For decades, Bessel van der Kolk has been regarded as the world’s leading expert in the study of trauma, a psychiatrist whose ideas about how the body records pain helped millions find language for their suffering. His 2014 best-selling book, The Body Keeps the Score, turned him into an unlikely celebrity, a household name among therapists, yoga teachers and patients.

But earlier this month, at a bucolic retreat in the Hudson Valley, the 82-year-old van der Kolk triggered trauma and suffering among many of his students with strident comments on Israel.

According to interviews with several participants as well their written accounts, van der Kolk strayed from his course on trauma and neuroscience to share his political views on a variety of current events including the war in Gaza. They s

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