Child psychiatrist. Conservative. Trying to see what is difficult to see. Four books on trauma. Trauma Dispatch posts.
Metairie, LA
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“Self-inflation is the rule in life,” wrote Robert Trivers; hence his conclusion that we fool ourselves so as better to fool others. This explains a lot of why smart folks truly believe in toxic stress, ACEs, and complex PTSD despite the obvious lack of scientific evidence.
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1/6. Those who claim there is a mental health crisis of teens from social media will have to reckon w/ this study: Claims to be FIRST study to use psych interviews. Plus, teens followed over years AND they parsed 2 types of social media usage. @JonHaidt
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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NEW STUDY published. I showed for the first time how common false positives are for trauma events generated by self-report questionnaires. Seventy-nine percent of all events endorsed as life-threatening trauma were not traumas when verified by interview. This has huge implications for studies that rely on self-reports.
Paper is behind a journal paywall. Preprint Word version is here (publication #94): michaelscheeringa.com/public…
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In my book, “The Trouble With Trauma,” I described the history of how, and why, the myth of complex PTSD was created. Activists for complex PTSD succeeded “with one of the most incredible strategies in the history of psychiatry to convince much of the world that a new disorder existed despite the absence of the most basic scientific evidence.”
NEW Trauma Dispatch: Is complex PTSD caused by war exposure in refugees? Adding another population with this fake disorder makes a long list of oppressed victims longer.
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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Mark Ruffalo debunks complex PTSD. “Although the diagnosis has become very popular, it does not appear to stand up to scientific scrutiny.”
The Trouble With Complex Trauma | Psychology Today psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/…
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“In his brilliant book The Trouble with Trauma, child psychiatrist Michael Scheeringa explains why evidence for the stress-damages-the-brain-theory is so thin on the ground.” —From Alastair Mordey’s sharp & clear article in The Spectator. @AlastairMordey
spectator.co.uk/article/how-…
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My study is bad news for the claim that social media is causing a mental health crisis in children. This claim is unfounded because it is based largely on SELF-REPORT surveys showing rises in anxiety and depression.
I showed that self-reports of PTSD are mostly false positives. Parents reported 109 symptoms and 59 were false (59%). Children reported 194 symptoms and 138 were false (71%). (These can be calculated from Tables 2 and 5). Why would anyone think self-reports of anxiety and depression would be more reliable? @JonHaidt @jean_twenge @CJFerguson1111
Only one of the dozens of studies on depression and anxiety cited by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues was interview-based and it failed to support their claim. I described the interview study in these posts from 2023. nitter.app/m_scheeringa/status/16…
1/6. Those who claim there is a mental health crisis of teens from social media will have to reckon w/ this study: Claims to be FIRST study to use psych interviews. Plus, teens followed over years AND they parsed 2 types of social media usage. @JonHaidt
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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Great question @charlesmurray @nathancofnas . For psych trauma, answer is no. I reviewed pre-trauma prospective studies (not weak cross-sectional ones); vast majority of brain diffs pre-exist trauma. A few that found post-trauma diffs are unreplicated. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Serious question: has there ever been a study demonstrating an environmental effect on brain structure? (Apart from events involving physical trauma)
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I’m worried you might be right. DSM-5 was a disaster when they added four absurd symptoms to PTSD without evidence. DSM-6 could be worse. The case AGAINST complex PTSD is strong, and has been published by multiple scholars.
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Another good article critical of vdKolk's work. That's two in three days. People are catching on to his fabrications. @kwistent
‘The Body Keeps the Score’ offers uncertain science in the name of self-help. It’s not alone. washingtonpost.com/books/202…
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Enlightening Substack piece by Lee Jussim on the absurdity of positionality statements.
My Positionality Statement, by @PsychRabble unsafescience.substack.com/p…
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5/6. I expected these findings because prior studies relied on poor self-report, very brief screen questions, and erroneously equated suicidal feelings in the ER as an index of depression or anxiety. A small group may be vulnerable to social media, but it’s not a crisis.
