Book
van der Kolk B. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking; 2014. 464 p. (the count in `notes.txt`; Open Library records 443 pages for the hardcover ISBN and 464 for the 2015 Penguin paperback; unreconciled, marked 2026-09-10).
Why we cite it
A popular synthesis (widely read removed 2026-09-10 as an unsurveyed ranking) of how trauma is understood to be held in the body and to manifest through behavioural patterns. Central to the project’s work on pattern recognition: on descriptions of the book held in `notes.txt`, multiple symptoms (anxiety, depression, addiction, disordered eating) often share common traumatic roots, and, on the book’s account, addressing the underlying pattern is more effective than fighting individual symptoms, a comparative claim no trial in this library supports (attributed 2026-09-10, as `kbp01` already does). Also connects to interoceptive awareness: on the same descriptions, trauma survivors often lose contact with body signals including hunger and fullness. (Attributed 2026-09-10: the Contribution stated both claims as fact, and gave emotional reactivity in the symptom list where `notes.txt` has depression, addiction; Extracted knowledge already fences them.)
About the author
Bessel van der Kolk, MD is Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and President of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. MD from the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago (1970). Psychiatric residency at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School (1974). Founded the Trauma Center in Brookline (1982). Past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (1990-91). Former co-director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Awards include the Lifetime Achievement Award from ISTSS (1998), the Benjamin Rush Award from the American Psychiatric Association (1999), and the Eli Lilly Lectureship from the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Author of four books; The Body Keeps the Score is a NYT bestseller translated into 43 languages (per `notes.txt`, undated).
Find it on Bookshop.org · Publisher
We may earn a commission on Bookshop.org purchases.