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

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I listened to this audiobook along with a month-long online discussion in a book group. I found the topic of interest, but I didn’t have a direct linkage to the topic of trauma to the level discussed in this book, often focused on PTSD of veterans and others. I could see how you could generalize some of the findings to things that happen in day-to-day living, but that sometimes felt like overstepping the conclusions and recommendations. I found the writing to be engaging. Although at times, the author felt as if he were overstepping, overgeneralizing to suggest concepts based on a specific type of case were applicable to a broader population. I felt this early in the book, but by the later chapters it seemed more straightforward. I enjoyed the specific examples the author provided, often based on his own cases. I also enjoyed the author’s ridicule of historic psychology and its response to trauma over the years, but he does make himself the hero of the story in a number of places. Overall, the book provides some food for thought in how the body remembers trauma and that memory can be used to overcome issues from that trauma.

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