trauma studies

is "The Body Keeps the Score" misleading, or even flat out disproven? I think this is an extremely important topic. So many people's ideas about trauma rest on the writings of Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score author)—but what if they just don't hold up to scrutiny, and the "science" they reference doesn't exist or is misinterpretted? This substack article is provacative, but I like it because it's someone who might be coded "left" or "hippie" by a bunch of other beliefs.. Admittedly, I skimmed, and I got recommended it because i have my own views about the trauma mindset's shadows, but would be super curious people's thoughts.

here are some juicy tidbits:

 much of this science is uncertain at best, and in some cases was discredited decades ago. 

polyvagal theory, which van der Kolk heavily references, has been disproven. Paul Grossman, from Universitätsspital Basel in Switzerland, writes in this paper that the basic premises of polyvagal theory “have been shown to be either untenable or highly implausible based on the available scientific literature.”

I wish we talked more about the legions of people walking around who have trauma histories who have managed to lead healthy, happy lives. In my first few years as a therapist, I noticed that contrary to the trauma narratives we see reflected in pop culture, people who have traumatic experiences are often not irrevocably damaged by it, but instead use internal and external resources to overcome it. They form healthy relationships, have meaningful careers, and raise loving families. These trauma survivors are not unicorns.

and

 Part two debunked Peter Levine’s claims that trauma is stored in your body and needs to be released. 

"Levine makes claims that are not supported by research and makes promises he cannot keep. He has contributed to fears that everyone has the residue of trauma lurking in their bodies by broadening the definition of trauma until it applies to any stressful experience. By exaggerating the degree to which traumatic memories are repressed, Levine (along with van der Kolk) has promoted the widespread fear that hidden trauma is causing somatic symptoms, even for those who have no memories of unpleasant experiences.

is "The Body Keeps the Score" misleading, or even flat out disproven? I think this is an extremely important topic. So many people's ideas about trauma rest on the writings of Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score author)—but what if they just don't hold up to scrutiny, and the "science" they reference doesn't exist or is misinterpretted? This substack article is provacative, but I like it because it's someone who might be coded "left" or "hippie" by a bunch of other beliefs.. Admittedly, I skimmed, and I got recommended it because i have my own views about the trauma mindset's shadows, but would be super curious people's thoughts.

here are some juicy tidbits:

 much of this science is uncertain at best, and in some cases was discredited decades ago. 

polyvagal theory, which van der Kolk heavily references, has been disproven. Paul Grossman, from Universitätsspital Basel in Switzerland, writes in this paper that the basic premises of polyvagal theory “have been shown to be either untenable or highly implausible based on the available scientific literature.”

I wish we talked more about the legions of people walking around who have trauma histories who have managed to lead healthy, happy lives. In my first few years as a therapist, I noticed that contrary to the trauma narratives we see reflected in pop culture, people who have traumatic experiences are often not irrevocably damaged by it, but instead use internal and external resources to overcome it. They form healthy relationships, have meaningful careers, and raise loving families. These trauma survivors are not unicorns.

and

 Part two debunked Peter Levine’s claims that trauma is stored in your body and needs to be released. 

"Levine makes claims that are not supported by research and makes promises he cannot keep. He has contributed to fears that everyone has the residue of trauma lurking in their bodies by broadening the definition of trauma until it applies to any stressful experience. By exaggerating the degree to which traumatic memories are repressed, Levine (along with van der Kolk) has promoted the widespread fear that hidden trauma is causing somatic symptoms, even for those who have no memories of unpleasant experiences.

is "The Body Keeps the Score" misleading, or even flat out disproven? I think this is an extremely important topic. So many people's ideas about trauma rest on the writings of Peter Levine and Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score author)—but what if they just don't hold up to scrutiny, and the "science" they reference doesn't exist or is misinterpretted? This substack article is provacative, but I like it because it's someone who might be coded "left" or "hippie" by a bunch of other beliefs.. Admittedly, I skimmed, and I got recommended it because i have my own views about the trauma mindset's shadows, but would be super curious people's thoughts.

here are some juicy tidbits:

 much of this science is uncertain at best, and in some cases was discredited decades ago. 

polyvagal theory, which van der Kolk heavily references, has been disproven. Paul Grossman, from Universitätsspital Basel in Switzerland, writes in this paper that the basic premises of polyvagal theory “have been shown to be either untenable or highly implausible based on the available scientific literature.”

I wish we talked more about the legions of people walking around who have trauma histories who have managed to lead healthy, happy lives. In my first few years as a therapist, I noticed that contrary to the trauma narratives we see reflected in pop culture, people who have traumatic experiences are often not irrevocably damaged by it, but instead use internal and external resources to overcome it. They form healthy relationships, have meaningful careers, and raise loving families. These trauma survivors are not unicorns.

and

 Part two debunked Peter Levine’s claims that trauma is stored in your body and needs to be released. 

"Levine makes claims that are not supported by research and makes promises he cannot keep. He has contributed to fears that everyone has the residue of trauma lurking in their bodies by broadening the definition of trauma until it applies to any stressful experience. By exaggerating the degree to which traumatic memories are repressed, Levine (along with van der Kolk) has promoted the widespread fear that hidden trauma is causing somatic symptoms, even for those who have no memories of unpleasant experiences.

Grief work is essential to the adult psyche. I just finished a three day weekend grief ceremony and been practicing grief as a thing this past year.

Obviously there's the failure case where you can get stuck in a loop around your trauma and grief. But, the opposite failure case also exists that most people are repressing their feelings and thereby getting stuck in their head. I'd argue a lot of the transhumanist folks are in this camp.

But an actual ceremony where everyone is supported, witnessed, and held in their grief and rage is a beautiful thing. In my experience, there's a certain half-life to each wave of grief and coming out of it, I'm more capable of taking in joy and being resourced. To the extent, a person can actually inhabit great grief seems to be correlated strongly to how much they can inhabit great joy and power with integrity. There isn't so much of a shadow of the psyche being terrified of meeting pains it cannot deal with and subtly using power to avoid them or fill them.

Seems like a huge missing piece in culture between all the yoga, fitness, authentic relating, and what not. To actually turn towards the broken places and let the body grieve. Many of the times, the grief isn't even about a lost loved one but just grieving the Earth, grieving old disappointments, grieving the suffering of loved ones, grieving ancient wounds that might not even be mine.

Listen: John Richards on Growing Up (35 min), Integration (40 min)  🎧 . I recently met John and have been delighted by the rare combination of insight and humility, depth and simplicity, in his presentation of the world. He's also grounded in decades of crisis intervention and working with homeless youth.

The first audio on this soundcloud is a great introduction to “Growing Up” that is both more simple than most models (only 4 stages) and draws from Piaget, James Fowler, and M Scott Peck, so it’s got a different flavor than the usual Wilberian, Spiral Dynamics, Loevinger tradition. The second has some unique ideas and speaks about the modern world's lack of initiation. Both were rich to me, and I hope you enjoy them.

<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/playlists/soundcloud%253Aplaylists%253A1249790404&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/mrjukes" title="Suffering and Joy" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Suffering and Joy</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mrjukes/sets/spiritual-growth" title="Growth Models" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Growth Models</a></div>

#TTT