Bessel van der Kolk (born 1943) is a Dutch psychiatrist, author and educator based in Boston, USA. Since the 1970s his research has been in the area of post-traumatic stress. Van der Kolk is professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and President of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts

His books include Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (1984), Psychological Trauma (1987), Traumatic Stress (1996, with Alexander C. McFarlane and Lars Weisæth) and The Body Keeps the Score (2014).