Author Guide · Psychiatry & Trauma
Books Written by
By February 2025 The Body Keeps the Score had spent more than 328 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, a decade after it came out, and had been translated into 43 languages. Its author, Bessel van der Kolk, was born in The Hague in 1943, under German occupation, and trained as a psychiatrist at Harvard. He began studying traumatic stress in 1978 with Vietnam veterans at the Boston Veterans Administration clinic, sat on the PTSD committee for the 1980 and 1994 editions of the DSM, and founded the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1982. Three of his books were written for clinicians; the fourth reached everyone else. This guide covers his four key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 4 key books · 1984–2014 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Bessel van der Kolk has published four books: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (1984), Psychological Trauma (1987), Traumatic Stress (1996, co-edited with Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisæth) and The Body Keeps the Score (2014). Start with The Body Keeps the Score, the only one written for general readers — and read on for what critics have said about its science.
Where to Start with Bessel van der Kolk
If you’re new to his work
→ The Body Keeps the Score (2014) — his research and treatment ideas for a general reader.
If you want the clinical foundation
→ Traumatic Stress (1996) — the field’s state of research in the mid-1990s.
If you want the early history of PTSD research
→ Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (1984) — published four years after PTSD entered the DSM.
4 Bessel van der Kolk Books, in Order
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
His first book, a volume he edited for American Psychiatric Press. It appeared four years after post-traumatic stress disorder entered the third edition of the DSM in 1980, a revision for which van der Kolk sat on the PTSD committee, and gathers clinical work on the psychological and biological after-effects of trauma. It is written for psychiatrists and researchers.
Psychological Trauma
Also published by American Psychiatric Press, this clinical book on the effects of psychological trauma dates from his early years at Harvard and the Trauma Center. Like his first book, it is aimed at professionals rather than general readers, and is now mainly of historical interest.
Traumatic Stress
An academic volume from Guilford Press, co-edited with the Australian psychiatrist Alexander C. McFarlane and the Norwegian psychiatrist Lars Weisæth. Its chapters by different specialists set out what was known about traumatic stress in the mid-1990s, from memory and biology to treatment and the wider social response. Several of its ideas return, in plainer language, in The Body Keeps the Score.
The Body Keeps the Score
Published by Viking in 2014, it combines his patients’ stories with decades of research to argue that trauma is stored in the body as much as in memory, and that the attachment system and social support protect against it. He makes the case for body-based treatments such as yoga, EMDR and neurofeedback alongside talk therapy, and is critical of exposure therapy. It became a long-running New York Times bestseller, with more than 328 weeks on the list by February 2025; critics have questioned parts of its neuroscience.
In What Order to Read Bessel van der Kolk
Most readers only need one book. The Body Keeps the Score is his only book for a general audience, and it summarises much of the research in the three earlier volumes, so there is no need to read them first.
If you work in mental health and want the background, go back to Traumatic Stress (1996), which shows the state of the field when the National Child Traumatic Stress Network was about to be founded. The 1984 and 1987 books are mainly of interest for the history of PTSD as a diagnosis.
A reading path
1. The Body Keeps the Score (2014)
2. Traumatic Stress (1996)
3. Psychological Trauma (1987)
4. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (1984)
The years · 1943–2024
Quick facts about Bessel van der Kolk
- Known for
- Arguing that trauma lives in the body as well as the mind, and that recovery has to involve the body too.
- 1943
- Born in The Hague
- 1982
- Founds the Trauma Center in Brookline
- 1996
- Traumatic Stress
- 2024
- Named to the TIME100 Health list
- Born
- 8 July 1943, The Hague, Netherlands
- Education
- BA, University of Hawaiʻi (1965); MD, University of Chicago (1970); psychiatry residency, Harvard (1974)
- Works
- Professor of psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine; president, Trauma Research Foundation
- Founded
- The Trauma Center, Brookline, Massachusetts (1982)
- Public role
- Former president, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies; initiated the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (1999)
- Bestseller
- The Body Keeps the Score: 328+ weeks on the NYT list, 43 languages
The red mark is 2014: The Body Keeps the Score, the book that took three decades of clinical research to a general audience.
How Bessel van der Kolk Writes: Patients, Then the Brain
Van der Kolk writes from the consulting room. The Body Keeps the Score begins with the Vietnam veterans he treated at the Boston VA clinic from 1978, and each section moves from a patient’s story to the research it led him to: attachment, childhood abuse, memory, and what trauma does to the body’s alarm systems.
