What the Most Famous Book About Trauma Gets Wrong
The Body Keeps the Score [2014] stigmatizes survivors, blames victims, and depoliticizes violence. While masquerading as care for survivors, it creates a hierarchy in which marginalized victims are even more marginalized.
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In a section about social development, van der Kolk paints a damning picture of sexually abused girls: “They don’t have friends of either gender.” “They hate themselves, and their biology is against them.” “Other kids usually don’t want anything to do with them—they are simply too weird.”
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Van der Kolk derides many of the interventions with the strongest evidence, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, a family of talk therapies backed by 60 years of research. In CBT, patients process their negative beliefs and compare them to reality. When used to treat PTSD, it often involves some form of exposure as patients repeatedly confront the memories, feelings, and beliefs that terrorize them.
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One study by the Department of Veterans Affairs and academic researchers that van der Kolk cites—the largest of its kind when it was published in 2007—found that after just 10 weeks of CBT, 75 percent of patients improved significantly and 47 percent no longer had PTSD at all. “We used to think that PTSD was chronic and that we had to help people live with their symptoms,” says Paula Schnurr, co-author of that study and executive director of the VA’s National Center for PTSD. “We now know that PTSD is treatable.”
Related:
Bessel van der Kolk, a prominent PTSD researcher and author of “The Body Keeps the Score,” was involved in the Phase 3 trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD conducted by Lykos Therapeutics (formerly MAPS PBC). He served as a Principal Investigator for the Boston study site and has been actively involved in research and commentary on MDMA-assisted therapy, particularly in relation to its potential for treating PTSD.
MAPS FY 2019-2020 Financial Report:
Amazon, Google, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Rockefeller Family Fund, Microsoft, Intel, Warner Bros, Walton Enterprises (Walton family-Walmart)
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