4 ms·

I’ve read your sources and they don’t say what you claim. Your first source says: “* Memories of trauma are seldom, if ever, truly forgotten. * Memories of tr

I’ve read your sources and they don’t say what you claim. Your first source says: “* Memories of trauma are seldom, if ever, truly forgotten. * Memories of trauma are often vivid, but they are not immutable (memory does not operate like a videotape machine). * Not thinking about a trauma for a long time is not the same as being unable to remember it.” None of that meaningfully contradicts “The Body Keeps the Score.” Your second source’s strongest criticism seems to be of this sort: “When we collapse or disengage in a dangerous situation, van der Kolk says, we’ve been taken over by the dorsal vagal complex, “an evolutionarily ancient part of the parasympathetic nervous system.” Except the dorsal vagal complex hasn’t actually been proved to exist in humans.” Again, that doesn’t contradict anything important in “The Body Keeps the Score.”

ants_everywhere 3y ago
> None of that meaningfully contradicts “The Body Keeps the Score.” I haven't read it, that's why I asked it as a question. What I've heard about the book is that it's not supported by the science. At least in the popular press I've seen positive coverage of the book claim that van der Kolk argues your mind can forget trauma and you can work from data from your body to recover information about forgotten trauma. For example, this school of life video [0] at t=284. If I understand you correctly, it sounds like perhaps you're saying that's not a core part of the book. If so, then I defer to you since I haven't read it. But from the limited press I've seen, that appears to be what many people take away from it. > I’ve read your sources and they don’t say what you claim Hmm, okay, but I see them as being far more critical. The second article talks in general about how he helps himself to discredited or unsupported theories, or in some cases research that he just doesn't seem to understand. The first one talks about how his theory that the brain can forget trauma that is encoded in the body as the same "mistaken reasoning" that caused "arguably the most serious catastrophe to strike the mental health field since the lobotomy era." I don't know of any studies that evaluate the various interventions he suggests. Some of it I think is well studied, some seems more experimental. Some related ideas, such as shame or guilt being encoded in sunken body posture etc are old and well known and don't seem to be related to trauma in particular, at least not trauma as studied by psychologists. My guess is that the book, like many pop psych books, may be a mixed bag and that lots of people see the overall work as a net benefit even if some of the psych community is concerned about inaccurate representation of the results and the revival of the old memory wars. https://youtu.be/QSCXyYuT2rE?t=284 https://youtu.be/QSCXyYuT2rE?t=284
- voisin 3y ago
  > What I've heard about the book is that it's not supported by the science. At least in the popular press I've seen positive coverage of the book claim that van der Kolk argues your mind can forget trauma and you can work from data from your body to recover information about forgotten trauma. A lot of this was from his earlier work (that I believe he distanced himself from as the evidence showed it to be incorrect) that wound up in courtrooms as recovered memories. This book is totally different and from a different era of his research.
  - ants_everywhere 3y ago
    got it, okay thanks for the correction then
- sonofhans 3y ago
  > The first one talks about how his theory that the brain can forget trauma that is encoded in the body as the same "mistaken reasoning" that caused "arguably the most serious catastrophe to strike the mental health field since the lobotomy era." I’ve never taken that from his work; it sounds like an over-characterization. Here’s a thing he does claim, though — since trauma is stored/encoded in the body, it must be released from the body. It could be easy to mistake that as “trauma can be removed from the brain.”

ants_everywhere 3y ago

> None of that meaningfully contradicts “The Body Keeps the Score.” I haven't read it, that's why I asked it as a question. What I've heard about the book is that it's not supported by the science. At least in the popular press I've seen positive coverage of the book claim that van der Kolk argues your mind can forget trauma and you can work from data from your body to recover information about forgotten trauma. For example, this school of life video [0] at t=284. If I understand you correctly, it sounds like perhaps you're saying that's not a core part of the book. If so, then I defer to you since I haven't read it. But from the limited press I've seen, that appears to be what many people take away from it. > I’ve read your sources and they don’t say what you claim Hmm, okay, but I see them as being far more critical. The second article talks in general about how he helps himself to discredited or unsupported theories, or in some cases research that he just doesn't seem to understand. The first one talks about how his theory that the brain can forget trauma that is encoded in the body as the same "mistaken reasoning" that caused "arguably the most serious catastrophe to strike the mental health field since the lobotomy era." I don't know of any studies that evaluate the various interventions he suggests. Some of it I think is well studied, some seems more experimental. Some related ideas, such as shame or guilt being encoded in sunken body posture etc are old and well known and don't seem to be related to trauma in particular, at least not trauma as studied by psychologists. My guess is that the book, like many pop psych books, may be a mixed bag and that lots of people see the overall work as a net benefit even if some of the psych community is concerned about inaccurate representation of the results and the revival of the old memory wars. https://youtu.be/QSCXyYuT2rE?t=284 https://youtu.be/QSCXyYuT2rE?t=284

voisin 3y ago
> What I've heard about the book is that it's not supported by the science. At least in the popular press I've seen positive coverage of the book claim that van der Kolk argues your mind can forget trauma and you can work from data from your body to recover information about forgotten trauma. A lot of this was from his earlier work (that I believe he distanced himself from as the evidence showed it to be incorrect) that wound up in courtrooms as recovered memories. This book is totally different and from a different era of his research.
- ants_everywhere 3y ago
  got it, okay thanks for the correction then
sonofhans 3y ago
> The first one talks about how his theory that the brain can forget trauma that is encoded in the body as the same "mistaken reasoning" that caused "arguably the most serious catastrophe to strike the mental health field since the lobotomy era." I’ve never taken that from his work; it sounds like an over-characterization. Here’s a thing he does claim, though — since trauma is stored/encoded in the body, it must be released from the body. It could be easy to mistake that as “trauma can be removed from the brain.”