Does the Trauma Remain in the Body?

Bessel van der Kolk's famous claim that the body keeps the score has a problem: what's actually measured isn't memory written into tissue but a nervous system that learned to predict danger. This book dissects the evidence beneath the metaphor, from twin studies that complicated the "trauma shrinks the brain" narrative to the surprising finding that EMDR's signature eye movements may not be the part doing the work. The distinction matters: if a system is predicting, not storing, you need new experience to update it.

You'll learn:

- Why identical twins upended the brain-shrinkage hypothesis

- How interpersonal harm differs from accidents in lasting impact

- Which talk-based methods top clinical guidelines worldwide