Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Host: Alisa Zipursky interviews Emi Nietfeld. What The Most Famous Book About Trauma Gets Wrong.

Transcript

Guest Host: Alisa Zipursky interviews Emi Nietfeld. What The Most Famous Book About Trauma Gets Wrong. · The Trauma Therapist

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
0:06
Speaker 1: Therapist Podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
0:09
Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
0:12
Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
0:16
Speaker 1: you in all the while keeping the heart of this
0:19
Speaker 1: podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
0:25
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. I am Lalisa Zapersi
0:30
Speaker 2: and I am so thrilled to speak guest hosting this
0:33
Speaker 2: week's episode, I'm here with Emmy Neatfeld. Emmy is an
0:38
Speaker 2: independent journalist, a speaker, and an author of Acceptance, a
0:43
Speaker 2: critically acclaimed memoir That journal chronicles her journey through mental
0:49
Speaker 2: health systems, the foster here system, and homelessness. In addition,
0:54
Speaker 2: she writes about inequality, health and families for places like
0:59
Speaker 2: The Cut, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and so
1:02
Speaker 2: much more. Emmy lives in Manhattan with her family, and recently,
1:07
Speaker 2: her latest piece was just published this week in Mother
1:11
Speaker 2: Jones and it's entitled What the most famous book about
1:14
Speaker 2: trauma gets Wrong? And it exposes a backlash against Bessel
1:19
Speaker 2: vander Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score. Emmy thank you
1:23
Speaker 2: so much for being with us today.
1:25
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here, Lisa.
1:28
Speaker 2: So let's kick it off by telling folks a little
1:31
Speaker 2: bit more about this article, because as we're recording this,
1:35
Speaker 2: it's only been out for two days, and I'm sure
1:39
Speaker 2: some listeners haven't gotten a chance to get their hands
1:42
Speaker 2: on it yet.
1:43
Speaker 4: So for Mother Jones, I wrote a story that's called
1:47
Speaker 4: what the most famous book about trauma gets wrong? And
1:50
Speaker 4: it is about the body keeps the Score, which is
1:53
Speaker 4: Bessel vander Kolk's runaway bestseller. It's sold over three million
1:57
Speaker 4: copies worldwide and is pretty much the U big what
2:00
Speaker 4: is book about trauma? If you are a survivor who
2:03
Speaker 4: is looking for help, like this is the book you're
2:06
Speaker 4: gonna find. And I found this book when I saw
2:11
Speaker 4: it therapy after a sexual assault and generally like a
2:14
Speaker 4: really crappy childhood and everybody told me, you have to
2:18
Speaker 4: read this book.
2:19
Speaker 3: And I did read it. I read it so fast.
2:24
Speaker 4: I found it very compelling, and there were parts of
2:26
Speaker 4: it that were really disturbing to me in ways that
2:28
Speaker 4: I couldn't exactly pinpoint into. A couple of years later,
2:32
Speaker 4: when I saw this Twitter thread that really called.
2:35
Speaker 3: Out the book, and it.
2:37
Speaker 4: Inspired me to go back and reread it, and the
2:39
Speaker 4: things that it's said about survivors really shocked me, like
2:43
Speaker 4: talking about people in some pretty disrespectful ways, and.
2:47
Speaker 3: I ended up pitching this story.
2:48
Speaker 4: It went to Mother Jones, and then I started talking
2:51
Speaker 4: to experts and the things that I found were even
2:54
Speaker 4: more surprising than what's actually in the text of the book.
2:58
Speaker 2: And I just have to stay straight off the bat
3:01
Speaker 2: as a survivor advocate and a childhood sexual abuse survivor
3:05
Speaker 2: who everything I do is just about supporting survivors and
3:08
Speaker 2: the people who love us. Thank you for writing this piece.
3:12
Speaker 2: It feels long overdue. I have had so many CSA
3:18
Speaker 2: survivors in particular, send me emails, send me messages telling
3:23
Speaker 2: me they read The Body Keeps the Score and they
3:25
Speaker 2: feel worse off than before they read it, and they
3:29
Speaker 2: think that something's wrong with them because they don't see
3:33
Speaker 2: themselves in those pages. And I think that that's a
3:37
Speaker 2: really important cultural impact of this book on survivors. Is
3:43
Speaker 2: you know, I too read it looking for support, having
3:47
Speaker 2: been recommended to me by too many people on account,
3:50
Speaker 2: and I read it at a really tender time and
3:53
Speaker 2: it left me. I couldn't finish it. It left me
3:55
Speaker 2: feeling so stigmatized so pathology like I was doomed to
4:02
Speaker 2: this lifetime of totally dysfunctional relationships. Ali's Terrible health book
4:08
Speaker 2: how that out comes, and that there wasn't really much
4:10
Speaker 2: I could do to change that, And and I thought, well,
4:14
Speaker 2: that's not me.
4:16
Speaker 3: I'm not.
