, overmanaging children, or feeling guilty when resting.

These patterns are easy to miss because they can look responsible, ambitious, generous, or disciplined.

They may be praised by families, workplaces, and culture, even when they are narrowing someone’s life or damaging their relationships.

Trauma is one possible contributor, not the only explanation. The question is not simply what the behavior looks like from the outside.

It’s how much choice, flexibility, and cost exist inside it.

Sometimes the reaction comes before the explanation.You hear a certain tone of voice, notice a facial expression, smell ...
07/22/2026

Sometimes the reaction comes before the explanation.

You hear a certain tone of voice, notice a facial expression, smell something familiar, or start talking about what happened. Suddenly your heart is racing, your stomach drops, or you feel the need to escape.

Here’s what may be happening.

After trauma, an emotional and physical response can begin before you consciously understand what the reminder is connected to. You may feel the past in the present before you can explain why.

The amygdala helps the brain quickly register emotional significance and possible danger. The hippocampus helps place experiences in time and context, so you can recognize what belongs to the past and what is happening now.

That can make the reaction feel sudden, random, or disconnected from the moment. But it may be carrying information about what your brain has learned to associate with danger.

Rather than immediately acting on the reaction, begin by noticing what changed in your body and what you suddenly felt compelled to do.

When you have more space, ask: What might this moment have reminded me of? Is this response only about what is happening now, or is something from the past being activated too?

Recognizing the pattern can help you take in more of the present and have more choice in what happens next.

07/22/2026

You hear yourself use the tone you grew up with. Your child spills something or pushes one more button, and your reaction becomes much bigger than the moment.

The pause creates space to ask: What is happening now, and what belongs to the past?

These patterns were built over time, and they change over time too.

In The Path to Healing Trauma, I walk you through that process step by step, from recognizing the survival patterns shaping your life to creating new ways of relating that can hold under pressure.

Comment PAUSE and I’ll send you the details.

07/10/2026

When a part of you believes you’re unlovable, unworthy, or don’t deserve anything good, healthy love can be hard to receive. You may distrust it, push it away, or keep choosing what feels familiar, even when it hurts.

As you begin caring for that part, your capacity to allow and choose something healthier grows. A healthy relationship can then become part of the healing, offering experiences of steadiness, care, and connection that reach deeper layers.

Healing is never complete or permanent. It unfolds in layers, and each layer can make it easier to let in the kind of love that once felt difficult to trust or receive.

07/05/2026

When we talk about abusive relationships, we have to be very careful not to judge from the outside.

It’s easy to say, “Why don’t they just leave?” when you’re not inside the complexity of it. Because abusive relationships are not usually bad every second of every day.

There can be apologies, tenderness, promises. Moments where the person says exactly what you’ve been waiting your whole life to hear. And that is so powerful.

Intermittent reinforcement is when love, affection, remorse, or repair show up sporadically. You don’t know when it’s coming, so when it does, the dopamine hit is strong. The hope comes back.

But underneath that cycle, people are often reenacting their trauma in an attempt to fix their trauma.

Some part of them is hoping, “Maybe this time I’ll get what I never got. Maybe this time the love will stay. Maybe this time the person who hurts me will finally become the person who chooses me.”

And when you were treated badly early on, good can feel foreign because mistreatment became familiar. So the abuse feels recognizable, and the hope that it might change keeps pulling you back in.

That’s why shame is so destructive here.

People in these dynamics often already carry so much self-loathing. Outside judgment doesn’t help them move toward safety. It often makes the shame louder.

We have to understand the pattern without minimizing the harm, because getting out is not simple. And people need support that sees the whole story, not judgment that only sees the part that looks obvious from the outside.

I’m honored to be speaking at Transform Trauma Oxford 2026, taking place September 14–17 in Oxford and online.My session...
07/05/2026

I’m honored to be speaking at Transform Trauma Oxford 2026, taking place September 14–17 in Oxford and online.

My session, A Path to Wholeness: Trauma, Spirituality, Energy, and Science, will explore how integrative approaches can support trauma healing, and how spirituality can be included as a meaningful dimension of clinical work.

I’ll be joining Gabor Maté, Bessel van der Kolk, Tara Swart, Dan Siegel, Kristin Neff, and more than 100 researchers, clinicians, and practitioners for this year’s theme: Science, Spirit and the Body: The Synthesis of Healing.

The conference is available both in person and online, with access to 100+ hours of recorded content for 90 days after the event.

As part of my community, you can use the following discount codes at checkout:

In-person: save £100 with code FrankIP100
Virtual: save £50 with code FrankVT50

Here is the link to sign up: https://mastersevents.com/oxford-2026/

I hope to see you there!

07/03/2026

Sometimes distance is the only boundary you have access to.

And sometimes, over time, the work becomes learning how to stay connected without losing your ability to protect yourself.

That doesn’t mean forcing closeness with someone who is unsafe or pretending the relationship is healthier than it is. It means that when contact is necessary, or when you choose to re-enter in some way, the focus shifts from trying to change them to knowing how you’ll take care of yourself.

That might mean getting a hotel instead of staying in the childhood bedroom. It might mean limiting the visit. It might mean ending the conversation when it crosses a line. It might mean leaving when the environment becomes too much.

The goal isn’t forced closeness. It’s being able to walk into a difficult relationship with a clear sense of what you will allow, what you won’t, and how you’ll protect yourself if the old pattern starts again.

I’m excited to be partnering with Paul Denniston this month for Healing Trauma Through the Body, a 4-week series explori...
07/01/2026

I’m excited to be partnering with Paul Denniston this month for Healing Trauma Through the Body, a 4-week series exploring how movement, breath, sound, and gentle reflection can support trauma healing.

Join us live on Zoom, or watch the replay at your own pace.

Link in bio to save your spot.

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30 Domino Drive
Concord, MA
01742

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