WHAT has killed more Americans since 2001 than the Afghanistan and Iraq wars? And which serious health issue is twice as likely to affect US women as breast cancer?
The answer, claims psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, lies in what we now understand about trauma and its effects. In his disturbing book, The Body Keeps the Score, he explains how trauma and its resulting stress harms us through physiological changes to body and brain, and that those harms can persist throughout life. Excess stress can predispose us to everything from diabetes to heart disease, maybe even cancer.
Take his two examples. The number of Americans killed by family members exceeds the number that country lost in both wars. But it doesn't stop there. Imagine the fallout for all who witnessed the murder or likely violence in the years preceding it. And women have double the risk of domestic violence – with the health consequences that brings – as they do of breast cancer.
Van der Kolk draws on 30 years of experience to argue powerfully that trauma is one of the West's most urgent public health issues. The list of its effects is long: on mental and physical health, employment, education, crime, relationships, domestic or family abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction. "We all want to live in a world that is safe, manageable... predictable, and victims remind us that this is not always the case," says van der Kolk. When no one wants to hear about a person's trauma, it finds a way to manifest in their body.
And it is not only extreme experiences that linger. Family disturbance or generalised neglect can wire children to be on high alert, their stressed bodies tuned to fight or flight. Or they may be so "numbed out" by keeping demons at bay they can't engage with life's pleasures or protect themselves from future trauma. Even parents who don't attune with their children can do untold damage, van der Kolk argues.
[For more of this story, written by Shaoni Bhattacharya, go to http://www.newscientist.com/ar...es.html#.VGp8wvnF-5X]
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