Bessel Van Der Kolk Biography

Bessel A. van der Kolk M.D. has been active as a clinician-researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. His work integrates developmental biological psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. His book Psychological Trauma was the first integrative text on the subject painting the far-ranging impact of trauma on the entire person and the range of therapeutic issues which need to be addressed for recovery.

Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development such as dissociative problems borderline personality and self-mutilation cognitive development in traumatized children and adults and the psychobiology of trauma. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His current research is on how trauma affects memory processes and brain imaging studies of PTSD.

Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and Medical Director of the Trauma Center at JRI in Brookline Massachusetts. He has taught at universities and hospitals across the United States and around the world including Europe Africa Russia Australia Israel and China. His book Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind Body and Society co-edited with Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth explores what we have learned in the past twenty years of the re-discovery of the role of trauma in psychiatric illness. In Dr. van der Kolk's most recent 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain Mind and Body in the Treatment of Trauma he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure engagement control and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback mindfulness techniques play yoga and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.

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