The Body Keeps the Score

Director of the Complex Trauma Treatment Network Bessel van der Kolk, MD, teaches psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. He writes with compassion for patients suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) seeking to manage their lives as internal fires rage. Bessel van der Kolk explains PTSD, offering insights about trauma, its impact on survivors and therapies doctors utilize to help traumatized patients cope with their trauma.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognized PTSD as a diagnosis in 1980 after research into combat veterans’ nightmares, flashbacks, uncontrollable rages and emotional withdrawal. These behaviors inadvertently replicate the patient’s traumatic experience.