Trauma is more common than most people realize, and it shows up in daily life in quiet ways. For some people it looks like chronic tension in the shoulders. For others it is a startle response that stays switched on, or a sense of being unsafe in their own body while everything around them is calm. That is the central argument of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, a book that has shaped how a generation of therapists thinks about trauma.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist with more than thirty years of research and clinical practice behind the book, draws on neuroscience, attachment research, and decades of work with clients to give language to something many people already sense: the past stays active in the nervous system, and it shapes how the body responds to the present.
What the Book Argues
Van der Kolk’s core claim is that trauma lives in the body as well as in memory. He cites Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that childhood trauma is our single largest public health issue, more costly than cancer or heart disease, and largely preventable. The book’s opening pages point to how widespread traumatic experience is: one in five Americans has been sexually molested, one in four grew up with alcoholism in the home, and one in three couples has experienced physical violence.
Numbers on a page read quickly. In practice, they mean that many of the people in any waiting room, classroom, or family gathering are living with some version of this history, whether or not they have ever said so out loud.
The book’s title states the argument in miniature: traumatic experience gets stored in the nervous system as well as in memory. We go into the physiology of that in more depth in our post on the connection between trauma and the body. Here, the more useful question is what this means for therapy.
What This Means in the Therapy Room
Van der Kolk points to approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), yoga, neurofeedback, and theater as paths that help people process trauma through the body, alongside talk-based work. His larger point is that trauma work goes furthest when it addresses the body’s stored response together with the story a person can tell about what happened.
At Montgomery Counseling Group (MCG), this idea shapes how trauma therapy is delivered. EMDR in particular is built on the same premise the book describes: a distressing memory can be reprocessed so it holds less charge in the present, while the memory itself remains.
One detail stands out for readers who know the book closely. Richard Schwartz, PhD, the originator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), endorsed The Body Keeps the Score directly, calling it a “watershed book” for the field. IFS and EMDR are distinct approaches, and both rest on the premise the book popularized: healing happens with the whole person, body included.
Why Clinicians Still Recommend the Book
Published in 2014, the book has stayed on bestseller lists for years, unusual for a work this clinically dense. Timing explains part of that: it arrived as neuroscience research on trauma was maturing, and it translated that research into language general readers could use. The author’s dual role explains the rest. Van der Kolk is a researcher who has spent decades measuring outcomes and a clinician who has continued working directly with clients, and that combination gives the book a credibility that purely academic texts and purely personal memoirs rarely reach.
For therapists, the book marked a turning point in how trauma is taught and discussed, moving the field toward the whole person’s relationship with safety, connection, and their own body. That shift shows up directly in how trauma-informed practices operate today, including the team-wide trauma-informed standard we hold ourselves to at MCG.
Meet the Clinician Behind This Work
John Burns, MSW, LCSW, EMDRIA Approved Consultant
John Burns is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and an EMDRIA Approved Consultant at Montgomery Counseling Group in Charlotte, NC. He specializes in complex and developmental trauma and works with adults on the long-term effects of earlier relational experiences. John uses EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and Ericksonian Clinical Hypnosis in his practice. The EMDRIA Approved Consultant designation is an advanced EMDRIA credential that qualifies clinicians to provide formal consultation to other EMDR therapists. He offers in-person sessions in Charlotte and telehealth services throughout North Carolina.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read the book before starting trauma therapy?
Reading The Body Keeps the Score before starting therapy is optional. Many people find it a helpful companion for understanding trauma more broadly, and therapy begins wherever you are, whether you have read extensively about trauma or are opening the topic for the first time.
Is EMDR the same approach the book describes?
EMDR is among several approaches The Body Keeps the Score discusses for processing trauma. Van der Kolk references it directly as a method that helps people recover, and it is supported by a substantial research base today.
Does trauma have to come from a single major event?
Trauma can come from a single event, and it can also build through repeated or ongoing experiences, including emotional neglect in childhood. Van der Kolk’s research covers the full range, from combat exposure to early relational experiences. If something from your past still shapes how you feel or function now, that is a reasonable starting point for therapy.
How does the book relate to therapy?
Van der Kolk wrote The Body Keeps the Score for a broad audience, including clinicians, researchers, and general readers making sense of trauma’s reach. Many people read it before or during therapy, since it can put language to experiences that felt confusing before. The book describes therapeutic approaches, and the work itself happens with a therapist, in person or online.
How do I know if what I experienced counts as trauma?
If an experience left you feeling unsafe, overwhelmed, or changed in how you relate to yourself or others, that experience matters, whatever the label. A free consultation is a low-pressure way to start that conversation with a therapist.
Ready to Talk with Someone?
If reading about trauma has stirred something for you, that response makes sense, and it can be a starting point. Call (980) 949-8990 or book a free 20-minute consultation online to talk with a therapist who understands how trauma works in the body as well as in the story.
