Bessel van der Kolk
Psychiatrist and trauma researcher
Bessel van der Kolk is a Dutch-American psychiatrist who has researched post-traumatic stress since the 1970s. He wrote The Body Keeps the Score, a New York Times bestseller.
1 summary 18 min of listening
Dutch Born 1943 in The Hague, Netherlands
About Bessel van der Kolk
Born in 1943, Bessel van der Kolk is a Boston-based psychiatrist, author and educator. He holds a professorship in psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, and he leads the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1984 he set up one of the first centers in the US for studying and treating traumatic stress in civilians. He has also held the presidency of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. His research looks at how attachment, neurobiology and development interact in the effects of trauma. The Body Keeps the Score has been translated into 43 languages. His other books include Psychological Trauma.