4:18
Speaker 2: The way he describes girls who experienced essay. So either
4:22
Speaker 2: am I not a real survivor or I am and
4:25
Speaker 2: I've just been in denial about how mess stuff I am.
4:29
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, that's a really important aspect
4:32
Speaker 2: of talking about anything that has the cultural dominance that
4:36
Speaker 2: this book has had, is that folks read it and
4:39
Speaker 2: if it doesn't resonate with them or they find it harmful,
4:42
Speaker 2: they don't think what's wrong with this text? They think
4:46
Speaker 2: what's wrong with me?
4:48
Speaker 3: Man?
4:49
Speaker 4: That is such a good point. And one of the
4:51
Speaker 4: things that comes up with this book too, that experts
4:54
Speaker 4: told me about is that even if a particular person
4:57
Speaker 4: hasn't read the book, if they go to therapy, there's
5:00
Speaker 4: a very good chance that their therapist might have read
5:03
Speaker 4: this book and might have, you know, potentially read it
5:06
Speaker 4: on critically without getting other perspectives without really evaluating the evidence,
5:11
Speaker 4: and then might be actually steering people away from the
5:15
Speaker 4: treatment that is most likely to help them, help them fast,
5:18
Speaker 4: help them.
5:18
Speaker 3: Effectively because of the book.
5:21
Speaker 4: And that is that is absolutely what happened to me
5:23
Speaker 4: with the therapist who suggested it, And it just became
5:27
Speaker 4: a very interesting question of like, you know, why is
5:29
Speaker 4: nobody challenging this book?
5:31
Speaker 3: And I rereading it, I was like, do people even
5:34
Speaker 3: read what's here?
5:35
Speaker 2: Like?
5:35
Speaker 3: It is? It is?
5:37
Speaker 4: It reads like it was written a hundred years ago
5:39
Speaker 4: in some ways in my opinion.
5:41
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, let's get into some of that. So I think,
5:45
Speaker 2: you know, I want us to talk about the way
5:48
Speaker 2: survivors are discussed in this book, But before we even
5:52
Speaker 2: get into that, what I really want to talk about
5:55
Speaker 2: is the science that's presented in this book and what
5:59
Speaker 2: you've found as in doing research for this book and
6:03
Speaker 2: speaking with scientific experts whose work Ethlavander Kolk sites frequently
6:11
Speaker 2: in the book. And to find that it wasn't just
6:16
Speaker 2: the sort of stigmatizing language that's used, but in fact
6:20
Speaker 2: that there is our medical and accuracies in the book
6:24
Speaker 2: was truly very surprising to me.
6:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.
6:28
Speaker 4: It's obviously a very complex topic. And I am not
6:31
Speaker 4: a doctor, I'm not a psychologist. I'm a journalist and
6:34
Speaker 4: a writer. And so when I started reporting the piece,
6:38
Speaker 4: I made a list of who are the experts that
6:41
Speaker 4: I should talk to about this, and one name kept
6:44
Speaker 4: coming up. Her name is Jenny Nole, and she is
6:46
Speaker 4: one of the world renowned researchers on child sexual abuse.
6:50
Speaker 4: And so I was reading her a passage from the book,
6:56
Speaker 4: and it describes a girl named Aisha who lives at
7:01
Speaker 4: a group home. She has run away from her group
7:03
Speaker 4: home and she was gang raped again. She has previously
7:07
Speaker 4: been raped and this story about her it came right
7:15
Speaker 4: after this section that if I can read a few
7:18
Speaker 4: quotes from it. Yeah, so vander Kulch, he paints this
7:22
Speaker 4: really damning picture of sexually abused girls. He's citing a
7:25
Speaker 4: big study and he says, these girls they don't have
7:28
Speaker 4: friends of either gender, They hate themselves and their biologies
7:32
Speaker 4: against them. Other kids usually don't want anything to do
7:36
Speaker 4: with them. They are simply too weird. So I was
7:40
Speaker 4: speaking to this researcher, Jenny Nole, and I was like, well,
7:44
Speaker 4: what do you think about this assessment?
7:46
Speaker 3: Do you think that this is accurate? Fair what's your take?
7:49
Speaker 3: And she was like, oh my god, this is awful.
7:52
Speaker 3: You know, this is not.
7:55
Speaker 4: The norm, and this is also a very disrespectful way
7:58
Speaker 4: to be talking about any group of people, and particularly
8:01
Speaker 4: a group of people who have been victimized like this.
8:04
Speaker 4: And the conversation was just so stark to me that
8:08
Speaker 4: it made me wonder, you know, Okay, if this is
8:10
Speaker 4: how she feels, how would the researcher who did this
8:13
Speaker 4: study feel about the way that their work was presented?
