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Bessel van der Kolk

The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma Paperback – Import, 1 December 2015

by Bessel Van Der Kolk (Author)

38,932 ratings

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A world expert presents a sympathetic exploration of the causes of trauma and the new treatments making it possible for sufferers to reclaim their lives

What causes people to continually relive what they most want to forget, and what treatments could help restore them to a life with purpose and joy? Here, Dr Bessel van der Kolk offers a new paradigm for effectively treating traumatic stress.

Neither talking nor drug therapies have proven entirely satisfactory. With stories of his own work and those of specialists around the globe, The Body Keeps the Score sheds new light on the routes away from trauma - which lie in the regulation and syncing of body and mind, using sport, drama, yoga, mindfulness, meditation and other routes to equilibrium.

Print length

560 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Press
Publication date

1 December 2015
Dimensions

12.9 x 2.4 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0141978619
ISBN-13

978-0141978611
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From the Publisher

Product description

Review

An astonishing and important book. The trauma Bible. I cannot recommend it enough for anyone struggling with...well...anything -- Tara Westover

Fascinating, hard to put down, and filled with powerful case histories. . . . the most important series of breakthroughs in mental health in the last thirty years -- Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself

A gripping bestseller about where trauma goes, and its disastrous effects on both individuals and societies. Deeply interesting. ― The Times

Dr. van der Kolk's masterpiece combines the boundless curiosity of the scientist, the erudition of the scholar, and the passion of the truth teller -- Judith Herman, M.D., author of Trauma and Recovery

Everyone should read this book -- Nigella Lawson

A seminal book that outlines the author's pioneering work -- Thea Jane May ― Vogue

Draws on 30 years of experience to argue powerfully that trauma is one of the West's most urgent public health issues... Packed with science and human stories ... van der Kolk has a lot to say, and the struggle and resilience of his patients is very moving ― New Scientist

Fundamental in understanding how our physical self is connected to all the things we go through and beyond -- Gemma Cairney

A masterpiece of powerful understanding and brave heartedness, one of the most intelligent and helpful works on trauma I have ever read. . . a brilliant synthesis of clinical cases, neuroscience, powerful tools and caring humanity, offering a whole new level of healing -- Jack Kornfied, author of A Path With Heart

Incredible -- William Leith, 'Books of the Year' ― Evening Standard

Book Description

A world expert presents a sympathetic exploration of the causes of trauma and the new treatments making it possible for sufferers to reclaim their lives

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press; 1st edition (1 December 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141978619
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141978611
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 2.4 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 18 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1 in Psychiatry (Books)
- 2 in Alternative Healing Methods
- 2 in Emergency Medicine (Books)

Customer Reviews:
38,932 ratings

About the author

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Bessel van der Kolk

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Bessel van der Kolk (born 1943) is a Boston based psychiatrist noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s. His work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people. His major publication, the New York Times bestseller, 'The Body keeps the Score', talks about how the role of trauma in psychiatric illness has changed over the past 20 years; what we have learned about the ways the brain is shaped by traumatic experiences; how traumatic stress is a response of the entire organism and how that knowledge needs be integrated into healing practices.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Customer reviews

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2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Great help, wonderful work.

Reviewed in Australia on 30 March 2020

Verified Purchase

My psychologist suggested this book as homework the first time he met me. I read it in one sitting.
Can't describe how I felt but I cried so much throughout the book and decided to listen to myself more after.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that has been ignoring their own inner voice or denying their own needs in their lives. Please treat yourself better, please know there are people that care.

16 people found this helpful

Highly recommend this book

Reviewed in Australia on 22 December 2020

Verified Purchase

This is the best book I've read so far on PTSD. It's extremely thorough and comprehensive and there's so many amazing quotes and insights. But it's a tough read. Pretty much every chapter could come with a trigger warning. I only read it in short bursts and have breaks in between and pick it up again when I'm feeling more relaxed and positive. But I've learnt so much about why I feel and behave the way I do and it ultimately inspired me to get some support so it is well worth persevering with.

