The central theme of this book is trauma; the discovery of trauma, the long-term impact of trauma on the mind and body, including its connection to mental illness and also how to recover from trauma that is manifesting itself in a persons present everyday life. The book takes a scientific and technical approach to discussing the topic of trauma. Van Der Kolk, however, also uses very specific and personal case studies from clients he has worked with in the past, to provide insightful and real accounts of how unique and devastating the impact of trauma can be on a sufferer’s life. Additionally, the way in which this text seeks to normalise discussions around trauma, since it impacts almost all of us at some point in our life, it quite profound and potentially even ground-breaking within its field at the time of publication in 2014. Within the rest of this review, I will discuss the text in a little more detail, whilst also providing my personal account of the text in question.
When reading the text, it immediately struck me as sitting within a psychodynamic approach to therapeutic practice. Like the Body Keeps the Score suggests, our unconscious mind holds our memories, values, thoughts, and feelings. The psychodynamic approach considers how these are developed during childhood, following us through into old age (Jacobs, 2017, 3; Cooper and Dryden, 2016, 122). The idea is that experiences, when we are younger, become part of our unconscious minds and contribute to our behaviour as an adult. In this way, we are not consciously in control of our responses, instead our behaviour is controlled by these unconscious forces developed over time. Van Der Kolk explores these ideas within his writing, especially in part three ‘The Minds of Children’. It would be true to suggest, however, that Van Der Kolk does not confine his ideas only a childhood to adulthood comparison. Rather, he suggests that trauma, happening at any stage of a person’s life can have a significant impact on their present-day behaviour
The text is split up into five different sections; ‘The Rediscovery of Trauma’, ‘This is Your Brain on Trauma’ ‘The Minds of Children’ ‘The Imprint of Trauma’ and ‘Paths to Recovery’. Each chapter seems to add its own unique addition to the overall text and the general argument being put forward by Van Der Kolk. To some extent, I feel as though you could read each of the sections in isolation and still obtain clarity over, and knowledge of, the topic of trauma without feeling you were missing something. I say this because I read the text over a relatively long period of time, and each time I picked up the text, I felt as though I was constantly learning something new
Section One
The first chapter ‘The Rediscovery of Trauma provides a rather detailed account of the beginning of Van Der Kolk’s career within this field. Specifically, he considers the way in which he slowly found clarity over the notion of trauma when working with Vietnam Veterans with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): ‘Our clinic was inundated with veterans seeking psychiatric help (Van Der Kolk, 2014, 19). I find this section of the text quite deep but revolutionary. The transition from being inquisitive about the present-day behaviour of war veterans, to having some clarity over it and providing treatment to them, felt hopeful to read.
Section Two
The second part ‘Your Brain on Trauma’ feels significantly more scientific and as a result perhaps a little harder to read, however, equally highly interesting. I feel this section gave a deeper understanding of why we experience anxiety and depression within the modern age, which furthered my own understanding of this. The part of section two called ‘How we become human’ and its consideration around the theory of evolution with comparisons around how our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous operated years ago relative to now were particularly insightful and probably relatable for many people (Van Der Kolk, 2014, 97).
Section Three
As previously mentioned, the third section of the Body Keeps the Score ‘The Minds of Children’ seems to most obviously link with the psychodynamic theory. Further to this though, this section makes reference to John Bowlby’s attachment theory in some detail (Bowlby, 1969). Van Der Kolk talks about working within a Children’s clinic, giving a detailed account of working with mentally ill children. For a few reasons, this section felt particularly hard to read and would perhaps have a similar impact on other readers too. For me, having done some inner child work within my own personal therapy, these links were definitely thought-provoking.
Sections Four & Five
Whilst the four section of the text is a little shorter than the others, it explores the long-term impact of trauma, in particular the way in which traumatic memories embed themselves within the mind (Van Der Kolk, 2014, 2010). This section also begins to discuss the notion of a ‘cure’ for trauma. Van Der Kolk mentions the lasting legacy of Breuer and Freud’s 1983 paper which is now referred to as the ‘talking cure’ (Van Der Kolk, 2014, 218). This leads nicely on to the final section of the text ‘Paths to Recovery’. As the name suggests, this section considers some of the ways in which we can recover from trauma. He implies that we can have management over our present-day symptoms, whilst also addressing the memories we hold. This section of the book feels hopeful and useful.
Van Der Kolk’s central argument throughout The Body Keeps the Score remains around trauma. The notion that trauma has a significant impact a person’s mind, body and brain is clear throughout the text. It highlights the way in which this can manifest in different ways in a person’s current life, meaning that events that occurred years ago can continue to impact our lives for years and years to come. This is coupled with the hope that, as a result of significant research within the area, we are able to recover from this trauma by addressing our present-day symptoms as well as the root causes. It would be true to suggest that Van Der Kolk reflects the complexity of such issues throughout the text and does not shy away from the idea that each person’s trauma is individual and unique.
In my opinion Van Der Kolk achieves the goal of this text really well. His book is extremely well written, providing a unique balance between theory and emotion. He provides a really clear account of what trauma is, how it impacts us in all ways and the ways in which we can recover from it, to lead a more content life going forward. As a result of the more emotional element, this book is one that anyone could read and find interest within, especially those with significant interest within the field of psychotherapy or psychology.
To conclude this review of Van Der Kolk’s text The Body Keeps the Score I am going to make some personal reflections on the text. Despite finding the text a little difficult to read at times, both due to its scientific and emotional elements, I think this book is really amazing and would recommend that anyone should give it a read. This book has been recommended to me numerous times by people from all areas of my life, and I am really glad I have finally decided to give it a read. I think it framed the notion of trauma in a way that was unique to anything I have come across previously, and I would say that the way in which it incorporates the science behind it really kept me interested and continuing to want to read.
References
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss. London: Random House.
Cooper, M. and Dryden, W. (2016) The Handbook of Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Dr Levine, A. and Heller, R.S.F. MA (2011) Attached. London: Bluebird.
Jacobs, M. (2017) Psychodynamic Counselling in Action. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Fifth ed.
Van Der Kolk, B. (2014) ‘The Body Keeps the Score. Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma’. UK: Penguin Books.