8:17
Speaker 4: And so I was like, next, I'm going to interview
8:19
Speaker 4: that person. I went to the footnote and Jenny Nole
8:23
Speaker 4: was the author of that people and he had been
8:25
Speaker 4: summarizing her work. She's one of three authors, but you know,
8:30
Speaker 4: he had been summarizing the work that she worked on.
8:32
Speaker 4: And when I called her back and was like, oh
8:35
Speaker 4: my god, you know I have something.
8:37
Speaker 3: To tell you.
8:39
Speaker 4: That passage that was your study, she was totally shocked.
8:45
Speaker 4: She was like, this totally misrepresents it. And it led
8:50
Speaker 4: me to then go through the passages where he's talking
8:52
Speaker 4: about sexual assault survivors, particularly marginalized ones, and just read carefully,
9:00
Speaker 4: what are the footnotes he's citing, and do this do
9:03
Speaker 4: the papers there match up with the claims in the book.
9:08
Speaker 2: Wow.
9:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I found that, you know, I was looking
9:12
Speaker 4: at a very small portion of the book, like really
9:15
Speaker 4: just a couple pages.
9:16
Speaker 3: It's all very long book.
9:17
Speaker 4: But in that I found, you know, some of the
9:20
Speaker 4: the citationans they do not match what the claim is.
9:24
Speaker 4: And so there was one claim that that traumatized children
9:28
Speaker 4: have fifty times the rate of asthma as non traumatized children.
9:33
Speaker 4: And I had read the book multiple times just like
9:36
Speaker 4: gone past that, and then I was like, you know,
9:38
Speaker 4: that's a really big number. That would mean that if
9:40
Speaker 4: like one hundred percent of traumatized children have asthma, only
9:46
Speaker 4: at most two percent of non traumatized children could have asthma.
9:49
Speaker 4: And I was like, does that math? And then I
9:52
Speaker 4: went and he was citing the a Geninal paper. Yeah,
9:57
Speaker 4: the paper did not mention asthma, did not mention breathing.
10:00
Speaker 4: And I asked her and she's like, we have never
10:02
Speaker 4: published on asthma. And vander Colk, oh, yeah, I will say.
10:08
Speaker 3: You know.
10:08
Speaker 4: I ended up speaking with Vander Colk and he said,
10:11
Speaker 4: you know, like sometimes he uses data that is not published,
10:15
Speaker 4: and but like this fifty x number, it's not in
10:19
Speaker 4: line with what other papers say, not at all. There
10:22
Speaker 4: is an association, but it's like two x, you know,
10:25
Speaker 4: maybe even four X.
10:26
Speaker 3: Or five X, but it's fifty X is very very big.
10:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's huge. And I actually remember reading that
10:35
Speaker 2: statistic years ago when I first read the book, and
10:38
Speaker 2: I was like, oh shit, like do do I have
10:41
Speaker 2: asked them? Not realize it? Like, you know, it was
10:44
Speaker 2: just one of a planthora of things that were presented
10:47
Speaker 2: to me as a CSA survivor that really confused me
10:51
Speaker 2: about myself at a time where, like so many other survivors,
10:57
Speaker 2: I was like, and can I really claim this? Like
11:00
Speaker 2: do I really you know, there was so much invalidation
11:05
Speaker 2: and self doubt that I was navigating. You know, the
11:07
Speaker 2: passage you read earlier about how we as girl CSA
11:12
Speaker 2: survivors we hate ourselves and we can't have functioning friendships.
11:16
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, this happened to me. But as I
11:19
Speaker 2: repeatedly tell my fantastic trauma therapist, I have always suffered
11:23
Speaker 2: from my self esteem and and pride myself since I
11:29
Speaker 2: was very small on the friendships that I have, and
11:31
Speaker 2: so I just I am that sort of a lost
11:36
Speaker 2: for how female survivors are categorized and described in the book.
11:45
Speaker 2: Are there more examples that come to mind for you
11:49
Speaker 2: about the way they're spoken about? And I'm curious also
11:53
Speaker 2: in your reread of the book about the difference between
11:58
Speaker 2: the way boy and girls serve are spoken about, because
12:02
Speaker 2: I remember quite vividly that only girls survivor's sexuality was
12:07
Speaker 2: discussed in the book, and I remember I kept hearing
12:10
Speaker 2: about oh, unquote hypersexuality, which, by the way, what does
12:14
Speaker 2: that even mean? What does it mean that medical experts
12:17
Speaker 2: are deciding what is and isn't normal for a teenage
12:20
Speaker 2: girl to do with her body sexually? But I remember
12:25
Speaker 2: noticing that discrepancy. So I'm just curious, with your journalistic
12:29
Speaker 2: eyes then reading it in a journalistic perspective, what struck
12:33
Speaker 2: you reading it that second time?
12:36
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, on the friends topic, so his
12:40
Speaker 4: quotes about not having friends, they cite this long thirty
12:44
Speaker 4: year study where Jenny Nol was one of the researchers,
12:47
Speaker 4: And when I.