8 people found this helpful

Lot of technical language to begin with.

Reviewed in Australia on 5 October 2020

Verified Purchase

I bought this book for personal use and I'm still reading it slowly. It starts of with a lot of technical stuff which I have no doubt is very informative and beneficial for professionals of this field. I found it interesting and it has given me a better understanding but is just too in depth for me so I recently jumped onto the how to heal from trauma, I'm not very far along in this area but am finding it useful. Maybe once I have finished the section on healing, I will be ready to read more on how trauma affects and allows the mind and body to get stuck in the trauma cycle.

5 people found this helpful

Reviewed in Australia on 14 December 2021

Verified Purchase

This is my second reading of this book, the first time I read it, I became overwhelmed, with anger and sadness. We effectively know why people are mentally disturbed, yet we continue to not address the elephant in the room which is underlying trauma, and throw blunt force chemicals at people instead of teaching them that they are not hopelessly flawed. Continuing to add more labels, identifying more signs and symptoms, makes for a thicker version of the DSM, but does little to help those who suffer, thankfully there are some who go beyond ego and profit and look for real answers.

3 people found this helpful

Great book for understanding the impact of trauma

Reviewed in Australia on 1 August 2020

Verified Purchase

I really liked this book - it was very detailed on the impacts of trauma and non attachment and how it is experienced by the person suffering the abuse. The only criticism I have is perhaps the book could have acknowledged 'the genetic influence' a little more - you can still not suffer trauma and experience some of the side effects/symptons that are outlined in the book. However, it is excellent that the focus is on treating the symptons rather than just dwelling on DSM style diagnoses that often very subjectively allocated (or a label attached even when you do not meet the criteria)!

3 people found this helpful

Reviewed in Australia on 13 May 2020

Verified Purchase

Finally, someone who really 'gets' trauma. A very well researched book, every psychologist needs to read it in this day and age. After doing a psychology degree in the 80s myself, and over 35 years of psychotherapy on and off due to massive inter generational trauma, nothing like this work was even touched upon. It's very readable too, for anyone.

5 people found this helpful

Get your eye glasses out if reading the paperback

Reviewed in Australia on 2 July 2021

Verified Purchase

I know this is EXTREMELY popular, but this paperback is very hard to read with the font and size.

I had to give up due to headaches and ‘squinting’. First book I’ve read that has needed eye glasses.

I’ll try and get hold of the hardcover. Hopefully the font will be typical of other hardcovers. Cheaper than buying glasses.

One person found this helpful

Best psychology book ever

Reviewed in Australia on 17 January 2020

Verified Purchase

This book was amazing, written by someone who has a wealth of experience and who clearly genuinely believes in his work. It does detail some pretty horrific insights into what some people have endured in life as examples but, at the same time, uses these experiences to help build a case for managing trauma from the ‘source’ and not a symptom perspective. I loved this book. Changed the way I viewed myself, my family and my future. I would be surprised if anyone didn’t have at least one ‘AHA’ moment from reading this book.

4 people found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Max M

Transformative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2018

Verified Purchase

This is the greatest book I have ever read.
It is a lifetime of knowledge (and it is clear that it had taken a very long time to write) from a practising clinician who, as far as I can tell, is THE most well-informed person on the subject, all in one book.
It can be applied to you. Therapy like this would cost thousands, and that is even if you have the good fortune to find a therapist who knows anything about it.
It is perfectly written and laid out, starting with explanations about the problem and ending with explanations of how to recover.
At first it was hard to read because I was only just coming to terms with having childhood trauma, and was still feeling very upset about it. However the great thing about a book is that you can take as long as you like to finish it. As I read more I understood more and more and began to feel more and more free, understood, and positive. There is SO MUCH information in here, and it is all extremely useful and interesting. I often read one sentence several times because it made such an impact on me, and after some pages (most of them!) I would think for ten minutes until I read more.
This is the most helpful book I have read on the subject, and I have read a lot. It has taken me a long time to read, but recovery takes a long time. I think that if you have not been traumatised and are just reading it for interest that you would read it quickly, as it is such a great book. I feel like it has transformed me.

