The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk.

If you are a trauma survivor or if you are interested in working with trauma clients, this book is a must read.

Not only trauma informative but it is also full of powerful cases which provide further inside to the effects of trauma on a human being. The book is also written in an easy, non-clinical language, which to me, makes processing information so much easier.

Dr van der Kolk made working with trauma survivors his life’s work and in this book, we can clearly see his dedication to it. Reading The Body Keeps The Score opened my eyes on many aspects of trauma I have not thought of before. I mean, I knew basis of how the brain works in processing trauma and how unprocessed traumatic experiences can affect our mental health. And although I had a vague understanding of trauma’s effect on our physical health, this book explains this subject in so much more depth.

I particularly found the client examples within the book helpful in the understanding of how trauma can and has affected people over their lifespan. For me, reading about actual people and how their lives have been changed because of something happening to them/their loved one, or witnessing something they could not process, made this book feel more compassionate toward the client rather then just teaching us about trauma. Empathy and understanding shines through.

The book also gives us an opportunity to do more research via its section on ‘Further Reading’. Some of them, for example, take us back as far as 1889, with a case of a patient LeLog treated by Pierre Janet after an accident with a horse-drawn cart (p.177). Very interesting and powerful case of trauma’s affect on our physical body.

I am not telling you anymore as I would be taking the pleasure away from you reading about it - The clue is in the title.