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“The term ‘the body keeps the score’ is a battle cry. It is fundamentally the same as ‘remember the Alamo’ for military battle and ‘Black lives matter’ for cultural war.”
- From my new, in-depth book review of the science misinformation about trauma in The Body Keeps the Score.
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It’s not only conceivable, it was always Herman’s design to reconceptualize borderline as a trauma disorder. She and vdKolk have advocated a wrong belief system for thirty years that human nature is highly malleable and nearly all disadvantages are due to environment. From 1989:
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DSM-5 lists only 108 mental disorders. Of 474 listings, 148 are subtypes, 12 due to physical disease, 140 due to variety of substances abused, 50 dementia and cog disabilities, and 16 med-induced movement disorders. No taxonomy has asserted there are hundreds of mental disorders.
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My new paper. Large survey (n=3,885) of psych problems in child welfare. Caregiver report alone missed 50.6% of those with probable PTSD; child report alone missed 23.4%. Conclusion: confirms that reports from both are needed to not miss PTSD. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.…
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No. Complex PTSD is a fake disorder created out of thin air by postmodern neo-Marxist psychiatry activists on a never-ending utopian campaign to promote Fragilism of human nature.
The invention of complex PTSD “was an attempt to weaponize science to fabricate a narrative that nurture, not nature, dictates character, and to spread a narrative about the very core of ourselves as human beings” (The Trouble With Trauma, p84).
Bolstering the legitimacy of PTSD is the farthest thing from their minds.
Does “complex PTSD” just attempt the regain the legitimacy of PTSD when the popularized notion has become so diluted, ill-defined, and mass-dispersed?
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Do not pay reviewers. Once money is introduced, it’s about to be corrupted. We don’t get paid to raise children or be a good citizen.
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Complex PTSD is not a subcategory of PTSD. Life-threat trauma is not even required as it is in DSM. Complex PTSD IS an attempt to reframe personality disorders, especially borderline, as trauma-responses instead of heritable problems. There is no good evidence to support this attempt.
Instead of inventing a bunch of sub-categories for PTSD, how about we look closer at the impact of trauma on the trajectories of personality development
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The Body Keeps the Score is indeed terrible because it is a fictional world that van der Kolk fabricated. Here are the details that debunk his claims:
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One implication from this study is that population surveys that rely on questionnaires will create inflated prevalence rates for PTSD.
“The benefits of saving time and money to assess large samples may come with a sizeable cost of providing a degree of misleading information.”
Studies that use interviews (with proper technique) always produce lower rates of PTSD.
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Amazon review called me angsty! I get it. I lack slick rhetoric skills; but that’s the menace we’re fighting. Trauma activists give us misinformation from spirit gurus and carnival barkers. I’m punching back with intellectual framework that makes analysis of research possible.
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Trauma Dispatch was paused the past month while I revised my book Analysis of the Body Keeps the Score. I have expanded it from analyzing van der Kolk’s 42 false claims about neuroscience with 79 false claims about treatments and related topics. It should be out in 1-2 weeks.
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I developed a 6-item screen for PTSD in very young children. Psychometrics for validity published in Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics last year. Open access version now available.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3060…
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Nice work. The prevalence of mental disorders did not markedly increase either. The hysteria of researchers, editors, and media alike has been irresponsible: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/…
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My newest paper has appeared in print. The development of the first rapid and very brief screen for PTSD in very young children. journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Ful…
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People ask me, what’s the harm of trauma myths? This is the harm. Bruce Perry has influenced a generation of clinicians, teaching the first 2 months of life is a critical period to receive love or your neural development is permanently defective. He is untethered to evidence.
@BDPerry book or You Tube Video What Happened to You is what I recommend to all my clients so they can understand because knowledge gives trauma survivors a sense of control.
