'The body keeps the score' by Bessel van der Kolk

Wow. What a book; ‘The body keeps the score’ by Bessel van der Kolk. An insight into the all aspects of trauma. What is trauma? How does it affect the body? Trauma caused by a traumatic event in adulthood is different from trauma caused in childhood. Trauma inflicted by a stranger has different affects than trauma inflicted by a person who is supposed to love and protect you. Emotional and physical abuse in childhood cannot be treated in the same way as soldiers traumatised in wars.

Bessel van der Kolk brilliantly describes how different types of trauma affect people, and that one pill does not fit all. Each type of trauma affects the brain, or one of its components, in a specific way.

Over a long career van der Kolk observed his patients, developed detailed understanding and set up trials to explore a new hypothesis. Reading this book the reader can follow the development of psychologic treatment over the last four decades.

The book is well structured: the first part explains effects of each type of trauma, the second part is about effective treatment methods.

Treatment and recovery from trauma are possible, yet there’s no ‘quick fix’, no solution that can be prescribed and administered in 15 minutes.

Psychopharmaka can be helpful in some cases, but not in all, and they rarely work as the one and only cure – the idea that a pill can reverse the multiple physical, mental and emotional effects of trauma is unrealistic.

Yet, the book gives hope. It is possible to overcome the effects of trauma, and lead a full life. It explains how certain behaviours can be explained by the experience of trauma, and takes away the notion that behaviours or thought processes are a choice, or a personality fault. Instead the mechanisms that helped children, and adults, to cope with, and survive the immediate aftermath of trauma, cause trouble in later life. To unlearn those unconscious patterns requires kindness, understanding, yet allows acceptance and a pathway to healing.

The discovery that trauma is held in the body provides tools to deal with the effects of trauma without the need to articulate the unspeakable. Yoga, EMDR, Self-Leadership – van der Kolk provides examples and explanations.

It’s not an easy book, yet in a better world it would be compulsory reading for anybody who ever deals with trauma victims. Social workers might read it, but what about judges, lawyers, police? Until a better understanding of trauma and its effects are incorporated into court systems these remain stacked against the victim in their search for detail. It might be physically impossible for a victim to remember – the brain does not work that way. Terrible truths are often buried; the process of remembering can take years and requires psychological support.

My book of the year for 2020; highly recommended.