12:49
Speaker 3: Was putting together the piece, I wanted to do a.
12:51
Speaker 4: Story saying, you know, it's it's like, there's no evidence
12:58
Speaker 4: that these girls don't have friends, And Jenny Nole was like,
13:03
Speaker 4: you can't say that because that's not true. They did
13:06
Speaker 4: a paper comparing friendships between between the cohort of sexually
13:12
Speaker 4: abused girls.
13:13
Speaker 3: And the cohort of girls who had.
13:15
Speaker 4: Not experienced sexually abuse, and they have the same number
13:18
Speaker 4: of peers and they have the same quality of peer relationships.
13:22
Speaker 4: So actually the whole friendship thing totally contradicts the data
13:26
Speaker 4: that was published. So that is like one example, and
13:30
Speaker 4: I think that another interesting piece, like looking at how
13:34
Speaker 4: the book is framed, is really going back to the
13:37
Speaker 4: very beginning. Like in the opening pages, we meet Tom,
13:41
Speaker 4: who is a retired marine. Yeah, it's like one of
13:45
Speaker 4: the most infamous examples from the book, because this is
13:47
Speaker 4: how it leads, this is what sets the tone. And
13:50
Speaker 4: Tom was a Vietnam War veteran. He watched many of
13:56
Speaker 4: his friends die or become seriously injured, which was clearly,
14:01
Speaker 4: you know, a horrible thing. And then he went on
14:04
Speaker 4: a rampage and he raped a woman, he murdered a farmer,
14:08
Speaker 4: he murdered local children, you know, basically committing war crimes.
14:13
Speaker 4: And yet there's no regard paid whatsoever to these victims,
14:19
Speaker 4: and instead it is about him, and like, how is
14:23
Speaker 4: he going to look his wife in the face, knowing
14:26
Speaker 4: that he brutally raped a woman who looked just like her.
14:30
Speaker 4: And I think, as a survivor, it feels very on
14:37
Speaker 4: centering right to be like, Okay, this is am I am.
14:40
Speaker 3: I like that guy, you know.
14:41
Speaker 4: And I don't want to say, oh, he's a bad
14:44
Speaker 4: person or anything like that, Like, clearly you know he
14:47
Speaker 4: was a trauma survivor too, I guess you know.
14:50
Speaker 3: But but to lead the book with that.
14:53
Speaker 4: It really feels like, Okay, this book is for an
14:55
Speaker 4: intended audience, and that intended audience was not me.
15:00
Speaker 2: Slowly, and I remember exactly where I was sitting in
15:05
Speaker 2: my old apartment reading that and realizing that a no
15:10
Speaker 2: point did vander Kulk expect us to identify with the
15:14
Speaker 2: woman who was raped or the community that is terrorized
15:20
Speaker 2: and permanently traumatized by this behavior, and we're supposed to
15:26
Speaker 2: identify with Tom. And all that left me with was
15:32
Speaker 2: being terrified of myself and thinking that I was somehow
15:37
Speaker 2: intaminated and contagious. And I will have to say, like,
15:41
Speaker 2: I have to say that it was so stigmatizing to me.
15:45
Speaker 2: It is one of the many things, frankly, that I
15:48
Speaker 2: had to work through and decided to become a parent
15:51
Speaker 2: this last year. You and I both became moms in
15:53
Speaker 2: the last eleven months. And this idea that because I
15:58
Speaker 2: have experienced trauma, that's how I am contagious and capable
16:04
Speaker 2: of doing all of this in the name of having
16:08
Speaker 2: been traumatized felt just profoundly.
16:13
Speaker 3: Harmful. Yeah, totally.
16:16
Speaker 4: I had never really thought about that angle, but it
16:19
Speaker 4: feels really really true to me, you know, And I
16:21
Speaker 4: think it's almost a truism in our society today, this
16:24
Speaker 4: whole thing of hurt people, hurt people, And I do
16:28
Speaker 4: think that the body keeps the score has really played
16:31
Speaker 4: into that in setting up trauma not only as something that.
16:38
Speaker 3: Can happen to you.
16:40
Speaker 4: When you are violated, but that you can even become
16:44
Speaker 4: traumatized by raping and murdering other people. Your own actions
16:48
Speaker 4: can traumatize you. That is how he frames the story
16:50
Speaker 4: of Tom and I find that extremely harmful because it
16:56
Speaker 4: removes agency for people's actions, and it puts victims in
17:00
Speaker 4: perpetrators on the same plane. And you know, maybe shure,
17:04
Speaker 4: there's some humanistic reason why, you know, Jesus loves us all,
17:08
Speaker 4: if you're Christian, whatever, But like when you're a victim
17:13
Speaker 4: and you're going in and you're like, hey, this person
17:14
Speaker 4: did this horrible thing to me. Like, I don't know
17:17
Speaker 4: about you or other people, but I already really identified
17:20
Speaker 4: with my perpetrator, despite like the horrible, awful things he
17:23
Speaker 4: did to me that I would never ever do to
17:24
Speaker 4: anybody else. That is something that's so common among victims.
