![The Complicated Work of Treating Trauma - Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk has spent 30 years figuring out why people behave so strangely.](https://cdn.magzter.com/1452683603/1721917136/articles/X3Hp16ApT1721975310293/Bessel-van-der-Kolk-trauma-Van-der-KolkTrauma-Research-Foundation-Diagnostic-and-Statistical-Manual-of-Mental-Disorders-Post-traumatic-stress-disorder-PTSD-psicology-The-Body-Keeps-the-Score-book-Trauma-Research-Foundation-in-Massachusetts.jpg)
Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk has spent 30 years figuring out why people behave so strangely. His specialty is treating those who have endured traumas so horrific-war, carnage, incredible pain that they couldn't stop-that their brains have not been able to fully process them, and their bodies have reacted to their brain's precarious state in ways they could not explain or control. But many human behaviors still puzzle van der Kolk, 82. He doesn't understand why the medical community doesn't take childhood trauma more seriously. He doesn't understand why leaders still send citizens to war without factoring in how it will deplete their capacity to live normally for decades. And he's not quite sure why a woman recently came up to him on the street and kissed his feet.
"I said, 'What are you doing?" says van der Kolk via video call from his home in the Berkshires. Van der Kolk's is a specific type of fame. Most people haven't heard of him, but for those who began to understand why they― or someone they loved-behaved the way they did via his 2014 book, The Body Keeps the Score, he's a miracle worker. Hence the feet-kissing.
This story is from the August 05, 2024 edition of Time.
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This story is from the August 05, 2024 edition of Time.
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