The character arc of Bessel van der Kolk
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 8 July 1943 in The Hague. Between then and now sit a degree in Hawaii in 1965, a Chicago medical degree in 1970, a Harvard residency completed in 1974, a veterans clinic from 1978, the Trauma Center founded in 1982, four books from 1984, and The Body Keeps the Score in 2014. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Bessel van der Kolk?
Thirty two years of work before the famous book.
He was born in The Hague in 1943, took his first degree at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1965, and his medical degree at the University of Chicago in 1970. He completed a psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, part of Harvard Medical School, in 1974, and was director of Boston State Hospital.
From 1978 he was a staff psychiatrist at the Boston Veterans Administration outpatient clinic, working with men who had come back from Vietnam. That is where the question that shaped his career came from: why the effects of overwhelming experience show up in the body and not only in the account somebody can give of it. In 1982 he founded the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts.
He taught at Harvard Medical School and is a professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. He has been president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, co-director of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and president of the Trauma Research Foundation. His first book came in 1984 and two more followed, all written for his profession. The Body Keeps the Score, published in 2014 after thirty two years of running the centre, was written for everybody else, and has stayed on bestseller lists ever since. He still sees patients.
The moments
Bessel van der Kolk's timeline.
The 1960s
Hawaii, then Chicago
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A Dutch childhood, a Hawaiian degree, and political science before medicine.
The 1970s
A medical degree
Milestone, and it changed everything. Qualified at twenty six, in a country he had come to as a student.
A Harvard residency
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Four years of residency, and then running a state hospital.
The veterans clinic
Milestone, and it changed everything. Where the question came from: why the effects show up in the body, not only in the telling.
The 1980s
Stay in the system, or found one
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: found the centre, taken, or stay in the hospitals. The centre ran for decades, and the book that came out of it has stayed on bestseller lists since 2014.
The Trauma Center
Milestone, and it changed everything. His own centre, founded at thirty eight, and run for decades.
The first book
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Two books for his own profession, thirty years before the one for everybody else.
The 1990s
Traumatic Stress
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Mind, body and society, named together in a title for the first time.
The 2000s
Leading the field
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Three leadership roles, across the bodies that organise the whole field.
The 2010s
The Body Keeps the Score
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty two years after founding the centre, the book written for everybody else.
The 2020s
Still seeing patients
Milestone, and it changed his direction. In his eighties, and still in the room with people.
The line reaches today still adding to itself, which is why it is drawn now rather than at the end. What it has set moving is a way of understanding a history that a great many people had never been offered, written by somebody who spent four decades earning the right to say it plainly.
What he wrote
Books by Bessel van der Kolk
- 1987
Psychological Trauma
An early volume written for his own profession, three decades before the general readership found him.
- 1996
Traumatic Stress
The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body and society. The three named together in one title.
- 2014
The Body Keeps the Score
Written for everybody else, thirty two years after he founded the Trauma Center. It has not left the bestseller lists since.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His put thirty two years of clinical work in before the book anybody has heard of. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Bessel van der Kolk: frequently asked questions
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More character arcs
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Sources
- Bessel van der Kolk, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, past presidents.
- Publisher records for Traumatic Stress and The Body Keeps the Score.