17:29
Speaker 4: And if you are a writing a book about trauma,
17:32
Speaker 4: you should you should know that well certainly.
17:35
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, I recognize that the body
17:38
Speaker 2: Heaps score was the intended aud end audience was not
17:41
Speaker 2: necessarily survivors. It's what it's become. But I also think
17:45
Speaker 2: there is so much language of inevitability in that book
17:50
Speaker 2: that is deeply concerning to me, and it brings me
17:55
Speaker 2: to want to ask you. You know, we're having this
17:58
Speaker 2: conversation about this book, but it it's actually quite difficult
18:01
Speaker 2: to rub our heads around just how popular for how
18:05
Speaker 2: long it's been. You know, the statistic that stands out
18:09
Speaker 2: to me it's it has spent so far a total
18:12
Speaker 2: of six years on the New York Times bestseller list combined.
18:17
Speaker 2: And yet I would imagine that any sort of popular
18:21
Speaker 2: scientific theory that would be you know, placed in pop
18:26
Speaker 2: culture and the way The Body Keeps the Score has
18:28
Speaker 2: would have like, uh, there'd be a whole body of
18:32
Speaker 2: cultural and scientific criticism around it, just like it would
18:37
Speaker 2: if it was anything else that somebody was presenting that
18:40
Speaker 2: was this popular. And it makes me want to ask you, like,
18:44
Speaker 2: what do you think it is about this culture of
18:47
Speaker 2: silence around talking about the Body Keeps the Score about
18:50
Speaker 2: talking about Ussel vander Colt too, Because you know, I
18:54
Speaker 2: have been in these circles where we have said it
18:57
Speaker 2: to each other for years. There is still this palpable
19:02
Speaker 2: fear that some clinicians have, some scientists, and some survivors
19:07
Speaker 2: have of being able to talk about like that this
19:12
Speaker 2: is a flawed piece of work. Frankly, all pieces of
19:15
Speaker 2: work are, and yet we're not really supposed to publicly
19:21
Speaker 2: have discourse about that.
19:23
Speaker 3: Yeah.
19:25
Speaker 4: I think there's a couple of reasons. I think the
19:28
Speaker 4: first one is that Bessel vander Kulk is very, very successful,
19:33
Speaker 4: and this book is very successful, right, and especially academia.
19:40
Speaker 4: It's a world where you cannot piss people off who
19:44
Speaker 4: are in power.
19:45
Speaker 3: And along the.
19:45
Speaker 4: Way, I did speak to people who previously worked for
19:49
Speaker 4: Bessel vander Kolk, but I had to keep it completely
19:53
Speaker 4: off the record because they were afraid of professional repercussions.
19:56
Speaker 3: And since the piece has come out, even.
19:58
Speaker 4: Though it's been like less than seventy two hours, I've
20:01
Speaker 4: received so many emails from therapists and psychology professors who
20:07
Speaker 4: are like, you know, thank you for writing this.
20:09
Speaker 3: This is what we've been talking about for years.
20:15
Speaker 4: I also think part of why it's hard to criticize
20:17
Speaker 4: the book is because of its.
20:21
Speaker 3: Utility for people. Right, A lot of people do read
20:23
Speaker 3: the book and.
20:25
Speaker 4: They feel like it helps them, you know, And yeah,
20:28
Speaker 4: I think that's that's great for them.
20:30
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people they don't even read
20:32
Speaker 3: the book.
20:32
Speaker 4: They just see the nice cover and they hear the title,
20:36
Speaker 4: and they buy the book and they keep the book
20:38
Speaker 4: like to read some day. And you know, I think
20:41
Speaker 4: that it is so successful in so many ways as
20:43
Speaker 4: a book, and it deserves credit for that. Right, What
20:46
Speaker 4: a beautiful cover, what a great title, Like you don't
20:49
Speaker 4: even have to read the book to get the gist.
20:51
Speaker 2: Of it, to get something out of it. Yeah, And
20:53
Speaker 2: I think that's such an important piece to it, because I,
20:58
Speaker 2: you know, I have to acknowledge that for as much
21:02
Speaker 2: as I personally found the book stigmatizing. At the same time,
21:06
Speaker 2: the book and its popularity allowed for other people to
21:10
Speaker 2: understand me better. You know, while I found it personally stigmatizing,
21:15
Speaker 2: that actually destigmatized me to other people in a sense
21:18
Speaker 2: because I did not have clear narrative memories of my abuse.
21:22
Speaker 3: And that is.
