Bessel A. van der Kolk

According to this book: childhood trauma has a lot to do with adult problems.
Trauma includes rape, incest, witnessing rape, incest, parental problems.... Even a surgery can create trauma similar to PTSD, which in WWI was called "shell shock" until the British government wanted to stop paying for treatment and forbade the use of the term "shell shock."

Traumatic memories are often repressed. When they come back they are different from a normal memory in that they are incoherent, or fragmentary.

2022-10-18: NYTimes best seller #1 & 111 weeks on the list.
The library book loan expired before I finished this book. I've now got it borrowed again, but want to get to the last section before deciding whether to buy a copy.… (more)

An interesting framework that needs more empirical support. Useful for thinking about trauma and how it can impact people. Unfortunately there was an undercurrent of misogyny and double standards regarding gender throughout the entire thing. There was a lot of victim blaming regarding sexual violence, including at one point the author stating that an incident in which a young woman was gang raped by her friends was not a simple matter than could easily be understood through roles such as “victim” and “perpetrators.” The author explained the girl’s willingness to hang out and smoke with her male friends as stemming from childhood trauma, which put her in that situation, which is what caused the violent event. Excuse me, what??? Yet, men in the book who committed horrendous acts such as murdering children in Vietnam were given compassion. Just weird.

The book also failed to incorporate the impact of experiences of discrimination and marginalization on mental health. No discussion of racism. No discussion of sexism and misogyny.

Also - the author of this book has since been fired from his position of running the trauma research center because he created a hostile work environment. He bullied his subordinates. So, I am skeptical any time he described childhood trauma as being responsible for why people feel traumatized by events in adulthood, especially when this was used as a way to explain why women become victims of violent male behavior.

TLDR; interesting framework, but the author gives me the ick… (more)

An impressive recount of a career looking after trauma survivors and the development of clinical techniques to help people regain as best as possible lives.

The book is difficult and covers some terrible case histories. It also decries the political inaction or attrition in helping trauma victims with methods shown to work. So that overall the story is depressing.

But the perspective one gets on mental health and how large organisations like government handle it is sobering and disappointing.… (more)