Bessel van der Kolk
Dutch-American psychiatrist whose forty-year career studying the effects of trauma on the body, brain, and human relationships has reshaped the modern field of integrative healing. Born in The Hague in 1943 to a family marked by the German occupation of the Netherlands, he has been a clinician and researcher at Boston University and Harvard, and is the founder of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts. His 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score — combining clinical case studies, neuroscience, and the somatic, contemplative, and creative therapies that traditional talk therapy cannot reach — has sold over three million copies, spent more than 200 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and become the foundational text of the contemporary trauma-informed movement that now shapes therapy, education, and contemplative practice.
quotes in library
Quotes by Bessel van der Kolk
101 quotes“In every survivor is a teacher. Listen.”
“The most therapeutic relationship is one in which both people are seen.”
“To survive trauma is one feat. To integrate it is another.”
“Integration is the work. Recovery is the gift.”
“The body is wise. The body is patient. The body is waiting.”
“Each session is a small step toward home.”
“There is no failure in trauma recovery. Only slow returning.”
“Trauma is also memory. Healing is also memory.”
“The body knows. The body has always known.”
“Restoring the body is restoring the self.”
“Gentleness with the body is gentleness with the self.”
“In every trauma, there is a wisdom. Find it. Integrate it.”
“You are not your trauma. You are the one who survived it.”
“The future of medicine is integrative.”
“Body-based therapies will be the standard, not the exception.”
“The next generation will heal what ours could not name.”
“To name is to begin to heal.”
“Healing is possible. The body is built for it.”
“Trauma robs us of presence. Practice gives it back.”
Explore More Teachers
Discover wisdom from 500+ spiritual teachers across all traditions.
Browse All Teachers