Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
Trauma DispatchTrauma news you can't get anywhere else. |
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Trauma DispatchTrauma news you can't get anywhere else. |
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CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Genetics researcher Nathan Wellington, PhD Source: Journal of Neurogenetics Read time: 2.3 minutes This Happened In September 2024, a review of epigenetic research related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was published. Past reviews focused primarily on DNA methylation. This review included factors that regulate methylation including histones, microRNA, and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Who Did This The first author was Nathan Wellington, PhD, a postdoc fellow at University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. This is his first first-author publication. He has one secondary author publication. His career aim is to develop genetic biomarkers of PTSD to provide treatment targets. Background Epigenetics is the process by which gene expression is regulated. DNA contains the codes for genes, but for genes to be expressed, the DNA has to be transcribed to the gene protein product that does the actual work in the body. Most studies have focused on methylation, which is either adding methyl groups or removing methyl groups on DNA. It is believed that adding methyl groups usually blocks gene expression. Some SNPs can influence methylation. A gene can exist in many variants (SNPs) that differ by a single nucleotide in a key region that alters the function of the gene. MicroRNA (miRNA) are small, single-stranded RNA that can bind to RNA and block gene expression. Histones are protein structures that act as spools around which DNA winds itself. Histones protect DNA from damage and facilitate DNA being coded into gene products. The Claim One purpose of investigating epigenetics is to try to identify biomarkers, which can be used to either detect individuals who will be susceptible to develop PTSD if they experience trauma, or to accurately detect individuals who have PTSD. Methylation Seventy-three studies investigated DNA methylation, identifying 488 unique DNA sites that were hypomethylated, and 1,940 sites that were hypermethylated in individuals with PTSD. Replications between studies were rare; among hypomethylated sites, only five were found more than once (i.e., replicated); among hypermethylated sites, only 20 were found more than once. No site was found in more than three of the 73 studies. SNPs Nineteen studies investigated SNPs, identifying 88 SNPs related to PTSD. Only one SNP finding was replicated, being found in three studies. miRNA Sixteen studies investigated miRNAs, identifying 194 downregulated and 24 upregulated miRNAs that were replicated in at least two studies. Three studies dominated, accounting 87% of these replications. The other thirteen studies for 13% of the replications. Histones Nine studies examined alterations on histones. No sites have been replicated. Analysis
Third, the findings do not show a reasonable promise of being replicable, as this literature review demonstrated. While the authors of the review appeared to believe that 20 hypermethylated sites replicated in two of 73 studies was reason for hope, that is the same thing researchers on psychophysiology and brain imaging asserted for years before fading away. No patient's treatment has ever been influenced by epigenetic data. Should these types of studies continue anyway? Perhaps in the hope that some new breakthrough will make sense of it all? With research funding limited, this is a question that the National Institute of Mental Health has been historically slow to grapple with partially because admitting defeat would diminish the enthusiasm for research funding. CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Anita Burgund Isakov, PhD Source: Trauma, Violence, & Abuse Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened Researchers conducted a literature review of 45 papers to examine how the concept of trauma-informed approaches (TIA) can apply to forced migrant families to improve services. Who Did This? Social worker Anita Burgund Isakov is an Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Belgrade, Serbia. She has three first-author, and four secondary-author publications in the PsychInfo database. Her focus has been on foster care and family support services. This is her first paper focused on trauma. The Claim The aim of the literature review was “to understand the concept of trauma-informed approaches for migrant and refugee families.” From reading these papers, the authors extracted the following five topics on how TIAs have been applied: (1) Experiences of migration. In addition to true life-threat trauma experiences, migrants also can experience economic insecurity, discrimination, lack of privacy in asylum centers, and challenges of assimilating into a new country. (2) Conceptualization of trauma. Services must endeavor to convey greater understanding, respect, foster trust, be culturally-responsive, acknowledge intergenerational impacts, and strive for equity. This is the only way to be “genuinely healing” and “address the multiple layers of disparities” faced by migrants. (3) Theoretical frameworks of TIA. Several theoretical frameworks have variously involved cultural humility, intersectionality of racial-based discriminations, and