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I'd never seen a critical book review by a trauma expert on The Body Keeps the Score, so I made one. My take: The bestselling book perhaps in the history of psychiatry is so popular because it created a fabricated reality about trauma. piped.video/fhLght53Z9U via @YouTube
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2/6. Changes in self- and other-oriented social media use DID NOT associate with changes in Norwegian teens’ level of symptoms for depression, social anxiety, or generalized anxiety disorder in prospective, longitudinal assessments from 10 to 12, 14, and 16 years of age.
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My new book: I succinctly review the evidence for 42 claims about neurobiology, 51 claims about treatments, and 29 claims about related areas from van der Kolk’s bestseller. Many of his claims had no supporting data. Others were misrepresentations. Some were fabrications.
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It’s here. Readers asked me to expand my last book that debunked Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keep The Score. I tripled the size and number of claims debunked by covering his false claims about treatment and related issues. Available as paperback or eBook on Amazon.
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Quick breakdowns on seven studies of PTSD research culled from the year 2019 on what I think are the important topics. PTSD Research Developments of 2019: Year in Review | Psychology Today psychologytoday.com/blog/str…
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: Is complex PTSD caused by war exposure in refugees? Adding another population with this fake disorder makes a long list of oppressed victims longer.
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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Appreciate it. I did Gabor Mate on a small scale in Trauma Dispatch. He and van der Kolk share an aim of promoting the beliefs most useful to their vision of the world; their aim was never to arrive at the true facts. Mate, however, doesn't even bother to cite evidence. He just asserts. More to come.
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
God bless @m_scheeringa for the heavy lifting
Can he do Gabor Mate next?
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6/6. Quite an impressive study. Does anyone know, or think it matters, do Norwegian teens use social media as much as American teens?
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Kudos to this piece. For an analysis of the evidence in vdKolk’s book, The Body Keeps the Score, I debunked 42 neuroscience claims in my 2023 booklet, Analysis of The Body Keeps the Score: The Science That Trauma Activists Don’t Want You to Know. @_danielle_carr
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Trauma Dispatch NEW: Why does a national trauma center provide training on the nonexistent developmental trauma disorder?
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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NEW. Self-published booklet on Amazon. "The Body Keeps the Score" book by van der Kolk has been a best-seller for years and the main source of the dogma that stress damages the brain. It's never been fully critiqued until now. This booklet explains how it got the science wrong.
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For years advocates who invented complex PTSD out of thin air bent over backwards to claim they were not renaming borderline personality disorder. New advocates (article below) plead to rename borderline as complex PTSD. Both are rubbish. What a mess. theguardian.com/society/arti…
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NEW: The many revisions of PTSD criteria in DSM-5 were a disaster for lacking an evidence base and creating confusion. Our new paper addresses most of the revisions empirically for the first time. In coming posts, I’ll explain each one. Free paper at link rdcu.be/dJeef
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Review of Shrier’s new book “Bad Therapy” agrees therapy has often gone sideways in unhelpful ways, and that Bessel van der Kolk had a hand in it. The reviewer calls upon vdKolk to respond to Shrier’s critique. That’s unlikely; vdKolk has never responded at length to his critics.
There's been considerable chatter about the latest book by @AbigailShrier, and for good reason. "Bad Therapy" is very much worth reading!
My review in @ChristianPost is below.
"The weaponization of 'mental health' and trauma': Bad Therapy (review)"
christianpost.com/voices/the…
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Lawrence is right. And, my booklet “Analysis of The Body Keeps the Score," available on Amazon, covered ALL vdKolk's neuroscience claims (42 in all) that are provably wrong. “The body keeps the score” is reducible to a slogan of neo-Marxist ideology that pervades social sciences.
In my local Waterstones book store in 2024.
This book, The Body Keeps the Score by pseudoscientist Bessel van Der Kolk, is likely the number book for causing false memories in society.
A mix of half truths & the false notion that the body remembers trauma.
Neural nets do.
