The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Renowned trauma researcher van der Kolk's book is comprehensive in scope. The author explains in clear terms the physical causes and manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), how vast the population of sufferers is, and the devastating repercussions to society in general as a result of inadequate treatment. Anecdotes of patients from all walks of life are used to illustrate how trauma rewires the brain to create dissociated memories. Sufferers do not merely "remember" the event or events but actually relive it, complete with a cascade of excruciating physical and emotional pain. Organizing their lives to avoid triggers can lead to behaviors such as substance abuse that often compound the destructiveness of the original trauma. Inadequate conventional treatments such as talk therapy and pharmaceuticals are being replaced with neurofeedback, mindfulness training, yoga, Internal Family Systems, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapies, helping victims reclaim their minds and bodies and regain self-regulation and personal resilience.