resilience. (4) Approaches to trauma work. The authors asserted that cultural adaptations ought to be incorporated into psychotherapy techniques, but no studies have tested that. (5) Programs and interventions to support families. Several training exercises have been used to instill cultural sensitivity into service providers. Analysis The data in the papers they reviewed was uninformative. There are no randomized trials of TIA. Only nine of the 45 studies involved quantitative data. A method of analysis was lacking. There was no attempt to question the appropriateness or effectiveness of TIA. The review could make no definitive recommendations because nothing had been precisely defined or tested. The more concerning flaws of the review, however, lie in two more pernicious defects: (1) The aim of the review was flawed by circular reasoning. The usual scientific process is to gather data on a concept to demonstrate its validity. This review did the reverse. The authors reviewed papers that unquestioningly asserted the concept of TIA, and then concluded, of course, that the concept of TIA was vital. Critical thinking was absent. The authors ignored any benefits migrants might perceive from locating to more secure and free countries. (2) Verbiage was impossibly vague. The writing was an excess of words of trivial or vague content, typical of nearly every TIA publication. Deciphering a TIA manuscript is like deciphering hieroglyphics of a lost civilization, except that TIA jargon has never been coherent. For example, the Discussion section concluded, “The intersection of different forms of oppression and discrimination, such as racism and migration status, is recognized by other authors as an important aspect of TIA to forced migrants as it recognizes the unique experiences of each individual (Bastia, 2014; Lee & Choi, 2022).” This lit review, however, did not establish an impact of oppression or discrimination, much less a combined impact. Being recognized by other authors is not a form of evidence. Recognizing the unique experiences of individuals is both inherent in any reasonable encounter and sufficiently vague to mean little. Why Is This Happening? A criticism of TIA is that, more than a decade after being invented out of thin air, the concept is still vague [1]. It should be obvious by now that being vague is the point, so that it can be whatever activists want for any occasion.
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. TIA theory serves the crucial functions of asserting causation and maximal severity. For the ideology to change society as intended, the inequity outcomes must be greater so that the outrage must be greater, so that greater involvement of the State must be demanded. Victims don’t just need psychotherapy, they need all of society to accommodate them everywhere all the time, regardless of how it impinges on other rights and freedoms. References [1] Mark Smith, Sebastian Monteux, and Claire Cameron (2021). Trauma: An ideology in search of evidence and its implications for the social in social welfare. Scottish Affairs 30(4):472–492 DOI: 10.3366/scot.2021.0385. CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS Visionary architect Ma Ry Kim Source: KHON 2 news Read time: 1.5 minutes, plus 51-second video This Happened In October 2024, Honolulu city government unveiled a plan to address homelessness with neuroscience-backed architecture. Who Did This? The architect hired to create the housing units is Ma Ry Kim. She is the CEO of B+HARI (Brain Health Applied Research Institute), which she co-founded in 2020 with a neurologist to design groundbreaking spaces that merge “cutting-edge neuroscience” and architecture to support cognitive resilience and brain health. The city of Honolulu is spending $700,000 to renovate a warehouse, creating fourteen individual units of housing. The program is being operated by The Institute for Human Services, Inc., a non-profit in Hawai′i focused exclusively on ending homelessness. The state of Hawai′i will fund the operating costs, expected to cost between $1.5 and $2 million a year. The Premise Hailed as a “revolutionary city-state program” by the media, placement of homeless individuals in unique individual housing units will rewire their brains to help them heal. According to KHON 2 reporting, “Architect Ma Ry Kim designed the space using neuroscience research on how the brain heals from the trauma of homelessness.” The 51-second video below, by KHON 2, shows Kim explaining how it works. Analysis There is no prior experience with this housing program that could provide evidence that this will work. The neuroscience behind the program was neither explained nor referenced. It is unclear what homeless individuals need to heal from but it has something to do with “trauma recovery.” It is unclear how healing from trauma will end their homelessness. It is unclear how living in units with four zones on a spectrum of public versus private space will rewire their brains. Why Is This Happening? This program is typical of the utopian Leftist project of the past one hundred years in America which believes that an administrative state can and should rule by science to eliminate all human suffering. Usually, the State makes a perfunctory attempt to provide the science background for its grandiose projects, but in this case, the manipulation of human plasticity, evidence from neuroscience, and rewiring brains were simply asserted. This program is