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I agree. Nicely written piece in The Atlantic. Exactly what I’ve been saying. A suicide pandemic that never was. There’s also a psychological disorder pandemic that never was.
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NEW: Abdi Sanati interviewed me for BJPsych Bulletin to discuss trauma hype, why trauma became a dominant concept so rapidly, why the myths of toxic stress and ACEs are activist tools, and more.
Michael Scheeringa | BJPsych Bulletin | Cambridge Core - bit.ly/499mLt8
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1/3. This review by Chang and Lee does NOT show that internet/phone use changes the way brains wire up. This type of causal conclusion is flawed for three main reasons:
First, all 12 reviewed studies were cross-sectional...
There are now multiple studies showing that a heavily phone-based childhood changes the way the adolescent brain wires up, in many ways including cognitive control and reward valuation. Here's a review of them:
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I’ve always said that if patients think fake disorders or eccentric therapies help them, I’m happy for them, until they stop working. Lots of things work differently for lots of people, including placebo. But van der Kolk did not make these types of nuanced claims about somatic therapies; he made false, hyperbolic claims about the research. Van der Kolk seems to believe he's found the cure for civilization's ills while everyone else is fumbling in the dark.
Read excerpts from your book and agree with some parts, dislike others. Can tell you will be argumentative and stubborn. My clients have had much success in resolving some of their issues, I don't argue with results, bye bye.
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3/6. And vice versa, changes in depression and anxiety symptoms DID NOT associate with future levels of self- and other oriented social media behavior.
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Yes, those trying to examine the trauma evidence with equipoise are still a relatively small, ineffectual group who are outmanned and outgunned by radical ideologues in academia whose grandiloquent rhetoric presents an imagined, alternative reality.
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What a coincidence. I just wrote something identical in my latest Trauma Dispatch:
"Some liberals want to speak out about absurd disinformation but are afraid of being purged by the Marxist mobs. This describes why hardly anyone ever seriously criticizes trauma hype. Not only are there few conservative scholars around to speak out, the liberal scholars who want to speak out know they may not survive a purge."
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
You know Paul Grossman @Paulyvagal - who’s done so much heavy lifting debunking PolyVagal Theory - has a theory that people don’t speak up against the pseudoscience because they fear the backlash.
(which he’s suffered from)
Else why have so many been so quiet?
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Correct. The body does not keep the score.
Trauma Dispatch returns. Today I "review" my own new book.
The Body Does Not Keep the Score: How Popular Beliefs About Trauma Are Wrong (Michael Scheeringa) - MICHAEL SCHEERINGA michaelscheeringa.com/1/post…
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Including all of van der Kolk's claims about treatments and other trauma topics, I analyzed 122 false claims in his book. Available only on Amazon.
Did you read @m_scheeringa’s book?
The Body Does NOT Keep the Score
You’ll fall off your chair as Scheeringa scrupulously inspects 42 scientific claims in that book!
Made them up
Mis-interpreted
Cherry picked
- and correlational zero conclusion stuff
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Of the 268 studies Haidt cited in his two Google docs supporting his claim that social media is causing a crisis of anxiety and depression, 99% used SELF-REPORTS. Of the only two interview studies—the only two that ought to be trusted—both failed to support his claim.
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: The CDC thinks correlation equals causation: Update on their newest survey on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
CDC continues the misinformation that ACEs causes adult physical and mental diseases based one hundred percent on correlational data only.
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Correction. Two studies, not one, were interview-based. The second, Kim et al (2020), also did not support Haidt’s claim. It showed that active screen time (smartphones and computers for surfing and social media) was not associated with depression or anxiety. Passive screen time (watching TV, movies, and videos) was associated with mood and anxiety disorders.
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: Psychiatrist claims on ABC news that you can get PTSD from watching television of Trump being shot.
