The Body Keeps the Score

Millions of people carry the effects of difficult or traumatic experiences in ways they don’t fully understand — in the form of anxiety, physical symptoms, emotional reactivity, or a persistent sense that something is wrong.

Dr Bessel van der Kolk has spent his career studying trauma and its effects. The Body Keeps the Score is his definitive synthesis — bringing together 30 years of research, clinical practice, and the stories of patients who found their way through.

Written for general readers, clinicians, pastors, counsellors, and anyone who wants to understand the human nervous system’s response to difficult experiences, The Body Keeps the Score is both a scientific masterpiece and a deeply compassionate guide to healing.

Inside, you’ll discover how to:

• Understand how trauma reshapes the brain, body, and nervous system in measurable ways
• Recognise the ways unprocessed experiences manifest as physical and psychological symptoms
• Explore the evidence-based therapies — EMDR, yoga, neurofeedback — that help people heal
• Support trauma survivors in your family, church, school, or organisation with greater understanding
• Apply the book’s insights to organisational trauma, grief, and collective difficult experiences
• Build the psychological safety and trauma-informed environments that allow people to flourish

You cannot think your way out of what you experienced in your body. This book shows you how healing actually works.