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This book is...okay.
My problems with it:
Way too long, van der Kolk is long-winded and draws attention to himself, his insights, his compassion, his associations with too much regularity. The book would be a third shorter without his ego included.
Could be an academic text but not really. van der Kolk can't seem to make up his mind if he wants to provide us with the most up-to-date trauma research or a folksy case study journal. Made for tedious writing.
He describes some rape and incest victims as "gorgeous". Gag me.
Being a trauma victim does not excuse inflicting trauma on others. In the first PTSD case he describes (a Vietnam Vet whose unit was killed in a rice paddy), "Tom", he positions Tom as someone haunted by his friends' deaths. After the rice paddy incident, Tom goes out and kills a child, rapes a woman, you know war crimes, and what van der Kolk offers is, "maybe the worst of Tom's symptoms was that he felt emotionally numb." Well, no. That is not the worst of his symptoms. Well, maybe getting away with rape and murder is the worst of his symptoms. But van der Kolk continues to somehow excuse the traumatized by saying that they feel shame "about the way they behaved during a traumatic episode, whether it is objectively warranted or not." EXCUSE ME? Shame over the commission of atrocities is not objectively warranted???? They feel shame? Enough shame to present yourself to an International War Crimes Tribunal? Guess not. Again, gag me.

Having said all of that, it is, overall, a necessary and important subject highlighting how trauma alters us physiologically and that treatment has to include a re-mapping of the brain and body.
That seems like a pretty straight-forward case to be made.
Unfortunately, Bessel van der Kolk somehow seems to muddy the waters here. This book shows up as an over-wrought, an over-long, missed opportunity.