06/18/2026
Oh man I love this Podcast and appreciate some of the very very valid critique of The Body Keeps the Score and Bessel van der Kolk.. HOWEVER… good lord I had some feelings about some of what was said in the podcast.
A few thoughts other than not loving the general dismissive tone they were talking in describing some trauma symptoms (eg dissociation), and some effective trauma treatments
1. Anyone who works with trauma survivors knows that talk therapy cant always cut it. There is a valid critique around some of the pseudoscience that gets passed around as gospel but to dismiss it all is just wrong and irresponsible.
2. Yes RCTs are the gold standard and I’m an evidenced-based girlie, HOWEVER just because there isn’t an RCT, doesn’t mean an intervention isn’t effective. Just because we don’t always know why something works doesn’t make it junk science. Take yoga and meditation- practiced for thousands of years before any RCT showed what was already known about their positive impact on stress and mental health. I’d add just because there may be pieces of old theories that don’t line up exactly as we learn more and more about the brain (eg polyvagal theory, triune brain theory) doesn’t mean they are junk science. We just didn’t get everything right the more we are able to actual study things.
3. Not everything can be studied. This is hard on this field. We want to seem credible and to be taken seriously as a science. But psychology is an art and science. Not every intervention can be manualized and studied.
Did you listen? Would love to hear what you thoughts. Comment ⬇️
