The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Also known as The Body Keeps the Score
Bessel van der Kolk's bestseller on trauma's effects on brain and body, and how to heal
At a glance
What it argues
Trauma changes the body, Not a moral failing, Relationships protect
See all 3Key ideas
Top down, Medication and technology, Bottom up …
See all 4Examples from the book
How common trauma is, Around the survivor
See all 2Criticism and limits
The original idea, Misread research, Claims checked one by one …
See all 6Read next
Trauma and Recovery, Traumatic Stress, The Polyvagal Theory …
See all 4Connections
Bessel van der Kolk, Psychological trauma and 3 others
See all 5
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Van der Kolk argues that trauma leaves physical traces: a recalibrated alarm system and more stress hormones.
- He says survivors' behaviour comes from these changes, not from moral failings or weak will.
- He describes three routes to recovery: talking and connection, medication, and body-based experience.
- The book surveys treatments from EMDR and yoga to neurofeedback and theatre.
- Scientists dispute many of its claims about brain damage and body-based treatment.
Why it matters
- It is the trauma book most clients and new therapists have read, so a learner needs to know what it says and what the evidence says back.
Key facts
- Author
- Bessel van der Kolk1
- Published
- 2014 (Viking); Penguin Books paperback September 8, 20151
- Publisher
- Viking / Penguin Books1
- Pages
- 4641
- ISBN
- 9780143127741 (paperback)1
- ISBN (hardcover)
- 97806707859333
- Grew out of
- His 1994 Harvard Review of Psychiatry article of the same title2
- Audience
- Clinicians and the general public2
- Influence
- More than 328 weeks on the New York Times best seller list as of February 2025; translated into 43 languages3
What it argues
-
Trauma changes the body1
Trauma recalibrates the brain’s alarm system, raises stress hormone activity, and disturbs the filtering of relevant from irrelevant information.
-
Not a moral failing1
Survivors' hypervigilance and repeated problems are caused by changes in the brain, not by lack of willpower or bad character.
-
Relationships protect2
The attachment system and social environment play a central role in protecting against trauma-related disorders.
Key ideas
-
Top down1
Talking, reconnecting with others, understanding what is happening, and processing the memories.
-
Medication and technology1
Drugs that shut down inappropriate alarm reactions, or technologies that change how the brain organises information.
-
Bottom up1
Body experiences that viscerally contradict the helplessness, rage or collapse left by trauma.
-
Many treatments1
He has studied medication, talking, yoga, EMDR, theatre and neurofeedback, and writes: "I have no preferred treatment modality, as no single approach fits everybody."
Examples from the book
-
How common trauma is1
The prologue cites CDC research: one in five Americans was sexually molested as a child, one in four beaten by a parent hard enough to leave a mark.
-
Around the survivor1
Returning soldiers may frighten their families; partners of men with PTSD tend to become depressed, and their children grow up anxious.
Criticism and limits
-
The original idea2
Richard McNally criticised the 1994 article for leaning on implicit memory, calling it a theory "in search of a phenomenon".
-
Misread research2
Journalist Emi Nietfeld (Mother Jones, 2024) contacted researchers the book cites; several said it disregarded or misreported their findings.
-
Claims checked one by one2
A 2025 BJPsych Bulletin review of 122 claims found those on trauma-induced brain damage and the unique efficacy of body-based treatments unsupported.
-
Steers away from evidence2
The book discourages readers from well-supported treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy.
-
Against exposure3
Van der Kolk has said he is against both exposure therapy and CBT, calling exposure one of the "worst possible treatments".
-
A counterweight4
Psychiatrist Michael Scheeringa wrote that its central claims had been widely embraced but seldom critically evaluated in peer-reviewed work.
Read next
-
Judith Herman's 1992 account of trauma, which places it in its social and political context.
-
The 1996 scholarly volume van der Kolk co-edited, with his chapter called "The Body Keeps the Score".
-
The body-based theory of safety and threat that van der Kolk draws on, and its critics.
-
What the condition is and which treatments the evidence supports.
Connections
Written by
Links
Sources
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. (Penguin Random House, with excerpt) (opens penguinrandomhouse.com)
- The Body Keeps the Score (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
- Bessel van der Kolk (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
- Scheeringa MS. Evaluating evidence behind popular trauma narratives: neurobiological and treatment claims in The Body Keeps the Score. BJPsych Bulletin (Europe PMC) (opens europepmc.org)
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