Criticisms of “The Body Keeps the Score”

more information is better if it’s also provided with the context of how to heal.

> History shows people are also very resilient at moving on from trauma

i’m extremely skeptical that people move on

they suppress, they survive, but without deep understanding its impossible to say move on

you can be ignorant and survive, or face reality and climb the deeply uphill battle of real growth.

of course you can be paralyzed by it, but no one is advocating for that as treatment

I mean... depends on the trauma? Do you consider it traumatic to lose a pet? What is the difference between survival and moving on? What sort of growth would you expect there?

It really depends on the person.

I know someone who grew up in rough neighborhoods, has been in fights, been stabbed, divorced alcoholic father and drug using mother, and yet got a master's degree, a fulfilling career, marriage and family.

I know someone else who happened to be in a bank when it was robbed, and has spent years struggling to hold a steady job because the anxiety developed from the experience has persisted. Later divorced and become a poster child for making bad decisions.

The latter has gone to therapy, the former didn't. Small sample size, don't draw any conclusions other than everyone is different, and beware anyone proclaiming universal truths in psychology.

People who face reality and climb towards real growth are also suppressing their negative emotions, surviving, and moving on. Children are specifically different from adults because they don't have any emotional regulation. They just live fully in whatever emotion smacks them in the gut.

Just because you've got a scar doesn't mean it's bad, nor does it mean you haven't moved on if you haven't spent 6 months staring at the healing process. Some people heal quicker, some heal better, some heal slower, some heal worse. Like pretty much everything in biology, it's something of a spectrum.

The extra confounding factor here is that not all therapy is created equal. Some of my life has parallels with your first example. I did my first therapy session in grad school and it helped me out tremendously. Again, anecdotal, but one of the things he did very well was to not allow me to continually re-traumatize myself by rehashing the potential sources of my (maladaptive, dysfunctional, pathological, whatever word you want) thoughts and behaviours. He would listen for a bit and then steer the conversation back to: what’s the delta you’re trying to achieve? I can help you find a route from here to there without needing to go back to the beginning. As it turned out, getting myself to a better mental state helped me let go of a lot of resentment and blame that I held about the people responsible for my childhood. It wasn’t explicit, it just kind of happened as I tweaked my thinking.

There is also an element of… it’s easier to get out of a shitty headspace if you’re not already stuck in a shitty present. I moved out of my home town when I turned 18 and went to university 3 hours away. Close enough that I stayed in touch with my family but far enough away that the day-to-day chaos didn’t affect me. Cell phones weren’t a thing yet so there were plenty of viable excuses for not answering the phone.

In your second example, unlike mine, the person spirals downwards instead of escaping. They start out as anxious from the robbery, then end up anxious and unemployed. Then anxious, unemployed, and divorced. It’s pretty tough to think clearly about addressing and processing the robbery when you’re not sure if you’re going to have enough money for groceries and rent.

I don't know your relationship with the former person, but as for drawing general conclusions, I—as a reader of your comment—can't assume that you have assessed accurately whether their case is better. You might not be aware of subtle abuse in the home, masked depression, overt narcissism, suicidality, etc.

Years in the trenches have taught me that many people who seem successful, put-together, and happy are deeply struggling or causing harm to the people closest to them.

Yea, this seems to be an issue with this entire thread. Lots of people making lots of assumption about others.

As a kid into my teens I had plenty of my own trama, but was quiet and generally didn't interact with many other people my age, generally having friendships with people much older than I was. Once I got into my late twenties this turned around and I ended up being the person who many other people my age and younger would come and talk to about their lives. In general I'm just quiet and let them talk. Listening to a lot people talk about their lives has let me see one thing.

A lot of people are really screwed up from their childhood and bring it into their adulthood

The number of women that have been sexually assaulted or raped that disclose it is downright depressing, especially in their childhood. More depressing is the number of 'high status' people that cover it up.

The number of men that have some kind of depression coping mechanism such as alcoholism or hidden drug use is disturbing too. And a lot of these people are the ones you can't tell. They have successful jobs and make good money, have a wife and kids. All the checkboxes of supposed happiness. But so often these are things they had to do at some point after being driven by narcissistic parents for years. Trama driven workaholics with no at home coping mechanisms are common too.

I have no idea how much people that have had trauma can be fixed. What I'd really like to see is the signs if it taught younger so kids and learn how to avoid it and call it out.

> you can be ignorant and survive, or face reality and climb the deeply uphill battle of real growth.

> of course you can be paralyzed by it, but no one is advocating for that as treatment

Nominally yes. But in practice what are the effects of the treatments that people advocate for? Do people end up better or worse off?

> > History shows people are also very resilient at moving on from trauma

> i’m extremely skeptical that people move on

Historically, essentially everyone who lived long enough to have children had some of those children die [1]. So either:

- that wasn't traumatic

- they managed to deal with that trauma

- or they didn't move on, and everyone was somewhat traumatised

You can take your choice from the above, but on the whole this was the normal state of affairs for most of human history and prehistory.

[1]: from https://acoup.blog/2025/07/18/collections-life-work-death-an..., 50% of children died by age ~5

This is a big point that really blows my mind in the discussion. It is basically indisputable that we are exposed to less trauma than people in the past. To a laughable degree.

And it wasn't just children. Before the advent of antiseptics, a prick from a briar could basically kill you. Before modern supply chains, you almost certainly had parasites. Before modern vaccines... The list is remarkably large.

I suppose there is an argument that it is the reduction of traumatic events that makes them more traumatic? Feels like a shaky reason to think "focus more and make sure you fully grappled with how traumatic it was" is the default correct approach.

> It is basically indisputable that we are exposed to less trauma than people in the past. To a laughable degree.

And standards of living and life expediencies have gone up and to the right.

That 100 years ago people managed to cope with the traumatics of daily life doesn't translate to their coping being healthy or their lives being better (consider the massive drinking culture of the mid 1800s that ultimately led to prohibition)