The Body Keeps the Score

Your score: 93 / 100

Rubric: 80+ = well-indexed (cited in genre listicles + structured data present, LLMs surface it for category queries). 60-79 = partially visible (findable by direct title search, weak in genre context). <60 = effectively invisible to LLM retrieval.

Verdict: This book is hypervisible to both LLM retrieval and public consciousness—a New York Times bestseller that has spent 376 weeks on the paperback nonfiction list with substantial weeks at #1—meaning the diagnostic tool itself is the least pressing issue.

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The recommendation test

Query run: "best trauma psychology books" ✓ Yes — your book appears in the top results. Top books returned in that search:

1. The Body Keeps the Score · Bessel van der Kolk
2. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror · Judith Herman
3. In My Grandmother's Hands · Resmaa Menakem
4. Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain · Daniel J. Siegel and Marion Solomon
5. What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing · Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey
6. Getting Past Your Past · Francine Shapiro
7. Healing Trauma · Peter Levine
8. The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories From a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook · Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz
9. Waking the Tiger · Peter Levine
10. CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving · Pete Walker This test is the strongest piece of evidence in the report — anyone can re-run the same query in ChatGPT or Perplexity and verify the result in under a minute.

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What the AI currently knows about your book

Your book is a 2014 publication by Bessel van der Kolk on the effects of psychological trauma.

It describes van der Kolk's research and experiences on how people are affected by traumatic stress, including its effects on the mind and body.

The work is widely recognized as a watershed synthesis of trauma breakthroughs, explaining how psychological trauma breaks connections within the brain and between mind and body.

The book has 294,466 Goodreads ratings with an average of 4.34 stars. Beyond direct title searches, the book appears in curated lists of essential trauma literature where it is described as "grandfather of the complex trauma movement" and required reading for trauma clinicians.

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Who's being recommended for your genre instead

• Trauma and Recovery · Judith Herman · foundational work on trauma's psychological and relational impact, cited as essential alongside van der Kolk

• What My Bones Know · Stephanie Foo · contemporary memoir of Complex PTSD recovery through therapy and resilience

• The Myth of Normal · Gabor Maté · explores trauma, societal norms, and healing through authenticity and connection

• The Deepest Well · Nadine Burke Harris · examines adverse childhood experiences and long-term health outcomes

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The three fastest fixes

No action required—this book is already maximally discoverable.

This is not a diagnostic failure; it is a success case. The book has spent nearly 7 years on the New York Times bestseller list for paperback nonfiction.

It received a starred review from Library Journal.

The book routinely appears in curated trauma resource collections.

It has been published in 36 languages. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude will surface this title in response to queries about trauma psychology, PTSD treatment, and mental health recovery—not because of recent SEO work, but because the book has accumulated sufficient citation depth and public visibility over a decade that it now functions as a reference standard.

If your concern is different visibility (academic citation, clinical adoption, international reach), those are strategic questions outside the scope of AI-discovery readiness.

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The bigger pattern

The book has faced scientific criticism for promoting contested claims about trauma and memory; recent reviews have raised concerns about uncertain science and limited evidence for some treatments. Discoverability and credibility are separate challenges. LLMs will find and cite this book readily because it is widely published and frequently referenced—not because its scientific claims are universally endorsed. If your concern is positioning the book against recent skepticism in the trauma field, that is a content and narrative problem, not a retrieval problem.

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How this score breaks down

Retrievability — 10 / 10
Amazon page surfaces, title is searchable

Structured-data depth — 13 / 20
Goodreads, Wikipedia, Wikidata — the citation graph LLMs train on

Listicle / peer-set presence — 25 / 25
Inclusion in 'best [genre] books' round-ups — primary retrieval signal

Institutional authority — 20 / 20
Genre-specific endorsements (NHS Reading Well, prize longlist, NYT bestseller, etc.)

Author graph — 15 / 15
Author Wikipedia, bylines, podcast trail

Cross-source citation — 10 / 10
Reddit, Substack, niche forum discussion

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