The Body Keeps the Score

A pioneering researcher and one of the world's foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.

Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain's wiring-specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy-and a way to reclaim lives.

Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D. has been the Medical Director of The Trauma Center in Boston for the past 30 years. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and serves as the Director of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress Complex Trauma Network. He is past President of International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Though he identifies himself primarily as a clinician, he has published well over 100 peer reviewed scientific articles on various aspects of trauma, including his current projects: 1) yoga for treating PTSD, funded by the National Institutes of Health; 2) the use of theater for violence prevention in the Boston public schools, funded by the CDC; 3) the mechanisms of EMDR; 4) sensory integration; and 5) the use of neurofeedback in PTSD. He participated in the first neuroimaging study of PTSD, in the first study to link Borderline Personality Disorder with childhood trauma; was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trial for PTSD and is chair of the NCTSN DSM V workgroup on Developmental Trauma Disorder. He has written extensively about using neuroscience research to identify appropriate treatments for PTSD and completed the first NIMH-funded study of EMDR. He has taught at universities and hospitals around the world.