activism based on the moral foundation of progressive liberals which places care for the disadvantaged over all other moral concerns (such as tradition, loyalty, patriotism, and liberty). They assert that human nature is almost completely molded by life experiences, such that individual differences in success or failure are caused by experiences, not unchanging personal traits caused by genetics. That is a false certainty that leads nowhere good, and is doomed to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a plan that is guaranteed to fail. CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Resti Tito H. Villarino, RN (left), Suzanne Cosh, PhD (right) Source: Asian Journal of Psychiatry and BMC Psychiatry Read time: 2.3 minutes This Happened In the November 2024 issue of Asian Journal of Psychiatry, a literature review by Tito and colleagues reported on the impacts of natural disasters on Filipinos' mental health. In the November 2024 issue of BMC Psychiatry, a literature review by Cosh and colleagues examined the degree to which a new concept called eco-anxiety associated with mental health problems. Who Did This? Resti Tito H. Villarino is a Registered Nurse and currently works as a Clinical Instructor at the College of Nursing at West Visayas State University, Philippines. He has published several articles on well-being in college students. This is his only first-author paper on psychiatric disorders. Suzanne Cosh is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of New England, Australia. She has approximately 30 first-author and over 40 secondary-author peer reviewed publications. Her most frequent first-author research topic is elite athletes, and none have been on trauma or severe stress. The Claim Tito and colleagues reviewed 32 studies. They searched for studies that assessed psychiatric problems related to events that could be attributed to man-made greenhouse gas emissions, including hurricanes, drought, and heatwaves. They concluded, as had all previous literature reviews on natural disasters, that these are associated with elevated PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Their message, however, was that the world ought to have heightened urgency because disasters are increasing in frequency due to man-made impacts. Cosh et al. reviewed 35 studies. They found that individuals who worry more about climate—the newfangled concept of eco-anxiety—show more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress in a causal relationship. Their interpretation is that eco-anxiety is probably a normal response of rational humans to a true crisis, but it can become excessive. Analysis Tito and colleagues manipulated what should have been a run-of-the-mill literature review into a form of activism by attributing psychiatric suffering to allegedly oppressive human activities. They did not review any evidence about the frequency of disasters. They simply asserted that disasters are increasing in frequency as scientific consensus.
When counting the number of tornadoes of all strengths, there is no trend over the past sixty years; and when counting only the strongest tornadoes (EF3 and higher), “their number decreased by about 40 percent during the sixty years following 1954.” The situations are similar for snowfalls, precipitation, floods, drought, and wildfires. Eco-anxiety is not a validated disorder-level problem. Cosh and colleagues’ form of activism was to blindly accept the premise of eco-anxiety as a valid problem. They lightly touched on the debate of whether this newly-invented concept is a normal reaction of all normal people that can become excessive, or is one of many manifestations of other problems such as generalized anxiety disorder. A third option, which they, and leftist academia, typically ignore, is that eco-anxiety is a function of excessive neuroticism, one of the big five personality traits that has been shown to be more common in liberals [2,3]. Unfortunately, they did not collect the type of data that could have untangled this question. Cosh neglected to mention that there have been no interview-based assessments or other attempts to distinguish climate worries from these other problems. Climate anxiety, so far, has always been assessed with self-report, which is highly prone to false positives and misunderstandings. Why Is This Happening? The demand for crisis has outstripped the supply. The strategy of the liberal hegemony in academia and media has been to fabricate crises and claim they are existential threats to humanity. This has been most apparent in politics, but it is also common in psychology. Climate change is no different. As one group of researchers claimed what has been a common refrain, “The climate emergency will likely prove this century's greatest threat to public health” and we are facing “a potential mental health crisis” [4]. Based on evidence, this claim is absurd for multiple reasons. With just a bit more equipoise, they could have made the true, and more responsible claim, that climate is complex, man-made emissions are not a crisis, but the minds of many humans are vulnerable to believe fictions simply because they are seamless with their inner worlds [5]. REFERENCES [1] Koonin SE (2024). Unsettled? What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters (Updated and expanded edition). BenBella Books: Dallas, TX. [2] McCann SJH (2018). State Resident Neuroticism Accounts for Life Satisfaction Differences Between Conservative and Liberal States of the USA. Psychological Reports 121:2, 204-228. [3] Widiger TA, Oltmanns JR (2017). Neuroticism is a fundamental domain of personality with enormous public health implications. World Psychiatry Jun;16(2):144-145. [4] Patrick R, Snell T, Gunasiri H, Garad R, Meadows G, Enticott J (2023). Prevalence and determinants of mental health related to climate change in Australia. