The Body

In The Body Keeps the Score, trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk explores the nature of traumatic stress and introduces a ground-breaking approach to healing its emotional wounds. He shows how an overload of traumatic stress hormones in the brain can lead to “symbiosis disorder” a condition in which a sufferer continually re-experiences in his or her body memories of a terrifying event. Drawing on recent advances in neuroscience, Dr. van der Kolk explains how traumatic events get “stuck” in the nervous system and creates new avenues for healing by teaching patients how to rewire their brains to release their emotions and return to healthy functioning.