Bessel Van Der Kolk is a professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and president of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has been studying Trauma and PTSD for decades. His book The Body Keeps the Score was written pre-pandemic but has absolutely exploded in popularity since the whole thing started (I’m trying to wade through it myself right now).
Van Der Kolk was on All Things Considered on NPR this afternoon (his bit starts at around 6:18):
He makes a very compelling argument that, while the pandemic and it’s associated disruptions of every day life are deeply troubling and are, without question, causing an uptick in mental health complaints, those complaints most likely are not exactly “trauma” related. He takes the position that this is an important distinction to make because if you are treating people for pandemic related mental health complaints, and you treat them like they have PTSD or other trauma related issues when they don’t, they may not be receiving the best, most effective treatment for their condition.
I intend to discuss this with my therapist, and the psychiatrist I was referred to by Dr. Rando, but I think Van Der Kolk’s thinking is correct and it is much more likely that what I’m suffering from is garden variety stress and burnout rather than PTSD. I view this as good news because it means that, after my appropriately lengthy time away from work (it will be close to two months by the time I start my new job in February), and the addition of clonidine to my medication regimen, I should be able to get back to work without further issues.
I could be wrong but there is really only one way to find out: wait and see what happens.
