A review by kadengrace
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

2.5

i’ve heard the phrase “the body keeps the score” so often that i wanted to read this book to hopefully learn more, but i think i could have learned more about this concept from better resources. this book was dense and heavy, which meant i needed to split up my reading sessions in order to finish it. i’m not fully sure how useful this book will be to me—i think it brought up interesting ideas that i’m looking forward to exploring in other resources, but i wonder how much detail was needed in descriptions of trauma. it felt overly triggering and written from a relatively narrow point of view. i think i will gain more elsewhere, and i’m not sure what i did gain from reading this book was worth the struggle to finish it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Grief, Abandonment, Classism