Bessel van der Kolk Audiobooks

The Body Keeps the Score: a lifetime of trauma research, written for everyone

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Who is Bessel van der Kolk?

Bessel van der Kolk, born in 1943, is a Boston-based Dutch-American psychiatrist, author, researcher and educator whose work on post-traumatic stress stretches back to the 1970s. He is a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, president of the Trauma Research Foundation and a former president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies – in short, one of the most institutionally established figures in his field.

His fame beyond that field rests on The Body Keeps the Score, a New York Times best-seller translated into forty-three languages. Honesty requires the caveat: scientists have criticised the book for promoting claims about trauma, memory, the brain and development that outrun the evidence. Its cultural reach, however, is beyond dispute.

Bessel van der Kolk in audiobooks

That same book anchors his presence in our catalogue, and The Body Keeps the Score has become one of those rare works by a psychiatrist that ordinary listeners actually finish. In audio it functions almost as a course: decades of research into how trauma marks body and mind, delivered chapter by chapter at a pace that suits difficult material. UK listeners should bring both curiosity and a critical ear – the science has its challengers, as noted – but as an introduction to why trauma became the defining psychological conversation of the age, there is no more influential place to start. Heavy going at times, and worth it.