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 57(5):710-724. [5] Scheeringa MS (2022). The Trouble With Trauma: The Search to Discover How Beliefs Become Facts. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press. ISBN 978-1949481563 CATEGORY: COURTS Thirteen of the 16 plaintiffs in Held v Montana. Rikki Held is back row, fourth from left. Source: Daily Montanan Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened On December 18, 2024 the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of plaintiffs in the case of Held v Montana that they have a constitutional right to challenge man-made climate change, and the state must change how it evaluates projects for environmental impact. Who Did This? The plaintiffs were a group of sixteen children, ranging from two to eighteen years when the case was filed in 2020. Oregon-based law firm Our Children’s Trust brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs. The firm specializes in using groups of children as plaintiffs and filing in liberal courts to establish a new right for a healthy environment. They have active cases in Alaska, Florida, Hawai‘i, Utah, and Virginia. The Premise The case was filed in 2020 alleging that actions by the state of Montana exacerbated the harms that the sixteen children were feeling from man-made climate change. They sought two main things: (1) a declaration that they have legal standing to use a constitutional right to use man-made climate change as grounds for lawsuits, and (2) removal of a state law that was blocking analyses of climate impact on all new projects which require state approval. In 2023, a district court ruled in their favor on all points. The State appealed to the Montana Supreme court. In December 2024, the Supreme Court’s decision, on a 6-1 vote, agreed with the district court. The decision was based on the Montana state constitution, which was created in 1972 with a right to a “clean and healthful environment,” which is not part of the inalienable rights in the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled that climate is a domain of environment, and that man-made impact on the climate through carbon dioxide emissions was scientifically indisputable. Analysis A crucial aspect of determining legal standing to sue is that alleged wrongs must cause injuries to individuals. The court made an unusual ruling in this case that physical or mental injury did not need to be proven. Instead, any state law that impinges on the capacity to assess man-made climate effects is sufficiently harmful to their constitutional right. The lone dissenting justice expressed alarm about this ruling. Because no physical or mental harm is needed to have standing to sue, the Court overstepped: This opens the door for citizens to challenge statutes by mere assertions that the State failed to protect citizens against harm.
The complete lack of equipoise about a complex scientific issue was disturbing. Despite the consensus in the academic and media liberal hegemony that man-made climate change is an existential crisis, many experts have thoroughly debunked that argument, but received little press [1,2]. What does this have to do with trauma? This ruling by an activist court sets a precedent for citizens to sue based upon a mere assertion that a State actor failed to protect citizens. Trauma activists have worked persistently over the past two decades to install an intellectual framework of Fragilism about human nature with a plethora of alleged societal traumatic oppressions that cause permanent neurobiological harm. Based on the Montana precedent, we can easily imagine lawsuits against governments for failing to prevent trauma, regardless if evidence shows true harm. A climate-based trauma argument has already been extensively promulgated, for example, by Harvard’s activist Center for the Developing Child (see here) and in the form of so-called eco-anxiety by many scholars (see here). REFERENCES [1] Wrightstone G (2017). Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know. Silver Crown Productions, LLC: USA [2] Koonin S (2021). Unsettled?: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. BenBella Books: Dallas, TX. CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Karen-Inge Karstoft, PhD Source: Journal of Affective Disorders Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened Complex PTSD was invented in 1992 on the premise that certain types of events were more damaging than single-event traumas by being repeated and prolonged (a dose-response theory) and interpersonal in nature. In the December 2024 issue, the Journal of Affective Disorders published a study claiming to show that being a civilian refugee with indirect exposure to war qualified as one of those extremely damaging types of events. Who Did This? Psychologist Karen-Inge Karstoft is an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and has published 15 first-author and approximately 36 secondary-author research articles, mostly on trauma or PTSD. The Claim Researchers sent requests to participate in their research study to all 18,389 adult