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

Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

I’m not sure how this book ended up on my library queue. I could have added it a few months ago, I peeked at spl.org and it currently has 162 people waiting. Anyway, I’m glad I did! I learned quite a bit.

The author has been studying the effects of trauma for several decades, on veterans, children, and adults. Be forewarned, there many case studies of trauma that are intense and uncomfortable to read.

The first part of the book covers the actual physiological changes to the body to cope with trauma.

The middle part of the book covers child abuse. Child abuse is an epidemic in the United States. The CDC says at least 1 in 7 children have been abused or neglected in the past year. Abuse that happens in childhood, especially 0-2 years old, has lasting consequences. It’s important that the child has at least 1 person that cares for them and loves them. The author has been pushing for an official clinical diagnosis of “Developmental Trauma Disorder” (DTD) to give visibility to child abuse, similar to how the PTSD diagnosis helped returning war veterans.

The last part of the book talks about treatment. This includes calming techniques to deal with flashbacks, getting in touch with your body (e.g., yoga), and several others. One of the treatments is “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing” (EMDR), where the patient talks through their trauma while keeping their eye focused on a moving object, which I found interesting. None of this is a substitute for professional help.

My main takeaway: We need to reduce child abuse. Many people around us have been exposed to traumatic events in their lives that they may or may not have dealt with, and we need to be empathetic.