The more I learn about trauma, the more I realize how limiting labels are. My recent increased interest in this subject came from The Body Keeps the Score. In that book, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk covers what he has learned throughout his career of studying and treating traumatized people.
Van der Kolk believes that the increasing reliance on an endlessly growing list of different diagnoses based on symptoms has done more harm than good. He makes the point that, when starting by looking at the symptoms, any of a huge number of diagnoses can be made. The diagnoses may be complementary, opposing, or a mix of the two. Which diagnosis receives the most attention will determine what treatment(s) are pursued. That approach ignores what is going on underneath all the symptoms, including whether there might be a common cause for a variety of seemingly unrelated issues. By overlooking that, the possibility of eliminating all of the symptoms by solving the underlying problem is kept off the table.
He compares this to the state of medicine prior to the twentieth century. Due to the limited amount of information at that time, doctors both named diseases and based their treatments of those diseases around the physical symptoms that arose. As medicine advanced, such practices fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, van der Kolk sees modern psychiatry as having taken a similar path once the focus shifted to symptoms above all else.
Is someone an “introvert”, or is that person still being held back by early-life trauma? Do they still feel afraid that someone they don’t know may attack them physically or verbally, act like a friend before betraying them, or otherwise create a situation in which they feel unsafe? If so, they may be always on edge and hypervigilant to even the smallest potential threat. Similarly, is someone an “extrovert”, or does that person feel afraid to be alone with their thoughts and feelings? Are they still dealing with unhealed trauma and so look to be constantly distracted (especially by interacting with others) to avoid having to face that deep-seated pain? In that case, they may always struggle to focus on the present moment and talk at length to escape the inner agony. Either way, labels derived from looking at symptoms seem to do more harm than good by obscuring important information that isn’t immediately visible.
Looking only at symptoms while ignoring the root cause is nothing new, and it applies to much more than mental/emotional health. I’m convinced that many of the problems that have plagued humanity for centuries and even millennia are still around because the source of those problems has never been addressed. If it were, then I believe that so much of what has long been considered to be part of “the human condition” would evaporate within a generation or two. Although I have no idea if that will happen and I’m not holding my breath that it will, I’d love to see it put to the test. If I’m right, then the world could forever change for the better. If I’m wrong, then I’d start looking for another possible solution.
As you can guess, the importance of solving the underlying problem rather than merely treating the symptoms was my biggest takeaway from the book, although I was already thinking along those lines long before I read it or knew much about it. Above all else, the primary reason I am so interested in this because getting to the root of the problem has done more good for my health and well-being than any amount of focusing solely on symptoms. I’ve only been doing this since late 2020 and already it’s completely overhauled my life. I’m convinced that it was *the* thing that allowed me to make it through the pain of losing my dog Sawyer. Even without looking at everything it’s done for me before and since then, that alone makes it worthwhile. I hope that this becomes more common so that more people can experience true healing and lasting relief from issues that have long been tormenting them and their loved ones.