Ukrainian refugees registered in Denmark. They received completed electronic surveys from 6,761 individuals. The types of experiences that counted as exposure to war included hometown was affected by war (with or without damage to their own homes), witnessed first-hand or just heard about combat, and lost a family member or close friend due to war. Using ICD-11 diagnostic criteria, they found that 15.9% fulfilled criteria for PTSD but not complex PTSD, and 13.5% fulfilled criteria for both PTSD and complex PTSD. They tested the dose-response premise by predicting that exposure to more war events would lead to more diagnoses of complex PTSD. This was not supported. Of the seven types of war exposure they measured, four significantly associated with PTSD, but only two significantly associated with complex PTSD. The also tested the interpersonal premise by predicting that interpersonal trauma events prior to the war would lead to more diagnoses of complex PTSD. This was not supported. The authors claimed, however, this was supported with a misleading interpretation of their data: The odds ratio of interpersonal events with PTSD was 1.17, and for complex PTSD was 1.44, both of which were significant and similar in magnitude to each other. The authors asserted that 1.44 was higher than 1.17, but they did not conduct a significance test. Analysis There are multiple major flaws in this study. First, researchers did not gather information on whether events were repeated, prolonged, or interpersonal. These qualities seem to have been assumed. Second, their assessment method did not determine the onset of any symptoms in relation to war exposure. They have no idea if PTSD symptoms, or the so-called complex PTSD symptoms, were present before or after war started. Third, they used self-report questionnaires which are prone to false positive diagnoses. The researchers nevertheless expressed zero reservations about the existence of complex PTSD in this sample.
The absurdity of the evidence claimed by complex PTSD activists is described here and here. The proposed disorder was rejected by both DSM-IV and DSM-5 due to absence of evidence, but the ICD adopted it in 2019 for political reasons. Despite the absence of validity, researchers frequently add new populations that allegedly have high rates of complex PTSD including prisoners in jail, gang members, violent criminals, prisoners of war, foster care children, soldiers, refugees without war exposure, domestic violence victims, police officers, North Korean defectors, and cardiac surgery patients. As I wrote in my book, “The fundamental appeal of complex PTSD is moral, not scientific. To believe in complex PTSD is to believe in a mission to save weaker, disadvantaged people from being victims of stronger perpetrators. By supporting this mission, the believer is imbued with higher moral status. That is the true value of complex PTSD.” [1] The most enduring lesson of the complex PTSD scandal is that in the social sciences, where manipulation of soft data and misleading interpretations are chronic affronts, the most concerning aspect is that researchers seem to easily believe their own deceptions. REFERENCES [1] Scheeringa, M. S. The Trouble With Trauma: The Search to Discover How Beliefs Become Facts. (Central Recovery Press, 2022). CATEGORY: POPULAR CULTURE Mother Jones (left), Annie Lane (right) Sources: Mother Jones magazine and Creators Syndicate Read time: 2.0 minutes This Happened Within a span of two weeks in December 2024, two national outlets published opposite views on the famously controversial treatment recommendations for trauma in Bessel van der Kolk’s bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score. On December 18, Mother Jones magazine published an article titled “What the most famous book about trauma gets wrong,” noting how van der Kolk’s treatment claims are rubbish. On December 31, the advice column Dear Annie highly recommended van der Kolk’s book to a trauma survivor who was desperate after his previous therapists failed to help. Who Did This? Mother Jones magazine began in 1976. It was named after Mary Harris Jones, a union organizer and socialist. It currently publishes six issues per year and provides daily digital content. Content is highly progressive leftist. Dear Annie (Annie Lane) is a nationally-syndicated advice columnist in the style of Ann Landers, “Dear Abby,” and others. The Claims In the Mother Jones article, journalist and book author Emi Nietfeld explored how trauma victims were portrayed by van der Kolk in his popular book. Upon first reading it, Nietfeld felt “gross and ashamed” after noting how van der Kolk treated sexual assault survivors with disdain. When Nietfeld dug deeper, other scientists she spoke to said “van der Kolk mischaracterizes their research and steers survivors away from treatments that might help them.” In Dear Annie, advice was proffered to a 45-year-old male who had suffered childhood traumas. He wrote that he had sought mental health help for 17 years, and gone through five therapists and as many psychiatrists. None of them could help him. Annie suggested that “the five therapists you saw were probably not trained in trauma. You might try and find a somatic therapist.” She had surmised somehow that talk therapy hadn’t worked because he needed to treat his post-traumatic stress “by releasing bodily sensations.” She recommended van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and Dr. Peter Levine's Waking the Tiger. Analysis Van der Kolk’s book has remained amazingly popular despite his false claim that psychological trauma embeds itself like demon possession into brains, bodies, and souls, as restated in the memorable title “the body keeps the score.” Based on this canard that trauma is entrenched in the body, he advocated ten bodily-based treatments (e.g., yoga, dance, theater, and Levine’s somatic experiencing therapy). Van der Kolk claimed that the best way, nay, the only way to treat trauma is with bodily-based, or somatic, treatments, none of which have decent research support, as I’ve described in detail here.
