The Body Keeps the Score
by Bessel van der Kolk
A psychiatrist's landmark on how trauma lives in the body and brain, and how treatments from EMDR to yoga to theater help where talk alone does not. It is long, clinical in places and deeply humane. It is not a self-help book; it is an education, and many readers find themselves and the people they love in it. Please read it with support if the material is close to home.
Read it if…
you want to understand trauma, your own or someone else's, at depth.
Skip it if…
you are looking for quick coping techniques; the book is comprehensive and heavy.
Three things you will actually use
- Trauma is stored in the body; work with the body.
- Safety and connection precede insight.
- Seek professional help; this book explains, it does not treat.
Do this first
Read the chapter on the body and notice, this week, where stress sits physically in you.
Our verdict
Essential, serious and not light reading; a book, not a treatment.
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