Of course that's not true, and I explain the evidence.
michaelscheeringa.com/2024-7…
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3/3. “Sensitive periods” is commonly used by activists to fear monger (e.g., the book “What Happened to You?” by Perry & Winfrey), but evidence for them is quite thin. There are critical periods for visual & language development, but not for emotion, behavior, or moral learning.
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Nice article. I’ve been writing similar things (but not about Tik Tok) in my PsychologyToday blog and books. Trauma is being leveraged for all sorts of inappropriate things.
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As to the misinformation from trauma activists, we musn't be deceived to think they approach this as a science debate. It’s ideology war. Shonkoff, vdKolk, Perry et al have shown little balance in reflecting the other side. They are remaking society with a belief system. #Trauma
Amazon review called me angsty! I get it. I lack slick rhetoric skills; but that’s the menace we’re fighting. Trauma activists give us misinformation from spirit gurus and carnival barkers. I’m punching back with intellectual framework that makes analysis of research possible.
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1/6 On inventing complex PTSD: It is not validated. DSM rejected it. Twice. ICD accepted it for political reasons. For details, see this addendum to my book, “Complex PTSD: 9 Claims Debunked”: michaelscheeringa.com/upload…
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1/4. Claim 9 of 42 in TBKTS. Trauma produces a massive and abnormal increase in stress hormones.
My analysis: No supporting evidence was described or cited by vdKolk to support this claim despite the existence of a huge amount of research on cortisol.
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2/2. . . . As I mentioned in the booklet, since vdKolk’s claims about trauma damaging the brain are false, ipso facto his justification for promoting “body treatments” falls apart. Nevertheless, perhaps a second booklet analyzing the treatment claims would be worthwhile.
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Harnett’s work often claims that systemic racism damages brains. Once I wrote a letter to critique one of his papers; his over-the-top rebuttal was that I must believe in a hierarchy of races. After I objected, even the journal agreed w/ me and redacted Harnett's attempted smear.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School found race differences in brain structure
The only possible conclusion: "These findings offer another chilling reminder of the public health impact of structural racism."
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I think Sagan might disagree with you @JonHaidt . It’s not everyone else’s job to prove there is no harm. You’re the one claiming a harm of "mental illness." It’s your job to prove it. All you’ve come up with is biased or wrong interpretations of weak studies and anecdotes.
Sagan's dictum: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Here's an extraordinary claim: Having most teens use a consumer product for 5 hours every day that reduces the time they spend with friends, sleeping, or exercising, while exposing them to porn, violent imagery, sexual solicitations from unknown men, and constant interruptions is not harming them in any way.
As the Surgeon General pointed out yesterday, we have no evidence that this claim is true.
nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opini…
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Quarterly update on my tracking of hyped stories in media about trauma. April-June 2024 saw another increase to 24 stories PER DAY. My tracking hasn't changed; much increase over past year was due to MSN and Yahoo news aggregators recycling old stories: trauma-as-a-media-model.
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To that list of theories without substance we can add toxic stress, the body keeps the score, ACEs, and complex PTSD.
Goes, perhaps all the more, for biological psychological theories without substance (most currently, polyvagal conjectures, triune brain)— clearly myths, but masquerading as science & are treated as scientific by communities of psychologists and allied trades. Woe to patients!
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: What’s the best therapy for preschool children with PTSD? A new literature review on seven therapy techniques that have been tested. Play therapists will not be happy with the answer (again).
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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3/3. Third, zero findings in one study were replicated in any of the other studies. It took me all of 5 minutes looking at Table 1 to see that.
I know this won’t change anyone’s mind. The anti-phone movement seems like more of a culture war than a science war.
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Perhaps we should form a club. Psychology Today “depublished” my post in which I dared to criticize the toxic stress rubbish and the psychology activists, er, I mean experts, complained.
Heh. Draft ran afoul of the Psych Today editorial microsensibilities. "Bad example, Remove scare quotes" they said. I led w/an example of bad service at a restaurant. Shown below:
1. the "bad example"
2. use of scare quotes.
