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Criticisms of “The Body Keeps the Score”

(josepheverettwil.substack.com)
250 points adityaathalye | 2 comments | 22 Oct 25 18:49 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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softwaredoug ◴[22 Oct 25 20:13 UTC] No.45674571[source]▶
This article (and author) seems to be something of a trauma-skeptic, which doesn't seem to agree with mainstream science (setting aside Body Keeps the Score)

> That is, trauma doesn’t lead to dysfunction or abnormal brain function, physiology or hormonal regulation. Rather, an unhealthy person may be more susceptible to trauma.

What has been documented about Adverse Childhood Experiences doesn’t agree with this. There is copious evidence that the presence of ACEs, independent of other factors, leads to poor health outcomes [1]

It's also well known that past trauma predisposes you to future trauma [2]

There's also data indicating CPTSD, PTSD, and Borderline are distinct disorders [3]

1 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8882933/ https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

2 - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5858954/

3 - https://www.psychiatrypodcast.com/psychiatry-psychotherapy-p...

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1. jasonfarnon ◴[22 Oct 25 20:54 UTC] No.45675026[source]▶
None of these seems to be making a causal claim, did I miss something? The linked article is saying causation runs in the opposite direction.
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2. softwaredoug ◴[22 Oct 25 21:42 UTC] No.45675526[source]▶
The only studies we have are long term longitudinal. IE this one:

> After adjustment for confounding, there were statistically significant positive associations for people reporting four or more ACEs relative to those reporting no ACEs, and this was true for all chronic diseases except hypertension.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8462987

A twin study would be about as close as we could get to a randomized control trial:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...

I'm willing to use the term "cause" here, given the copious amount of studies controlling for other confounders. That's the best we can do given there's no ethical way to run a randomized control trial.