Nietfeld’s own therapist refused to engage in cognitive behavioral therapy, and cited van der Kolk’s work as one of the reasons. (Disclaimer: I was interviewed by Nietfeld for the Mother Jones article, but I was chopped by the editor for space. I would have been surprised if my criticisms of van der Kolk’s view of human nature as being highly fragile had made it into a progressive leftist, neo-Marxist magazine.) CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Alexander "Sandy" McFarlane, MD Source: BMJ Military Health Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened In the October 2024 issue, BMJ Military Health published a study that assessed inflammatory factors pre- and post-deployment in Australian soldiers to examine if trauma changes the biology of inflammation. Who Did This? The senior author was psychiatrist Alexander “Sandy” McFarlane, the Director of The University of Adelaide's Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies. He has received numerous awards and published over 250 articles and chapters and has co-edited three books. Dr. McFarlane’s work focused on the impact of disasters, longitudinal course, and cognitive deficits of PTSD. The first author was a young psychologist, Neanne Bennett, who appears to be a post-doc. She has two first-author publications. The Claim The hypothesis of the study was that exposure to combat trauma would cause both high levels of psychological symptoms and increased levels of inflammation, measured as C reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin 6 (IL-6). This represents another test of the so-called toxic stress theory that trauma permanently damages brains and alters neurobiology. Symptoms of PTSD and blood samples were gathered on personnel of the Australian military special forces one month prior to deployment to the Middle East. The deployment lasted for less than 6 months. They were able to collect the same measures on 63 of those personnel not more than 4 months post-deployment. All were male. Changes in CRP levels from pre- to post-deployment did not associate with severity of pre-deployment PTSD symptoms but did positively correlate with post-deployment PTSD symptoms. This seemed to agree with their main hypothesis (but see below for problems). Changes in IL-6 did not associate with severity of either pre- or post-deployment PTSD symptoms, contrary to their hypothesis. In a secondary analysis, they subdivided their modest size sample into four subgroups so that they could compare the least affected to the most affected individuals: (1) High Function (lower trauma symptoms, lower trauma exposure) n=35 (2) Resilient (lower trauma symptoms, higher trauma exposure) n=11 (3) Vulnerable (higher trauma symptoms, lower trauma exposure) n=9 (4) Risk (higher trauma symptoms, higher trauma exposure) n=7 The most affected (Risk) group showed a significantly greater decrease in CRP compared to the least affected (High Function) group. No difference was found for changes in IL-6. Both of these findings contradicted their hypothesis. Despite the contradictions between hypotheses and findings, the authors concluded that “sustained and repeated exposure to a range of occupational stressors throughout a military member’s period of service are likely to have a cumulative impact...,” consistent with the toxic stress theory. Analysis None of their hypotheses were satisfied. CRP levels did not increase in lockstep with increased symptoms. In their secondary analysis of tiny subgroups, CRP actually decreased in the most affected Risk group, which was opposite of their theory. IL-6 levels did not change in either direction with symptoms in any analysis. How did the authors reconcile their conclusion of supporting the toxic stress theory with the complete absence of findings for IL-6? They did what nearly every supporter of toxic stress does. They spun the interpretation. They claimed that the nonsignificant IL-6 “elevations may represent an attempt to re-establish a homeostatic state,” which is a way of saying that they might have been unlucky in measuring variables at the wrong time. It is noteworthy that they did not perform the test that should have been conducted. It would have been a much better test to create a change score in PTSD symptoms from pre- to post-, just like they created change scores for CRP and IL-6. Because the researchers tested pre-deployment PTSD symptoms and post-deployment PTSD symptoms separately, they did not know the direction of change in PTSD scores of individuals. Prior Studies When pre-trauma prospective studies are reviewed, they do not support the toxic stress theory [1, 2, 3]. Instead, they strongly support only the diathesis stress theory which posits that neurobiological differences found in individuals with PTSD exist prior to any trauma exposures, most likely due to genetic causes.