Not conceding. If they do, great. If not, Substack.
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1/3. Claim 42 of 42 in "The Body Keeps The Score": Trauma is the greatest public health threat in the nation. VdKolk wrote that “trauma remains a much larger public health issue, arguably the greatest threat to our national well-being.”
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VdKolk’s claim is that psychological trauma can permanently damage brains, alter personalities, and impair nearly every facet of functioning. His many supporting claims were debunked in my booklet, and I summarized each in Twitter, starting here:
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Shrier’s book spent 20 pages mauling vdKolk’s claims. For deeper dives, my book, The Trouble With Trauma, exposed vdKolk’s misinfo with chapters on toxic stress and complex PTSD, and my booklet, Analysis of the Body Keeps the Score, debunked the science claims in his bestseller.
Today's the Day!
BAD THERAPY: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
My two-year investigation into why the generation that received the most wide-ranging mental health interventions is doing so poorly.
And most importantly: How we fix it.
Available NOW: penguinrandomhouse.com/books…
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: New literature review: Can trauma-informed approaches (TIA) help understand migrant’s psychological problems?
“TIA has never been an empirically-derived concept. It has always been a Leftist, neo-Marxist ideology that claims problems of human behavior are causal from severe oppression.”
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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Not tired of being right. I always said there was no COVID-19 mental health crisis. The Lancet commission agrees: Distress increased during early months of the pandemic and returned to normal by mid-2020. No increase in suicide rates across 20 countries.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful…
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1/2. Question from a reader: Why didn’t I critique vdKolk’s treatments in my book “Analysis of The Body Keeps the Score”? Is there strong evidence to support the nonconventional treatments he supported, such as EMDR, yoga, and IFS?
Answer: No, there is no strong evidence. . . .
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A new study adds to the growing evidence that one of the new symptoms added to DSM-5 PTSD diagnostic criteria wasn't properly vetted. In Lee, Crowe,...Marx (2024), “reckless or self-destructive behavior” performed worst among all symptoms at distinguishing individuals’ symptom cluster severity. @bpmarx1
We published a study last year that demonstrated another way this symptom is worthless. The figure below shows that there was no significant difference in making diagnoses without using this symptom (blue bars) compared to when using this symptom (orange bars); the frequency of diagnosis did not significantly change for both adults and children.
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I’m pleased to announce that Ukrainian language rights have been licensed for translation of my book Treating PTSD In Preschoolers: A Clinical Guide. This will make the fifth translation!
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Routine screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) still doesn... sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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“HARVARD-TRAINED PSYCHIATRIST” screams the chyron on the screen. But it does not amount to credible. Many trauma researchers and clinicians are carnival barkers to give credence to false intellectual frameworks. The more shrill it is, the more useful to the ideologue.
NEW Trauma Dispatch: Psychiatrist claims on ABC news that you can get PTSD from watching television of Trump being shot.
Of course that's not true, and I explain the evidence.
michaelscheeringa.com/2024-7…
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Are you skeptical about the trauma-informed approaches movement? What’s the science behind it? What’s the goal? My new project, Trauma Dispatch, is trauma news you can’t get anywhere else. Weekly email is free. #trauma Example post plus site to subscribe: michaelscheeringa.com/2024-5…
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1/2. Word of mouth. Be patient and picky. Ask potential therapists by phone, What’s your opinion of CPTSD? The only acceptable answers are (1) Rubbish or (2) Skeptical. Christian counselors may be more skeptical. Trial & error; drop therapists rapidly when you get red flags.
Thanks so very much for replying! Not many bother too. So if I am to get t better and back to my thriving life as an academic and a supportive wife and friend how do I find proper treatment?
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vdKolk’s TBKTS finally lost #1 spot for Amazon non-fiction, but is still #10. Why are wrong science claims and fabrications so popular?