927 people found this helpful

Cheese time

brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 March 2019

Verified Purchase

What fascinates me about trauma is what it does to you. It helps you survive whatever has tried to hurt you. It’s a survival instinct.

When you experience trauma your brain protects you, it literally creates a new personality on top of the one you were born with and transforms you. It increases your senses, it makes you more intelligent, but it changes your brain chemistry and that's the big problem. If your chemistry changes then you're not going to benefit in normal everyday situations because your flight, fight and freeze part of your brain is now on over drive, your hypothalamus is now stuck in hyper drive and your prefrontal cortex becomes neglected and undeveloped and in a contradicting to making you more intelligent now makes you less able to learn by constantly injecting stress hormones into your blood stream.

A lot is crammed into this book, over 30 years of research into trauma and I agree with the author, trauma is so important and so relevant in our society. Most people experience some form of trauma throughout their lives, but it seems the younger and more undeveloped you are the more profound the effect is later on in life. It literally passes down from generation to generation and we still don't discuss or treat trauma as a norm. If everyone was more knowledgeable about trauma and how it affects us then I think our medical advice and how we treat people would be far different from what it is today.
I find it easy to notice when someone has experienced trauma. It affects their persona, but there are visual and acoustic clues as well. It helps to know if someone has trauma because you have to adapt to their reasoning and thinking which can often be off kilter.

This book is brilliant for psychologists and people who want to learn more about themselves and trauma. It has a diverse knowledge or different applications which are proven to work. Obviously CBT is the most common, but two more I find very interesting and fascinating for trauma treatment is EMDR and Yoga. Both I think are brilliant and I was aware of before the book, but this book shows just what impact it has on masses.

I genuinely feel like when it comes to psychology and nutritional sciences, the USA is years ahead of everyone else especially the UK. I really hope a lot of this work makes it over here sooner rather than later.

Knowing more about trauma means we can help heal our society, prevent abuse and even enrich ourselves.

555 people found this helpful

Renie

Be forewarned. Discussion of lab cruelty to animals.

Reviewed in the United States on 3 December 2018

Verified Purchase

Probably an excellent book but he talks about the research done on defenseless dogs trapped in a cage that are repeatedly shocked. I am a dog/animal lover and this is such an atrocity. When will this cruelty stop? 😢

3,151 people found this helpful

Maggie

2 Stars only for tiny font size: unreadable!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 November 2019

Verified Purchase

If I had not written my name in this book before trying to read it, I would have returned it.

The text is TINY and so I struggled to read it.

I have now ordered a hardback copy from elsewhere in the hope that I will be able to read it more comfortably.

If you are familiar with text sizes, it's looking about size 8 which is way below accessibility requirements today. These are either 11 or 12 on the basic fonts such as Times New Roman, which is what this seems to be.

The photo of the book cover probably illustrates the font size best: the line of text below the italics, beneath the graphic, in block capitals is similar in size to the text within the whole book.

Excluding the Index, the book comprises 421 pages; and I wonder if the reduced font was in order to reduce the number of pages...?

It's a shame, this book has been recommended to me by my counsellor; so I am rather disappointed and shocked, it has to be said, by my inability to see the text comfortably enough to read it.

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143 people found this helpful

M. Fraser

Experienced expert shares what works in overcoming trauma, and it works...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 August 2017

Verified Purchase

Steady explanation of the issue of trauma, whether childhood or adult, followed by many varied techniques to deal with it. It armed me with the information I needed to understand what I had repressed, allow it to be there, and then the tools to integrate the traumatised child back into my adult self in a way that helped me to live comfortably.

287 people found this helpful

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