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I’m so sorry that happened to you.

For what it’s worth, Bessel Van der Kolk is not without issue himself. Here’s a partial transcript that I wrote up (so any mistakes are my own) when listening to a podcast episode about trauma and abuse. The relevant part is around time code 30:00.

https://www.probablypoly.com/post/episode-25-interviewing-sa...

Trigger warning: trauma, gaslighting, and abuse

Mandee Conant: Well, I think it’s important not to discount the book, More Than Two, because we know that Eve had a lot of input into this book, but as a whole, just because someone writes a book about something does not make them an expert in it, and I think we kind of… as a community we kind of took that because their book was one of first how-to manual what to do, what not to do resources fo us, so he must be an expert. And we just took that, we took that too easily, and we need to learn to not do that.

Samantha Manewitz: And sometimes even when when people are experts they can still be terrible people. For example, Bessel Van der Kolk, who founded The Trauma Center in Brooklyn, which is my back yard. He wrote wrote the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is required reading in any grunt school and required reading for anyone who ever wants to go into trauma work. Period, full stop.

I was initially applying for a job at The Trauma Center, and then it came out in The Globe that his co-writer and co-founder and CEO was horrifically abusive and he created a toxic work environment, and the way he responded was just textbook gaslighting, and then sort of [wrote this letter] why these people didn’t come tell him to his face. Yes, why would someone with 1 or 2 years under their belt make ever make a criticism about this person who the luminary of trauma work. If anyone should know better, it’s Bessel Van der Kolk.

For personal development, social behavior and relationships these two sets of books are the best theory available, and significantly better and more fundamental than anything else I found written on the topic.

- Models: Attract Women through Honesty + The Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

- The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy + More than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert + Opening Up by Tristan Taormino