The Body Does Not Keep the Score: How Popular Beliefs About Trauma Are Wrong

When it comes to psychological trauma, the researchers and media have asserted a consensus that the science is settled. They claim that trauma permanently damages brains and causes scores of serious physical illnesses. In reality, this extraordinary assertion is not true. Trauma does cause emotional and behavioral problems in many victims, but this does not include changes in brain structure or re-wiring of brains.

Now, one of America's most distinguished child psychiatrists explains what the science really says. In The Body Does Not Keep the Score: How Popular Beliefs About Trauma Are Wrong, Michael Scheeringa methodically analyzes these extraordinary claims. This book concisely analyzes 42 claims about neuroscience, 51 claims about treatment, and 29 claims about related issues.

Clearly-written and accessible for non-scientists, this book shows the surprising ways that the claims leave out crucial information and misinterpret data to fabricate a vision that human nature is highly malleable to life experiences. This vision is the product of a worldview that dominates the social sciences. Scheeringa dispels this myth with a more nuanced reality about the science and about human nature. He shows that trauma does not embed itself into the body or the self, and this has consequences for treatment, public health, and social agendas. So-called body-based treatments have little evidence and are not superior to conventional treatments. The Body Does Not Keep the Score is a reality check that humans are far more resilient and complicated.