Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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Meta-analysis of mind-body treatments for adolescents shows that a body-based treatment is not better than CBT. CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS  Source: BMC Psychiatry Read time: 2.0 minutes This Happened In February 2025, BMC Psychiatry published a meta-analysis of mind-body treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adolescents. Who Did This? Neither the first author, Bianjiang Zhang, nor the three co-authors appear to have previously published on trauma or PTSD. The Claim The aim of the meta-analysis was to evaluate and compare the efficacy of various mind-body interventions in alleviating PTSD symptoms in adolescents. Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials involving adolescents diagnosed with PTSD and treated with one of five different mind–body therapies. Twenty studies were identified: 8 involved trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), 5 involved other CBT, 3 involved meditation, 2 involved yoga-meditation combinations, and 2 involved mindfulness. Pairwise comparisons immediately post-treatment revealed no significant differences between the five mind–body therapies. The analysis of the follow-up phases indicated that CBT was significantly more effective than the other four in terms of long-term effects. Analysis Over the past decade, the most prominent book that has shaped public understanding of psychological trauma—including clinical work and policy discussions—has been Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. Published in 2014, it remains on best-seller lists and continues to enjoy widespread acclaim for its alleged extraordinary insights. Its two central theses are (1) psychological trauma produces enduring changes in the brain and body, and (2) certain body-based treatments are uniquely effective. Van der Kolk’s claim—echoed by scores of body-based therapists hawking their interventions through workshops—is not simply that body-based treatments work for PTSD, but that they are the only treatments that truly resolve trauma, because, you guessed it, trauma is embedded in the body. In The Body Keeps the Score, ten body-based treatments were promoted, and only one of those—yoga—was tested in this meta-analysis.
This does not mean body-based treatments lack value, but rather that the hype of them being superior to well-validated approaches is not justified.
Why Is This Happening? Yoga and several of the other body-based treatments are taught in a burgeoning industry of clinician workshops and retreats, where it is highly unlikely that balanced research evidence is discussed. While a few of these approaches have shown promise in preliminary studies, the few studies of body-based interventions that exist are often small sample sizes, lack active control conditions, and have inconsistent follow-up data. The persistence and popularity of brain re-wiring neurobiological narratives cannot be explained by experts who simply misread the research studies. It seems more likely that the belief that trauma leaves measurable “scars” in the brain and body resonates with broader cultural beliefs of an oppressor-versus-oppressed worldview that advocates for systemic cultural change [see here, here, and here]. While drawing attention to psychological trauma is commendable, the extraordinary promotion of dramatic but unsupported narratives has risks, including misguided public policy and clinical training that ignores best available evidence. References [1] Bradley, R., Greene, J., Russ, E., Dutra, L. & Westen, D. A multidimensional meta-analysis of psychotherapy for PTSD. Am. J. Psychiatry 162, 214-227 (2005). doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.162.2.214 [2] Weber, M. et al. Long-term outcomes of psychological treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychol. Med. 51, 1420–1430 (2021). doi:10.1017/S003329172100163X [3] Lewis, C., Roberts, N. P., Andrew, M., Starling, E. & Bisson, J. I. Psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder in adults: Systematic review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Psychotraumatology 11 (2020). doi:10.1080/20008198.2020.1729633 [4] Xian-Yu, C. Y. et al. Cognitive behavioral therapy for children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder: Meta-analysis. J. Affect. Disord. 308, 502–511 (2022). doi:10.1016/j.jad.2022.04.111 Comments are closed.
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