I read The Body Keeps the Score about 10 years ago after experiencing a particularly traumatic event. I had been searching for answers at the time for how to heal from the event, and someone recommended the book to me.
I had distilled my memory of the book into the intuitive idea represented by the title that the body remembers what happens to it which of course there is some truth to. So my first reaction to the headline was a bit defensive, "of course it's not bullshit!"
But I had forgotten how much emphasis was put on there being significant lasting changes from events that we couldn't even remember.
> The idea that trauma causes long-lasting damage to the brain and or body is central to van der Kolk’s thesis.
> his narrative paints this hopeless picture of trauma victims as being people who most aspects of their lives are “dictated by the imprint of the past.”
And now I remember that when I read the book originally looking for answers to my own traumas, it left me feeling hopeless, overwhelmed and permanently damaged from what I had gone through. I remember thinking that the high stress I was going through at the time was going to leave me permanently struggling with issues like high cortisol and inability to function normally. Absolutely NOT the message I needed at the time.
Ten years on, my brain is normal and healthy, and I don't have any perceptible problems with cortisol or PTSD-like symptoms. I'm living a healthy, normal life, and not walking around with a heavy trauma score in my body.
That's not to say that trauma from my past didn't play a role in making me who I am today, or that I don't still carry some memories of the difficult events. But I've found my brain to be very plastic and to heal and rewrite itself quite well. And all of the measurable markers of brain health, stress hormones, etc are fully back to normal, healthy ranges.
That's just my anecdote, and I also appreciated the thorough scientific analysis in this article!