74. Shaili Jain, M.D. — The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing from the Frontlines of PTSD Science

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2019

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From a physician and post-traumatic stress disorder specialist comes a nuanced cartography of PTSD, a widely misunderstood yet crushing condition that afflicts millions of Americans.

The Unspeakable Mind is the definitive guide for a trauma-burdened age. With profound empathy and meticulous research, Shaili Jain, M.D. — a practicing psychiatrist and PTSD specialist at one of America’s top VA hospitals, trauma scientist at the National Center for PTSD, and a Stanford Professor — shines a long-overdue light on the PTSD epidemic affecting today’s fractured world.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder goes far beyond the horrors of war and is an inescapable part of all our lives. At any given moment, more than six million Americans are suffering with PTSD. Dr. Jain’s groundbreaking work demonstrates the ways this disorder cuts to the heart of life, interfering with one’s capacity to love, create, and work — incapacity brought on by a complex interplay between biology, genetics, and environment. Beyond the struggles of individuals, PTSD has a tangible imprint on our cultures and societies around the world.

In this conversation Dr. Shermer and Dr. Jain discuss:

the history of PTSD and why no one talked about it after WWI, WWII, and Vietnam, but now we are
how Dr. Jain diagnoses PTSD by characteristics presented by a patient
how to treat PTSD through Cognitive Behavior Therapy through systematic desensitization
the problem of tracking rates of PTSD because of the expanding bin of who is considered a victim of the disorder
the difficulty of predicting deaths by suicide
the difficulty of predicting who will suffer from PTSD, given the many people who have suffered severe trauma and not developed it
why some stress is good for developing resiliency in life, but when too much stress causes harm, and
the unseen costs of war.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and thank you everyone for tuning in to the Science Salon podcast.
0:04.0	I'm your host Michael Schurmer and I bring you this show from California once a week
0:09.0	as part of the larger mission of the Skeptic Society to promote science and reason and to ensure that
0:14.7	sound scientific viewpoints are heard worldwide. As a 501c3 nonprofit we rely heavily
0:21.7	on the ongoing and generous patronage of
0:24.4	listeners like you to pledge your support please visit our website at
0:28.1	skeptic.com slash donate thank you my guest this week is Shale Jane MD. Her book is The Unspeakable Mind.
0:38.6	Stories of Trauma and Healing from the front lines of PTSD science.
0:45.0	Dr. Jane is a PTSD specialist and medical director for integrated care at the
0:51.2	VA Palo Alto Healthcare System. She is a trauma scientist
0:55.8	affiliated with the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a
1:00.2	clinical associate professor affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
1:08.0	Her work has been featured in the New York Times and her essays and commentary have appeared in the Journal of the American Medical
1:14.7	Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, on public radio and elsewhere.
1:21.8	So we get into the book and I think this is probably one of the more practical
1:25.3	podcasts that I've done given PTSD is a widely recognized and widespread
1:31.8	problem particularly since the Afghan recognized and widespread problem
1:32.8	particularly since the Afghan war in Afghanistan
1:36.6	has been going on for over 17 years now.
1:39.4	Or in Iraq a few years less than that.
1:42.4	And the category itself, the bin, the what constitutes PTSD has expanded to recognize the reality of these traumas and what they cause people psychologically.
1:57.2	And so it's a huge problem, many, many millions of people experience this suffer this and she's a practicing
	...

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