The Bennett et al. study represents another failure of the toxic stress theory, which has been vigorously promoted by Jack Shonkoff and his Harvard center (see here and here) and is the basis of the best-selling book The Body Keeps the Score (see here). REFERENCES [1] Julia A. DiGangi et al. (2013). Pretrauma risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review 33:728-744. [2] Andrea Danese et al. (2017). The origins of cognitive deficits in victimized children: Implications for neuroscientists and clinicians. American Journal of Psychiatry 174:349-361. [3] Michael S. Scheeringa (2020). Reexamination of diathesis stress and neurotoxic stress theories: A qualitative review of pre-trauma neurobiology in relation to posttraumatic stress symptoms. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 30:e1864. doi: 10.1002/mpr.1864 CATEGORY: BOOK REVIEW written by Michael S. Scheeringa Read time: 2.5 minutes Why is Trauma Dispatch posting a review of a book on a political philosophy? The following passage from the book provides the basis of an explanation: “A political paradigm provides us with the basic concepts and relations needed to recognize events taking place in the political arena and to understand their significance.” Without an intellectual framework, individuals will neither see nor understand clearly what is happening. Trauma Dispatch has a similar aim—to recognize events taking place in research, clinical, and advocacy arenas that appear to be about trauma on the surface but have deeper motivations as partisan political acts. Book Summary Learning about the conservative paradigm (and its rival liberalism) is missing from the education of Americans. Hazony fills this gap, beginning with the origins of conservatism in the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries as England struggled to balance traditional monarchical rule with growing personal liberties. Hazony then follows this thread during the founding of the United States and on to modern times. Hazony also described the liberal paradigm in detail. Today’s liberals do not call themselves by one name or manifesto. They disorient opponents with a shifting vocabulary including the Left, progressivism, social justice, anti-racism, anti-fascism, Black lives matter, critical race theory, identity politics, woke, and others. Hazony refers to them alternatively as Marxists and as Enlightened liberals. An essential difference between the two paradigms is that liberals, embracing principles of the Enlightenment, believe humans can discover universal truths simply through reason, which, more than once, were used to justify revolutions. In contrast, conservatives value preserving tradition that has been borne of empiricism, i.e., it is worth keeping what has been proven to work through time and experience. Hazony recounts the history of how a “liberal hegemony” was achieved in American politics through the 1960s reworking of the constitution via supreme court decisions, and the constant compromises conservatives made with liberals during the Cold War. As a result, many of today’s so-called conservatives are confused about the content and purposes of true conservatism.