His central claim is physical. Where much trauma therapy works through talking and reframing, he argues that trauma is held in bodily sensation, so treatment has to reach the body: yoga, EMDR, neurofeedback and other approaches he studied with NIH grants. He states his preferences bluntly; in 2014 he called exposure therapy one of the “worst possible treatments”.
His three earlier books are clinical works for colleagues, two of them edited volumes, and the shift to The Body Keeps the Score is a shift of audience more than subject. For writers on trauma, the body and recovery, from Judith Herman to Peter Levine, see Authors like Bessel van der Kolk.
Watch
Learn the signs and symptoms of PTSD
Van der Kolk explains for Big Think how trauma shows up in the body and what the signs and symptoms of PTSD look like.
Frequently asked questions about Bessel van der Kolk’s books
How many books has Bessel van der Kolk written?
Four: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Psychological and Biological Sequelae (1984), Psychological Trauma (1987), Traumatic Stress (1996, co-edited with Alexander C. McFarlane and Lars Weisæth) and The Body Keeps the Score (2014). Only the last is written for general readers. He has also published more than 150 research articles.
What are Bessel van der Kolk’s books in order?
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (1984), Psychological Trauma (1987), Traumatic Stress (1996) and The Body Keeps the Score (2014).
What is the best Bessel van der Kolk book to start with?
The Body Keeps the Score — his most accessible and widely read book, and the only one written for a general audience. The other three are clinical and academic works.
What is Bessel van der Kolk’s most famous book?
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014). By February 2025 it had spent more than 328 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and had been translated into 43 languages.
Has The Body Keeps the Score been scientifically questioned?
Yes. In The Washington Post (2023) Kristen Martin criticised it for promoting uncertain science such as mirror neurons, polyvagal theory and the triune brain. A 2023 paper by Cox and Codd in Research on Social Work Practice said van der Kolk and Peter Levine often ignore or misrepresent evidence on PTSD treatment, and in Mother Jones (2024) Emi Nietfeld reported that several researchers cited in the book said it distorted their findings. His opposition to exposure therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy for trauma is a minority view.
Why did Bessel van der Kolk leave the Trauma Center?
In January 2018 the Justice Resource Institute, the nonprofit that runs the Brookline Trauma Center he founded in 1982, removed him as medical director. Its president, Andy Pond, told The Boston Globe in March 2018 that van der Kolk had “violated the code of conduct by creating a hostile work environment”, following complaints from staff. Van der Kolk denied mistreating employees, said he had been fired for attending a management meeting he had been told not to attend, and sued the institute for breach of his employment contract. He went on to lead the Trauma Research Foundation.
What was his role in the recovered-memory debate?
In the early 1990s he supported recovered-memory therapy and testified as an expert witness in criminal trials involving recovered memories of abuse. The idea that such memories can be reliably recovered has since been widely rejected; the Harvard psychologist Richard McNally called the theory one “in search of a phenomenon”.
What is Developmental Trauma Disorder?
A diagnosis van der Kolk proposed for children exposed to chronic abuse and neglect, formulated with colleagues who studied more than 20,000 traumatised children and adolescents. It has not been accepted into the DSM.
Is Bessel van der Kolk still alive?
Yes. Born on 8 July 1943, he is a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and president of the Trauma Research Foundation, and as of 2024 he still saw patients. TIME named him to its TIME100 Health list in 2024.
Is Bessel van der Kolk Dutch?
Yes. He was born in The Hague in 1943, during the German occupation, while his father was held in a Nazi work camp. He moved to the United States in 1962 and studied in Hawaii and Chicago before training as a psychiatrist at Harvard.
Footnotes
- Bessel van der Kolk — Wikipedia
- Allegations of employee mistreatment roil renowned Brookline trauma center — The Boston Globe via Boston.com, 2018
- Renowned trauma center fires its medical director — Associated Press via Fox Business, 2018
- Bessel van der Kolk — GoodTherapy
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Western culture is astoundingly disembodied and uniquely so.”
— Bessel van der Kolk, interview with Krista Tippett, On Being (2013)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendationsRead next
Authors like Bessel van der Kolk: who to read next →
More reading lists: Books About Grief · Books About Estrangement · Books on Nonviolent Communication
