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A review by katiethepenguin
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
2.0
I would recommend others to read it. Buuut it was really slow and I did skim most of it. I knew going in that there would be a lot of discussion of psychological experiments and quantitative results. It gives a great (if long) overview of the history of how trauma has been recognized and treated in the field of psychology. I added a bunch of content warnings because these things are mentioned in detail at times, but always with the framing of understanding those who went through the trauma. This book analyzes how the body physically stores trauma as well as mentally. All that said, I really enjoyed the chapters that discussed how yoga and theater can help some trauma survivors.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Grief, Medical trauma, and War