www.motherjones.com
Whenever people asked me if I have read 'The Body Keeps the Score,' I honestly tell them that I tried to read it...I really did (just because everyone keeps talking about it) but after just a few pages I...just...couldn't keep reading. If you have any training whatsoever in neuroscience, the philosophy of science (and scientific methods) and have a decent grasp on the mental health research literature...you just can't keep reading and not feel like you're wasting your time even in making the attempt. I had a similar experience trying to read Francine Shapiro's seminal book on EMDR. I bailed after just a couple of pages. I just couldn't.What the most famous book about trauma gets wrong
People kept telling me to read "The Body Keeps the Score." I was shocked at what it actually says.
I am thrilled, lol
I am proud to say I have no idea who that even is (though I probably should). I'm more of a Richard McNally fan.
I've never actually made my way over there. Is it mostly a bunch of angry mid tiers? I'm not hating on them entirely, but just for reference; we had a SW/case manager come meet with her client two days ago who is hospitalized for forensic reasons. I've worked clinically with this guy for 10 years off and on. Long history of serious psychotic disorder with some BPD as well. I **** you not this lady comes in and starts saying he has DID and that she is attempting to fuse all of the alters together into one cohesive personality and that THAT will make him competent to proceed with his case. I almost want to file a board complaint with their respective licensing board. Is this the kind of stuff that's over on that reddit board?
It’s basically what happens when TikTok psychology goes mainstream. Everyone has DID/BPD/trauma, we’re all a little bit neurodivergent, and EMDR can do no harm.
No, no—no one has BPD because everyone has CPTSD. Also, if you’ve ever been bored in your life, you have ADHD.
I have a patient who brings me different terms, definitions, and descriptions of disorders from internet stuff almost every day and then is surprised when I haven’t heard of them. We had to make it clear that internet jargon and the science of psychology are two different things. Fortunately, they are educated and intelligent enough to understand the distinction and that alone has been helpful to them. Basically, when a patient with emotional dysregulation is chasing information all over the internet and not really capable of differentiating because they don’t have the foundational knowledge or objectivity of a psychologist, it makes sense that they would become more emotionally dysregulated. Now when they bring me information, we can talk about how it makes sense or doesn’t from a much more grounded in science perspective and it has lessened the emotional energy. Much less of the “I have found the answer to everything” or “now I know why I can’t do this and never will be able to and it’s hopeless”.
It's going surprisingly well.Okay, fine. I posted it.
Definitely not gonna be commenting though.
Welp the entire millennial generation is doomed. Here I was thinking we were all just a lil quirky.
Same, I don't remember a ton about her takes on things except her discussions of C-PTSD. I am biased against our desire to label things as "complex" or "complicated" both with PTSD and grief. I have been okay with Prolonged Grief because it captures that some individuals don't come out of the acute phase of grief usually due to some sort of avoidance of the loss and treatment can help them get back toward the more natural state of grieving. I'm thinking of folks who stay at the gravesite for hours a day for several years to the detriment of work and family. That is not a "complicated" response. It is a response that makes a ton of sense and a lot of people do early in their grief.
Yeah, I have not had anything productive happen when someone has come to me with the idea they have C-PTSD. I almost always shift the conversation to patterns of behavior that have kept them alive and now they are living in a new, safe environment where those behaviors are no longer needed. We also talk about the loudness of the protective voices telling them that they're doing a dangerous thing. And we do a boring EBP without and fancy bells and whistles. If they need more support and practice, I recruit the DBT providers. I also reframe the idea of never being "cured" and how that is a very nebulous goal. Concrete, specific goals often offer a lot of relief. Then they're not chasing a ghost of themselves. The trauma gurus make trauma work so much harder than it needs to be.
Wait but why?
I can see that. That the C-PTSD "diagnosis" has infiltrated the masses (like ADHD and ASD as others have said above) is painful when trying to communicate with clients and deliver evidence-based diagnoses. I will say that Herman's Trauma & Recovery is a seminal text for anyone who works with trauma populations. That book is foundational in explaining how to conceptualize trauma and laid out steps for addressing trauma in therapy that are now considered gold-standard 30 years later. She also incorporated some powerful feminist critiques about how the concept of trauma was developed and how these ideas still operate systemically (family dynamics, community reactions, within the justice system) today to work against women who have faced sexual trauma. Unfortunate about the C-PTSD issue being run away with by under-educated folks, but not a reason to discount her important work to the trauma field.
But if everyone has it, then is it actually divergent anymore? Wouldn't the absence of neurodivergence then actually be the divergence...?
"fuse the alters together into one cohesive personality..."
“All humans are divergent, but some humans are more divergent than others.”
I overheard a master's level therapist talking with some colleagues the other day about a patient and she went into her IFS spiel and then said "ALL mental health is just different responses to trauma". Simply astounding stuff.
If 'trauma' is EVERYTHING (from the 'trauma' of the soles of your feet impacting the cold floor in the morning after a night of restful sleep...on up to watching your children raped/murdered before your very eyes before you are slowly tortured to near death over the ensuing three weeks)...
… oh my god this explains everything (!!!!!)
Exactly 0.25 drams of fresh moon water delivered in a crystal basin made from rocks quarried from indigenous lands and christened with a fresh sprig of mistletoe harvested under a full moon by a Greater Druid using a silver sickle.
Look, I was with you until the druids 😫😫😫
A fellow AD&D initiate, I see
