Bessel van der Kolk Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Norton on Interpersonal Neurobiology Books

Bessel van der Kolk
Bessel van der Kolk MD spends his career studying how adults and children adapt to traumatic experiences. He’s translated emerging findings from attachment research and neuroscience in order to develop and study a range of treatments for traumatic stress in adults and kids. Bessel has published books and more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He is a Boston based psychiatrist that is noted for his research in the area of post traumatic stress dating back to the 1970s.

He was born in 1943 in the Netherlands. He studied pre-medical curriculum with a political science major at the University of Hawaii in 1965. He got his MD, in 1970, at the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, and in 1974, Bessel completed his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School.

After his training, he worked as a director of Boston State Hospital. He became a staff psychiatrist at the Boston Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic. Bessel developed an interest in 1978 in studying traumatic stress as he worked with Vietnam war veterans that suffered from PTSD, and serving on the Harvard Medical School faculty. He was a member of the PTSD committee of the 1980 and 1994 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and he conducted the very first studies on the use of Zoloft and Prozac in treating PTSD.

In 1984, he set up one of the very first clinical/research centers in the US that was dedicated to study and the treatment of traumatic stress in civilian populations, which has trained numerous clinicians and researchers that specialize in the treatment and study of traumatic. Which has been continually funded to research effective treatment interventions and the impact of traumatic stress.

Bessel did the first studies on the effects of SSRIs on PTSD; and was a member of the very first neuro-imaging team that investigated just how trauma changes brain processes, and did the very first research that linked BPD and deliberate self-injury to trauma and neglect in early childhood.

In 1999, he initiated the creation of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. By 2019, it had grown to a network of 150 sites that specialized in treating traumatized kids and their families all around the US. In this context he and his colleagues studied more than 20,000 traumatized kids and adolescents to formulate Developmental Trauma Disorder.

Bessel’s systematically studied some innovative treatments for traumatic stress in kids and adults, like theater, trauma sensitive yoga, embodied therapies, psychedelic therapies, and neuro-feedback.

In 1989, he became the course director of the annual Boston International Trauma Conference, which brings together the leading clinicians and scientists that specialize in developmental psychology, trauma, body-oriented therapies, attachment studies, theater, and expressive arts.

“The Body Keeps the Score”, by 2023, had spent more than 245 weeks on The New York Times Bestseller list, with 27 of its first 141 weeks being in the number 1 slot, and has been translated into 43 languages.

“Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience Mind, Body, and Society” is a non-fiction book that was released in 1996. This bestselling classic presents seminal theory and research on posttraumatic stress disorder. Together, the leading contributors and editors comprehensively examine exactly how trauma will affect someone’s biology, conceptions of the world, and psychological functioning.

Key topics include why certain people will cope successfully with traumatic experiences even though others don’t, enduring questions that surround traumatic memories and dissociation, the neurobiological processes underlying PTSD symptomology, and the core components of effective interventions.

This is a highly influential work which laid the foundation for many of the field’s continuing advances, it’s a volume that remains an immensely informative and thought-provoking clinical text and reference.

This book is packed with human and science stories, and is an intense read which can get technical in places. Stick with it, however, since van der Kolk has got so much to say, and the resilience and struggle of each of his patients is quite moving. Bessel shows a depth of understanding that goes far beyond those of many other writers. No easy answers that include re-experience it until it no longer bothers you or change the way you think about it. This book has a lot to teach reader about PTSD, including how trauma is held in a particular part of the body.

“The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2014. Offering up a bold new paradigm for healing and transforming our comprehension of trauma.

Trauma is just a fact of life. Veterans and their families all deal with the painful aftermath of combat. One in four Americans grew up with alcoholics. One in five has been molested. One in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, who is one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In this book, he uses some recent scientific advances in order to illustrate just how trauma will literally reshape both brain and body, which compromises the sufferers’ capacities for engagement, pleasure, trust, and self-control.

Bessel explores innovative treatments, from meditation and neurofeedback to drama, yoga, and sports, which offer up some new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based off his own research and that of other leading specialists, this book exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to heal and to hurt, and it offers some hope for reclaiming our lives.

This is essential reading material for anybody that is interested in better understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society. For some readers, this made them realize just how much trauma they had buried down deep and had forgotten many years ago. It then shows you a path to calm confidence, helping those affected by PTSD finally make some peace with some of the darkest moments in their lives. Bessel packs a lot of information in this book, and all of it is very interesting and useful.