I did not read this article and come away thinking they are saying it is “all in the brain”. It reads quite explicitly to me that both body and brain are involved.
It also leaves the door open to the importance of bodily focused interventions, since these may provide the sensory evidence that allows “stuck priors” to update through prediction error.
I love all articles that kick dust on popular notions. The idea that trauma accumulates in the body makes trauma seem like a huge hurdle and something that necessarily is difficult to overcome. It also emphasizes that we aren't in control of ourselves.
I also think you’re being a bit unfair by lumping them under “it’s all in the mind”. The phrase “somatic marker” was new to me and a good encapsulation of the difference between what they’re saying and an either-or. From the individual’s subjective point of view it’s the same whether information is literally stored/encoded in parts of the body, or in parts of the CNS through which we experience those body parts. So they’re not saying don’t work with the body…
I think there were a lot of really great things in this essay, maybe too many—can you tell five people wrote it? lol—and setting it up to be anti-van-der-Kolk was probably the weakest part. It’s really a kind of technical point they’re making, though they do name some practical pitfalls of taking the “stored in the body” frame too rigidly.
Thanks for your note. It annoys me when people (especially academics) straw-man a statement so they can say that their theory is dominant. It’s just not productive or honest. It pollutes the discourse. I like their theory, but not their rhetorical tactics
I did not read this article and come away thinking they are saying it is “all in the brain”. It reads quite explicitly to me that both body and brain are involved.
It also leaves the door open to the importance of bodily focused interventions, since these may provide the sensory evidence that allows “stuck priors” to update through prediction error.
I love all articles that kick dust on popular notions. The idea that trauma accumulates in the body makes trauma seem like a huge hurdle and something that necessarily is difficult to overcome. It also emphasizes that we aren't in control of ourselves.
I also think you’re being a bit unfair by lumping them under “it’s all in the mind”. The phrase “somatic marker” was new to me and a good encapsulation of the difference between what they’re saying and an either-or. From the individual’s subjective point of view it’s the same whether information is literally stored/encoded in parts of the body, or in parts of the CNS through which we experience those body parts. So they’re not saying don’t work with the body…
I think there were a lot of really great things in this essay, maybe too many—can you tell five people wrote it? lol—and setting it up to be anti-van-der-Kolk was probably the weakest part. It’s really a kind of technical point they’re making, though they do name some practical pitfalls of taking the “stored in the body” frame too rigidly.
Thanks for your note. It annoys me when people (especially academics) straw-man a statement so they can say that their theory is dominant. It’s just not productive or honest. It pollutes the discourse. I like their theory, but not their rhetorical tactics