This book is a comprehensive, yet highly readable, description of emotional trauma and strategies to resolve it and heal from it. The challenge is that when we experience emotionally traumatic events, the memories of them are broken into fragmented pieces and are stored not only in different parts of our brain, but also in the tissues of our body. That’s why even certain physical sensations or body positions can trigger intense feelings of anxiety and panic, seemingly out of nowhere. The same is true of certain images, smells, locations and other factors that “you” might not consciously associate with a traumatic experience, but your brain and body do. In other words, as the title says, “The Body Keeps the Score” – the score of life that is. Healing from trauma is complex work, and yet it is work very much worth doing. Indeed, it is essential for those who have experienced traumatic events to pursue healing in brain and body, in part to also reduce traumatic memories as one of the causes of anxiety and panic. For more perspective on the value of this book, see Resources/Audio for a podcast by Morgan and Cheri Snyder discussing Basel van der Kolk’s important book.