“Barnum’s great discovery was not how easy it was to deceive the public, but rather, how much the public enjoyed being deceived.” (D. Boorstin)
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Trauma Dispatch reveals what the advocates for trauma-informed care, ACEs, and toxic stress are doing.
#trauma #ACE
My free weekly email.
NEWEST: Failed trauma-informed public health in Philadelphia michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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I published “Analysis of The Body Keeps the Score” because the system of finding Truth in trauma research is inept. With each biased study and media hype, I wonder if the authors are bad at grasping research or captured by ideology? I think maybe it’s a wicked cocktail of both.
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Trauma Dispatch today: Another non-profit rolls out a deceptive community training project for ACEs: Thunder Bay, Ontario:
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
"This project is another example of the international effort to promote ACEs as a diagnosis of many of society’s ills and a blueprint for Leftist progressive social policies."
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1/2. The book “The Body Keeps the Score” claims psychological trauma can damage human brains and thereby CAUSE nearly every known dysfunction and this justifies political revolution in public health policies. I explained this in my booklet “Analysis of The Body Keeps the Score.”
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On how trauma hype became so popular and widely believed despite being false, I covered vdKolk and the myths of toxic stress (aka vdKolk’s “body keeps the score” phrase) and complex PTSD in my 2022 book, The Trouble With Trauma: The Search to Discover How Beliefs Become Facts.
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Psychotherapy done well can be life changing. But unfortunately @christopherrufo is also right; another example of leveraging trauma inappropriately for Leftist ideology. My book “The Trouble With Trauma” covers other examples - toxic stress, complex PTSD, and mother blaming.
Psychotherapy has become a pseudo-discipline to advance left-wing ideology in a therapeutic package.
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I’m still tracking the number of media stories (English language) that hype trauma every day. My method of tracking hasn’t changed and the number of stories keeps rising. From 9.1/day in first quarter 2023 to 16.5/day in last quarter 2023 to 20.5 in first quarter 2024.
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Great story. Here's another about looking good on paper. We called all mental health clinicians in Medicaid directories in Louisiana who see youths. Only 25% were able to schedule an appointment, and 75% was a phantom network. Paper here: doi 10.1080/15548732.2018.1537904
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In my Louisiana Child Welfare Trauma Project we created animated videos with a professional media company to train caseworkers on how to interview for PTSD symptoms. Great tips for clinicians, too. They can be viewed free here: latrauma.com/resources/asses…
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TRAUMA DISPATCH: Why is a family practice doctor considered one of the world experts on psychological trauma? Explaining the misinformation of Gabor Maté's claims about trauma and why it's so popular:
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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Granqvist, P. et al. Disorganized attachment in infancy: a review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers. Attachment & Human Development 19, 534-558 (2017). @CriticalMh
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“I reached out to Dr. van der Kolk for an interview. He responded quickly and affirmatively to the request and then abruptly ceased communication.” —Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy, p278.
Review of Shrier’s new book “Bad Therapy” agrees therapy has often gone sideways in unhelpful ways, and that Bessel van der Kolk had a hand in it. The reviewer calls upon vdKolk to respond to Shrier’s critique. That’s unlikely; vdKolk has never responded at length to his critics.
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NEW Trauma Dispatch: Trauma journal calls for papers to promote intersectional theory.
Controversial trauma theories of ACEs, toxic stress, and complex PTSD appear to “have melded seamlessly with the racial- and class-based intersectional movement.”
michaelscheeringa.com/trauma…
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We are living in a time when the catch-phrase "trauma-informed" is being used to grab the attention of policymakers and funders for just about every stubborn social policy issue.
Avoid Simplistic Thinking About Trauma-informed Care, Some Say - youthtoday.org/2019/12/avoid…
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Top 10 books I read in 2023: #1 Remembering Trauma (Richard McNally 2003). Long before I debunked vdKolk’s claims about trauma damaging brains, McNally eviscerated vdKolk’s assertions about traumatic amnesia & trauma memory. VdKolk never responded to the gutting by McNally.
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