The Body Keeps the Score
A review of

The Body Keeps the Score

Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Bessel van der Kolk • Viking • 2014

Trauma and the Body

by David Meyer

Director of the Complex Trauma Treatment Network Bessel van der Kolk, MD details how trauma manifests in the body and current therapy modalities that address it.

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.

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