In my last blog, I shared that Simone Biles’s decision to withdraw from the team competition and some of the individual events in the Olympics increased our focus on mental health. COVID, the challenges of staying at home for over a year and then returning to interactions with people, and the need to navigate a new normal are stressful for most of us. Coping with these challenges certainly has been difficult for me, especially in the spring when I did not physically feel well. During this time I came across a book which I found very meaningful. The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind and the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk is currently #1 on The New York Times Best Sellers Paperback Nonfiction list and it has been on the list for 149 weeks. It is #1 on Amazon for books related to Mental Illness. It is also available as an audio book.
In a review by Concepcion de Leon on October 18, 2018 she clearly summarizes the three approaches that the book covers for people recovering from trauma: 1) top down by talking; 2) taking medicines and 3) bottom up – allowing the body to have experiences. She then goes on to note:
Survivors usually need some combination of the three methods, writes Dr. van der Kolk, but the latter — the mind-body connection — is most neglected. His work is predicated on integrating body-focused treatments into trauma recovery work, like yoga, role-play, dance and meditation. Another method he suggests is writing and keeping a journal. Click here to read the full review.
What struck me as I listened to the book was the fact that van der Kolk, a very respected researcher and expert on trauma, gives credibility to what many of us have been aware of for a long time: the power of yoga, role-playing, dance and meditation in healing. He points out that they are referred to as alternative therapies in healing, with drugs being the primary approach. In Part 5: “Paths to Recovery,” he states that it should be the other way around and that drugs should be the alternative therapy.
In my research I found four different articles in The New York Times citing van der Kolk’s work. That kind of exposure gives resounding recognition. While the medical community may be reluctant to give up talk therapy and medication, the public is hungry for alternatives. The first article was in 2014 in the magazine section of The New York Times. It opens with a description of a workshop van der Kolk gave at Big Sur in California called “Trauma, Memory and Recovery of Self.” Working with one participant he took role-playing to a new level which he calls “Structure,” which grew out of the psychomotor therapy developed by Albert Pesso, a dancer who studied with Martha Graham. The article goes on to describe van der Kolk’s career in much detail and I highly recommend checking it out. Here is the link: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/a-revolutionary-approach-to-treating-ptsd.html
The second article is the review which I have already quoted and the third and fourth articles are from this summer. How amazing that a book that came out in 2014 is receiving so much press and interest now! The third article basically is asking the author if he follows how his book is doing. The last article is a brief introduction to a long (over-an-hour) podcast with the author and Ezra Klein. I loved that in the introduction Ezra Klein points out that van der Kolk:
co-founded and leads a trauma research foundation and has been studying ways to try to heal these deeper parts of our psyches, everything from movement therapies like yoga and dance to E.M.D.R. to internal family systems therapy to MDMA treatment. We talk about all of it in here.
Here’s the link where you can listen to the podcast or read the transcript.
It is affirming to have read this book because I was first introduced to this kind of work in the 1960’s when I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh. As a theatre major I first took a course in Creative Dramatics from Dr. Barbara McIntyre (1916-2005), and later as a graduate student I was her teaching assistant. As I write this section, I pause with gratitude to Dr. McIntyre and the warm mentoring she provided. Born in Canada in 1916, she came to the University of Pittsburgh in the 50’s with a master’s degree and a career in children’s theater, teaching and using creative dramatics. While at Pitt she saw the therapeutic value of creative dramatics when asked to work with children who had speech impairment. That led her to work with Eleanor Irwin, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in Pitt’s School of Medicine. Ellie (as we called her) promoted the use of creative drama in drama therapy. Barbara received her doctorate in 1957. I studied with her between 1963 and 1965. It was during this time that I began to see the relationship between drama and movement in healing. In particular, she and Ellie Irwin introduced me to the work of Jacob Moreno and psychodrama.
Jacob Moreno (1889-1974) was born in Bucharest, Romania and practiced psychiatry near Vienna from 1918–1925. In 1925 he moved to New York City and continued working as a psychiatrist and experimenting with psychodrama, which included core techniques such as mirroring and role-playing. I have a vague memory of attending one of his sessions and seeing role-playing in action.
In the early to mid-sixties I also became aware of Judy Rubin and her work in Art Therapy. Judy and Ellie worked together, and in fact my mom, Janet Klineman, Ph.D., who was Director of the Lower School of The Western Pennsylvania School for the Blind, was very familiar with their work. After I moved away from Pittsburgh in 1966, my mom often mentioned them, as I believe they may have worked with students at the School for Blind. A quick Google search of Judy Rubin and Eleanor Irwin showed that they are still very active in the field. In 1985 they developed an Expressive Media Film Library and as recently as this spring Judy Rubin’s Facebook Page celebrated a Launch Party on May 22 featuring a number of art therapists sharing theory, practice tips and personal experiences.
Reading The Body Keeps Score was an experience in reaffirming my long-held belief that body work is a very important component of healing. The book provides excellent language to describe how the brain and body work together, and cites research work that van der Kolk and his colleagues have done to support this. Before closing I want to highly recommend reading the book and especially Part Five, Chapter 16: “Learning to Inhabit Your Body: Yoga” and Chapter 18: “Filling in the Holes: Creating Structure.”
I close with two pictures from the project I did using creative movement with women from Esperanza, the domestic violence shelter in Santa Fe.
Photograph by Judy Naumberg
Photograph by Judy Naumberg
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