Analysis Trauma was never mentioned in Hazony’s book, but the relevance to trauma is realizing that pscyhologists in academia are nearly all liberals, clinicians in the field are mostly liberals, and many are of the progressive Marxist type [1]. A liberal hegemony in trauma paradigms has been achieved in the mental health professions (psychology, social work, counseling, and psychiatry) by a combination of their creation in the early twentieth century with social justice foundations, and the subsequent stranglehold through what has been described as the long march through the institutions [2]. This hegemony raises two concerns. First, Enlightened liberalism is so attractive because they think they’ve discovered the secrets of understanding why disadvantaged humans exist. The simplicity of their approach (all you need to do is use reason) allows adherents to feel like they have “grasped an immensely powerful truth” that explains a vast array of effects. This, in a nutshell, also describes the remarkable trauma hype around beliefs in toxic stress, Adverse Childhood Experiences, complex PTSD, and dozens of other dogmatic beliefs. The secret cause is oppression in nearly all cases. As Hazony noted, “In every society, there will always be plenty of people who have reason to feel they’ve been oppressed or exploited…And those who are troubled by such apparent oppression will frequently find a home among the Marxists.” The same dynamic applies to trauma activists who believe they have finally grasped that trauma is the cause of every disadvantaged group, every bad behavior, and nearly every type of mental dysfunction. The trauma hype claims are not based in evidence. They were constructed to be consistent with a liberal political paradigm. Second, is what Hazony calls the dance of liberalism and Marxism. Center-left liberals are trying to conserve their traditions, while Marxism is bent on destroying any tradition. But liberals, trying to appease Marxists to turn them into allies, find that Marxists cannot be appeased. Hence, the dance moves in only one direction towards more Marxism. 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. References [1] Neil Gross, Solon Simmons (September 24, 2007). The social and political views of American professors (working paper). ResearchGate. [2] Christopher F. Rufo (July 20, 2023). How the Radical Left Conquered the Culture. Substack. CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS State Senator Juan Hinojosa (D) Source: The University Star Read time: 2.5 minutes This Happened Starting September 1, 2024, to be eligible for a state contract in Texas, a family violence shelter must use a trauma-informed service delivery model. Who Did This? The main sponsor of the bill was Juan Hinojosa, a Democrat who has served in the Texas House or Senate nearly continuously since 1981. The other four co-sponsors were three Democrats and one Republican. The Premise Family violence agencies are typically known primarily as shelters for domestic violence victims in times of crisis. Certain aspects of how they must operate have been regulated by Texas code to receive state funding. Senate bill 1841, which was passed in 2023, amended a section of the Texas code to require these services:
The bill also slipped in a stipulation that a shelter must “demonstrate that the center is using a voluntary and trauma-informed advocacy service model that respects an individual's needs.” What is a trauma-informed advocacy service model? The bill defined it as the service “is provided in a manner that recognizes and responds to the signs and symptoms of trauma in, and the risks of trauma to, a victim of family violence to better support the victim and promote the victim's choice, trust, dignity, connection, and healing.” Analysis Why was the phrase “trauma-informed” inserted into the bill? During brief testimony for the bill in the Criminal Justice Committee of the Senate, Hinojosa described the bill as simply a modernization of law that had not been updated in fifteen years. Hinojosa mentioned the trauma-informed model as almost an afterthought at the end of his remarks. Providing testimony were a director of a shelter and a former client who survived domestic violence. Neither mentioned trauma-informed care. No evidence was provided that some shelters were not providing the services in the bill. Contrary to the testimony about the bill, the language of trauma-informed represents a specific social agenda that has little to do with trauma or with appropriate services. The definition of trauma used in psychiatry for diagnosis and research on posttraumatic stress disorder is that an event must rise to the level of life-threatening. Episodes of domestic violence almost always rise to this level. Shelters have de facto always operated on a model of dealing with physical and psychological trauma. So, it may seem confusing about why a law was needed to add trauma-informed language.
Despite gaining traction in the U.S., Europe, and Australia for the past twenty-five years, there is no evidence that trauma-informed practices improve effectiveness (see here). The services required in the new law have been staples of shelter services for decades and represent nothing revolutionary. The concern is that the new law creates a formal link to the trauma-informed concept, which has a much wider and disturbing agenda. What usually happens in these situations is that many shelters will scramble to document how they have transformed themselves into being trauma-informed. They will require their staff to participate in trauma-informed workshops provided, for a fee, by outside consultants who travel the country.
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TRAUMA DISPATCH
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