Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
Trauma Center, Principal Investigator
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is Founder and former Medical Director of the Trauma Center. He has been active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. His work integrates developmental, biological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. His book Psychological Trauma was the first integrative text on the subject, painting the far ranging
impact of trauma on the entire person and the range of therapeutic issues which need to be addressed for recovery. Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development in traumatized children and adults, and the psychobiology of trauma. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk was among the first professionals to identify CT with the DSM-IV field trials in 1990, and later, the development of the Developmental Trauma Disorder diagnosis in 2005. He was instrumental in the founding of the NCTSI, and is a past multi-term member of the NCTSN Steering Committee. He established and led the Complex Trauma Work Group and the DTD Taskforce within the NCTSN to generate expert consensus on core components of treatment for CT. He has provided training on CT assessment and intervention to over 500,000 people over 40 years. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and Co-Director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Community Practice Site. He is author of the New York Times bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Healing From Trauma. London/New York Viking Penguin, 2014.
impact of trauma on the entire person and the range of therapeutic issues which need to be addressed for recovery. Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development in traumatized children and adults, and the psychobiology of trauma. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk was among the first professionals to identify CT with the DSM-IV field trials in 1990, and later, the development of the Developmental Trauma Disorder diagnosis in 2005. He was instrumental in the founding of the NCTSI, and is a past multi-term member of the NCTSN Steering Committee. He established and led the Complex Trauma Work Group and the DTD Taskforce within the NCTSN to generate expert consensus on core components of treatment for CT. He has provided training on CT assessment and intervention to over 500,000 people over 40 years. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dr. van der Kolk is past President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and Co-Director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network Community Practice Site. He is author of the New York Times bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in Healing From Trauma. London/New York Viking Penguin, 2014.