21:23
Speaker 2: Something a lot of people have come to understand, is
21:26
Speaker 2: the way that trauma can work. Because of how popular
21:29
Speaker 2: this book is, and you know, it's interesting because it's like,
21:33
Speaker 2: we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
21:36
Speaker 2: It's so important that this book has brought a better
21:40
Speaker 2: understanding to us about how trauma can work in the
21:43
Speaker 2: body and the mind. And it's not the way we
21:46
Speaker 2: see on TV. And frankly, it's not the way that
21:49
Speaker 2: a lot of therapists psychiatrists have been telling us it
21:54
Speaker 2: necessarily works for decades. And at the same time, know,
22:00
Speaker 2: for me, what is so frustrating is that this is
22:04
Speaker 2: this book. You know, to Brander Coole's credit, he didn't
22:07
Speaker 2: design this book to be the answer to everything. You know,
22:12
Speaker 2: it became the way culturally, we're like, oh, you have trauma.
22:16
Speaker 2: You're traumatized by the pandemic, you're traumatized by an individual
22:19
Speaker 2: like read this book like and and so it wasn't
22:23
Speaker 2: necessarily you know, his intention for it to become the
22:28
Speaker 2: be all end all of answers. And frankly, it became
22:31
Speaker 2: a huge motivator for why I wrote my book Healing Enestly,
22:35
Speaker 2: which is a survivor to survivor guide to the healing
22:37
Speaker 2: from childhood sexual abuse. And I told both my literary
22:40
Speaker 2: agent and my editor on our first days of working together,
22:44
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I'm writing this book because people need
22:47
Speaker 2: to stop recommending the body keeps the score to see
22:49
Speaker 2: us a survivors, and we need another option that's written
22:52
Speaker 2: by survivors. And the experts in the book, including the
22:55
Speaker 2: medical experts, are survivors. And so I want to like
23:01
Speaker 2: create And you know, it was fased to acknowledge that,
23:05
Speaker 2: like he didn't write it to become the trauma Bible,
23:12
Speaker 2: or did he?
23:13
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, I I don't know.
23:15
Speaker 4: I just don't want to assume anybody's intention here, right,
23:17
Speaker 4: Like I think that's fair interviews.
23:20
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, So let's let's.
23:22
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's not talk in assuming people's franks of mind.
23:26
Speaker 2: Let's talk in facts. Let's talk about the facts that
23:30
Speaker 2: have been very quietly spoken about about Vessel vander Kolk
23:37
Speaker 2: himself and his dismissal from his own Trauma Center. I
23:40
Speaker 2: want to hear about the reporting you did around this,
23:44
Speaker 2: whether things got cut from from the piece, what did
23:48
Speaker 2: you learn from also interviewing him himself around his dismissal
23:55
Speaker 2: and and what really happened there.
23:59
Speaker 4: So one of the pieces of the vander Kulk story
24:02
Speaker 4: is that in twenty eighteen, the executive director of the
24:06
Speaker 4: Trauma Center, which is the organization that Bessel Vanderklk founded,
24:11
Speaker 4: he was dismissed for sexual misconduct. He was dismissed by
24:14
Speaker 4: the parent organization of the Trauma Center, called the Justice
24:17
Speaker 4: Resource Institute, a point that vander Kulk, you know, makes
24:22
Speaker 4: clear that it wasn't him. So then shortly after Bessel
24:27
Speaker 4: vander Kolk himself was also dismissed by the Justice Resource
24:31
Speaker 4: Institute from the Trauma Center, which was the organization he founded,
24:35
Speaker 4: and there.
24:35
Speaker 3: Was a lawsuit.
24:36
Speaker 4: They settled all of that, but he was, you know,
24:39
Speaker 4: the claims were that he was dismissed for harassing or
24:45
Speaker 4: maybe not harassing, bullying. I believe that the term was
24:48
Speaker 4: bullying and denigrating employees, and I think that that's pretty
24:53
Speaker 4: relevant when you're talking about a book about trauma, you know,
24:57
Speaker 4: where there's there's a power dynamic at Yeah, and you
25:01
Speaker 4: know how.
25:02
Speaker 2: And a lot of workplaces replicate the trauma that we experience.
25:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, And so you know, and I think there's
25:09
Speaker 4: been some really good original reporting in like the Boston
25:11
Speaker 4: Globe about that. Like I don't have I don't really
25:14
Speaker 4: have new things to share here, but I did. I
25:16
Speaker 4: did speak to vander Kulch. Unfortunately I spoke to him
25:20
Speaker 4: too late in the process. I would love to you know,
25:24
Speaker 4: I got some really interesting information from him that I
25:27
Speaker 4: would love to share at another time. But you know,
25:30
Speaker 4: he told me that when he was when he was fired,
25:33
Speaker 4: he had been on sabbatical and didn't really know what
25:36
Speaker 4: happened with Spinizola, who was the director of the executive director.
