Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Weblink
http://www.penguin.com/book/the- …

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE

Bessel van der Kolk

Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma

One of the world’s leading experts on traumatic stress explains how trauma affects people, its underlying neurobiology, and the many new treatments that are making it possible for sufferers to move beyond trauma in order to reclaim their lives.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.

Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.
Bessel van der Kolk is one of the world’s leading experts on PTSD. His recent op-ed in the New York Times on the post-traumatic childhood was one of the most emailed articles the week it came out and he is invited to speak on this topic all over the world. A former professor of psychiatry of Boston University, Dr. van der Kolk is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Boston.

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, is one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress and has lectured on the subject in all fifty states and most European countries, as well as China, Japan, Australia, India, Israel, South Africa, Argentina, and Indonesia. Television programs highlighting his work have been broadcast in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Japan. He is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Boston, and director of the Complex Trauma Treatment Network, NCTSN. A past professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, Dr. van der Kolk is also the author of several scholarly books and over a hundred scientific articles. He is a graduate of the medical school at the University of Chicago and completed his post-doctoral education at Harvard.

Available products
Book Published 2014-09-25 by Viking
Book Published 2014-09-25 by Viking

Comments

A book about understanding the impact of trauma by one of the true pioneers in the field. It is a rare book that integrates cutting edge neuroscience with wisdom and understanding about the experience and meaning of trauma, for people who have suffered from it. Like its author, this book is wise and compassionate, occasionally quite provocative, and always interesting.

The Body Keeps the Score is clear, fascinating, hard to put down, and filled with powerful case histories. Van der Kolk, the eminent impresario of trauma treatment, who has spent a career bringing together diverse trauma scientists and clinicians and their ideas, while making his own pivotal contributions, describes what is arguably the most important series of breakthroughs in mental health in the last thirty years. We’ve known that psychological trauma fragments the mind. Here we see not only how psychological trauma also breaks connections within the brain, but also between mind and body, and learn about the exciting new approaches that allow people with the severest forms of trauma to put all the parts back together again.

he Body Keeps the Score articulates new and better therapies for toxic stress based on a deep understanding of the effects of trauma on brain development and attachment systems. This volume provides a moving summary of what is currently known about the effects of trauma on individuals and societies, and introduces the healing potential of both age-old and novel approaches to help traumatized children and adults fully engage in the present.

This is an amazing accomplishment from the neuroscientist most responsible for the contemporary revolution in mental health toward the recognition that so many mental problems are the product of trauma.

This exceptional book will be a classic of modern psychiatric thought. The impact of overwhelming experience can only be truly understood when many disparate domains of knowledge, such as neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and interpersonal neurobiology are integrated, as this work uniquely does. There is no other volume in the field of traumatic stress that has distilled these domains of science with such rich historical and clinical perspectives, and arrived at such innovative treatment approaches. The clarity of vision and breadth of wisdom of this unique but highly accessible work is remarkable. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.

This book is a tour de force. Its deeply empathic, insightful, and compassionate perspective promises to further humanize the treatment of trauma victims, dramatically expand their repertoire of self-regulatory healing practices and therapeutic options, and also stimulate greater creative thinking and research on trauma and its effective treatment. The body does keep the score, and Van der Kolk’s ability to demonstrate this through compelling descriptions of the work of others, his own pioneering trajectory and experience as the field evolved and him along with it, and above all, his discovery of ways to work skillfully with people by bringing mindfulness to the body (as well as to their thoughts and emotions) through yoga, movement, and theater are a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air and possibility in the therapy world.

A fascinating exploration of a wide range of therapeutic treatments shows readers how to take charge of the healing process, gain a sense of safety, and find their way out of the morass of suffering.

This is masterpiece of powerful understanding and brave heartedness, one of the most intelligent and helpful works on trauma I have ever read. Dr. Van der Kolk offers a brilliant synthesis of clinical cases, neuroscience, powerful tools and caring humanity, offering a whole new level of healing for the traumas carried by so many.

n The Body Keeps the Score we share the author’s courageous journey into the parallel dissociative worlds of trauma victims and the medical and psychological disciplines that are meant to provide relief.

When it comes to understanding the impact of trauma and being able to continue to grow despite overwhelming life experiences, Bessel van der Kolk leads the way in his comprehensive knowledge, clinical courage, and creative strategies to help us heal. The Body Keeps the Score is a cutting-edge offering for the general reader to comprehend the complex effects of trauma, and a guide to a wide array of scientifically informed approaches to not only reduce suffering, but to move beyond mere survival—and to thrive.

Bessel van der Kolk is unequaled in his ability to synthesize the stunning developments in the field of psychological trauma over the past few decades. Thanks in part to his work, psychological trauma—ranging from chronic child abuse and neglect, to war trauma and natural disasters—is now generally recognized as a major cause of individual, social, and cultural breakdown. In this masterfully lucid and engaging tour de force, Van der Kolk takes us—both specialists and the general public—on his personal journey and shows what he has learned from his research, from his colleagues and students, and, most important, from his patients. The Body Keeps the Score is, simply put, brilliant.

UK: Penguin UK Brazil: Companhia das Letras