Summary: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk M.D.

Since the 1970s, Bessel Van Der Kolk has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD as a lecturer and researcher. This book is based on his fifty years of expertise in the profession, as well as his forty years as the director of a Trauma Center. The book covers crucial issues for people researching trauma in the twenty-first century. He examines the history of trauma analysis and therapy, as well as the different causes and obstacles that have stymied development in the area.
Dr. Van Der Kolk also goes through some scientific evidence on trauma and how it works, as well as broader comments on the brain's intricacies when dealing with trauma and traumatic memories. He discusses cutting-edge techniques to trauma therapy that might have good public health implications. He devotes a few paragraphs in each chapter to sharing some of his experiences with the reader, many of which are scary and frequently upsetting, as one would anticipate given the subject matter.
But he is quick to point out that many of the trauma patients he has seen are difficult and stubborn, an ironic byproduct of having to deal with extremely terrible events.