25:42
Speaker 4: And that was that was some new information because I
25:45
Speaker 4: have read most of the news articles about this firing,
25:48
Speaker 4: these firings, and you know, I've never seen before that
25:51
Speaker 4: he was on sabbatical and so but there were so
25:55
Speaker 4: many there were so many things that we couldn't get
25:57
Speaker 4: into it, Like if I I wish I had talked
25:59
Speaker 4: to him so much earlier, because you know, he has
26:02
Speaker 4: such a distinctive voice and distinctive opinions, and you know,
26:05
Speaker 4: I asked him directly about this question of like, how
26:08
Speaker 4: do you feel about when survivors read this book and
26:13
Speaker 4: then say that they found it pathologizing? Right, They said
26:17
Speaker 4: that they feel like you're treating people who have PTSD
26:21
Speaker 4: as like being irrevocably harmed. And what he told me is,
26:25
Speaker 4: here's the quote. When you have PTSD, you do very
26:28
Speaker 4: self destructive and difficult things, and you make people around
26:32
Speaker 4: you unhappy. So yes, it is a bad condition to have.
26:37
Speaker 4: And then he added, you can say, oh, everything is wonderful,
26:42
Speaker 4: you just happen to be destroyed inside.
26:46
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to know that I had no idea
26:49
Speaker 2: I was destroyed inside. That's so helpful to hear from
26:54
Speaker 2: the foremost trauma expert in the world. Oh my goodness,
26:58
Speaker 2: I'm so glad learn this about myself.
27:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
27:04
Speaker 4: It was an interesting you know, I kind of caught
27:07
Speaker 4: me off guard with its its frankness, right, because I
27:10
Speaker 4: feel like I feel like when I read the book,
27:12
Speaker 4: I kind of got those overtones and then it was like, okay,
27:15
Speaker 4: this is this is how you know, this is what
27:19
Speaker 4: this is what he says about it, this.
27:20
Speaker 3: Is how he feels.
27:22
Speaker 4: And one of the things when we were talking about
27:24
Speaker 4: some of the the facts that people disagree with or
27:30
Speaker 4: one of the things is around treatment and like what
27:33
Speaker 4: kinds of treatment work? And you know, I think this
27:37
Speaker 4: book for a lot of people has has opened up
27:40
Speaker 4: new ideas of how they could deal with their PTSD
27:45
Speaker 4: or complex PTSD.
27:46
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yes, exactly.
27:50
Speaker 4: And AMDR is like backed by like quite a bit
27:53
Speaker 4: of evidence now that like it seems very very effective, right,
27:57
Speaker 4: like one of the best treatments. But then about the
28:00
Speaker 4: other treatments like exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy, they're kind
28:06
Speaker 4: of these CBT therapies Vandercolt takes a very very negative
28:10
Speaker 4: view on them and to the like really saying like,
28:15
Speaker 4: you know, these they do not work and giving some
28:19
Speaker 4: statistics that I did not feel matched what the actual
28:24
Speaker 4: studies said. And so one of the people who wrote
28:28
Speaker 4: one of the studies that was cited for like this
28:30
Speaker 4: does not work, he told me, he told me that, like, actually,
28:38
Speaker 4: I think cognitive behavioral therapy as a first line treatment
28:42
Speaker 4: is one of the best treatments for PTSD, and so
28:47
Speaker 4: like the actual researchers who VANDERCOLK sites, I went and
28:51
Speaker 4: I talked to them, and then the piece is like
28:52
Speaker 4: filled with these quotes, and so I think it's it's
28:55
Speaker 4: really important for people to get the most accurate information
28:59
Speaker 4: so that they can the decisions for themselves and therapists too, right,
29:03
Speaker 4: so that you're not if this is what you see
29:06
Speaker 4: and you're not really looking into it deeply, you might
29:09
Speaker 4: tell people, you know, I don't think cognitive behavioral therapy
29:12
Speaker 4: is going to work for you, Like I don't even
29:13
Speaker 4: think you should try it when that's not really what
29:16
Speaker 4: the data.
29:17
Speaker 2: And that's what you personally experienced in your treatment with.
29:21
Speaker 3: Your Yeah, exactly like I had.
29:24
Speaker 5: I have.
29:25
Speaker 4: I have really had the full gamut of therapy experiences
29:28
Speaker 4: in my life. I've had some very very harmful cognitive
29:31
Speaker 4: behavioral therapy. I had some great cognitive behavioral therapy. And
29:35
Speaker 4: my experience with this book is that the therapist who
29:38
Speaker 4: recommended it and who who basically followed the playbook, I
29:45
Speaker 4: felt so ashamed. I had so much additional baggage that
29:49
Speaker 4: I had to work through because she was basically like,
29:52
Speaker 4: you shouldn't talk about what happened to you. She said,
29:54
Speaker 4: it will re traumatize you and it will make you worse.
