Does the Body Actually Keep the Score?
Research Notes 001: On Van der Kolk’s Claim that ‘The Body Keeps the Score’
Probably not, at least not in the way the book title implies.
I get the question often. From friends, family, and clients alike. Answering it with any confidence meant actually committing to some research, and Kotler, Mannino, Fox, and Friston (2026)1 duly obliged.
Van der Kolk’s book no doubt shaped public understanding of trauma and the metaphor is enti…