29:58
Speaker 4: And when I was like, what is the data for that,
30:01
Speaker 4: she was like, this is what the body keeps the
30:03
Speaker 4: Score says. And then I read the book and that's
30:06
Speaker 4: basically what it says. And so I just went farther
30:11
Speaker 4: and farther into my shell, and I did pull up
30:16
Speaker 4: the papers then, like I just googled what works for PTSD,
30:21
Speaker 4: and I happened to find prolonged exposure therapy and I
30:26
Speaker 4: ended up entering a research study as a subject and
30:29
Speaker 4: I received.
30:30
Speaker 3: It that way.
30:31
Speaker 4: But there were like months or maybe years of trying
30:35
Speaker 4: to undo the damage that this therapist caused me, citing
30:40
Speaker 4: Vandercolk along the way.
30:43
Speaker 2: And so I think that that personal experience that I
30:47
Speaker 2: just have to note also forever the journalists then goes
30:51
Speaker 2: directly to the citations and the sources and receiving that
30:54
Speaker 2: feedback from her therapist, which I love that you did.
30:58
Speaker 2: I think that leads those sort of perfectly to my
31:00
Speaker 2: last question for you, which is what do you think
31:05
Speaker 2: needs to shift about the culture around the body heaps
31:10
Speaker 2: the score.
31:13
Speaker 3: I would love it if people.
31:18
Speaker 4: Recognize both the benefits of the book and its drawbacks.
31:22
Speaker 4: Clearly it is doing a lot of work for certain
31:26
Speaker 4: people and being really helpful to them. And also I
31:29
Speaker 4: don't think people should be recommending it to everybody who's
31:33
Speaker 4: been through trauma, like particularly women who are victims of
31:37
Speaker 4: sexual trauma.
31:39
Speaker 3: Particularly people who are marginalized.
31:41
Speaker 4: In some way, Right, I just would be really aware
31:47
Speaker 4: of that a lot of people of color, particularly people
31:49
Speaker 4: who are Vietnamese, are like they read the initial pages
31:53
Speaker 4: with the story of Tom and that and then themselves
31:56
Speaker 4: is so damaging. So I think that there should just
31:59
Speaker 4: be great awareness there. And I really do believe we
32:02
Speaker 4: need to have better representations of healing that are written
32:05
Speaker 4: by survivors for survivors, like clearly your book Healing, honestly
32:12
Speaker 4: maybe my book Acceptance, where I talk about all the
32:17
Speaker 4: things childhood. I was homeless for a while, I was
32:21
Speaker 4: in foster care, I was you know, sexually assaulted, neglected, everything,
32:26
Speaker 4: all the things, and I write about it and the
32:28
Speaker 4: challenges of traditional therapy of CBT of just how do
32:33
Speaker 4: you work your way through that? And I think that
32:37
Speaker 4: there also is really a dearth of representation of these
32:41
Speaker 4: like frontline gold star therapies, right, like prolonged exposure, cognitive
32:48
Speaker 4: processing therapy. There's just like not really representations anywhere. I
32:52
Speaker 4: would say, like the only real pop culture one is
32:55
Speaker 4: the ten Sessions episode of This American Life, which goes
33:00
Speaker 4: through cognitive processing therapy and you hear the recordings of
33:05
Speaker 4: the writer as she's going through it, and so I
33:09
Speaker 4: think that there needs to be more of those.
33:11
Speaker 2: What do you think? Yeah, I'm right here with you.
33:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I am a firm believer that we need
33:19
Speaker 2: to be listening to survivors, and that survivors are the
33:22
Speaker 2: experts and their own safety and their own healing, and
33:25
Speaker 2: we need resources that trust us, that teach us to
33:30
Speaker 2: trust ourselves, that teach us to listen to our own intuition,
33:35
Speaker 2: that teach us how to tap into our own power
33:38
Speaker 2: that's always been there but has been silenced by rape
33:40
Speaker 2: culture in the world around us. And the more that
33:44
Speaker 2: we can center those resources, I think the better off
33:47
Speaker 2: all of us will be. And so yeah, I just
33:52
Speaker 2: want to say thank you so much for your labor
33:54
Speaker 2: in writing this piece and finding a home for it,
33:58
Speaker 2: in doing all of this research. I think that this
34:01
Speaker 2: piece is very important and I know that the legacy
34:06
Speaker 2: of it will just continue to grow and grow.
34:11
Speaker 4: Thank you so much that Lisa, this has like been
34:14
Speaker 4: so so wonderful to get to talk about it more
34:17
Speaker 4: and talk about it with, you know, a fellow, a
34:20
Speaker 4: fellow sexual assault survivor. And I hope, I hope that
34:24
Speaker 4: it helps other people and helps their please too.
34:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everybody who's listening, please go to mother Jones
34:32
Speaker 2: and read what the most famous book about trauma gets wrong.
34:37
Speaker 2: Thank you Emmy so much for being with us, and
34:39
Speaker 2: thank you to Guy McPherson for giving us the opportunity
34:42
Speaker 2: in the platform to have this conversation.
34:45
Speaker 5: Thank you, Mosilim Homom