Michael Scheeringa, MD

“Self-inflation is the rule in life,” wrote Robert Trivers; hence his conclusion that we fool ourselves so as better to fool others. This explains a lot of why smart folks truly believe in toxic stress, ACEs, and complex PTSD despite the obvious lack of scientific evidence.

"Van der Kolk has fabricated an alternative reality for you."

My second appearance on this podcast with two therapists who talk like normal guys (no hype) about clinical issues and trauma. Also available on Spotify. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/doe…

This is good news. We are pulling the plug on med school DEI and making us all healthier as a result foxnews.com/opinion/we-pul… #FoxNews

Here’s the other side: The canceled grants were an attempt to remove ideology from science; something the electorate voted for. A UMR 2026 report showed that NIH spent only $360 million less in FY25 compared to FY24. Trump signed a bill in Feb 2026 that gives NIH $415 million more than FY25. This is not the apocalypse of science. It is a process to rein in the excesses of DEI.

NIH terminated $2.45 billion in grants in 2025. Using NIH’s own economic multiplier (2.5–2.7x), that’s ~$6 billion in unrealized economic output. Not to mention lost jobs, stalled discoveries, and a weakened scientific workforce. Worst case of “saving money” ever💀

Article link: axios.com/2026/03/22/dem…

Trauma has arrived in liberal presidential politics. Shapiro, Newsom, and Pritzker are now showcasing childhood trauma (article link below). Why? A few possibilities: (1) They’re so far removed from normal voters this is an attempt at manufactured relatability. (2) A performance of toughness—adversity recast as identity (too bad all they have is blaming parents). (3) More likely: nothing new at all. “Trauma” is DEI 2.0—same linguistic capture, same fragility model of human nature, same oppressed–oppressor frame, same cultural revolution project. They’re test-driving the rhetoric. Are we headed for a “trauma-informed” presidency?

@autistictit Thank you. The adult outcome was psychiatric disorder, which is not the main outcome in the ACE narrative. Medical disease is. But it will still be informative to analyze it. I'll circle back to this after having some time to dissect it.

@m_scheeringa So they've done twin studies to try to tease out the effect sizes of either ACE or genetics. Even after controlling for genetics, ACE still has an independent effect. Here is an example where they studied effects on psychiatric disorders. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38446452/

A reader asked this question: If the theory that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) cause severe adult medical disease isn’t true, what is the alternative explanation for the high correlation? My reply: A more parsimonious explanation is genetic-based individual differences in behavior. Genes are linked in a non-random way to their environment. Exposure to childhood adversity is not randomly distributed, but is concentrated among families characterized by heritable behavioral traits—such as impulsivity, poor judgment, deficits in executive functioning, poor coping skills, limited empathy and so on. These traits, which are substantially influenced by genetic factors, increase the likelihood of creating unstable or adverse environments for children. Parents transmit not only these environments but also their genetic endowments. The same genetic profiles that predispose individuals to maladaptive behaviors may also directly—or through correlated genetic pathways—elevate risk for a range of medical conditions. Thus, the observed association between childhood adversity and adult disease may be largely attributable to shared genetic liabilities, rather than a direct causal effect of stress exposure itself. In this view, childhood adversity functions less as a primary cause and more as a marker of underlying genetic risk. The fundamental question in these controversies about trauma is how one views human nature. Is it highly fragile, as trauma activists and proponents of nurture as causal explanations believe, or is it more stable, as proponents of nature (genetics) as causal explanations tend to believe? People do not live in poverty or experience other ACEs at random in America and they do not suffer serious medical illnesses at random. An unspoken assumption of the ACEs narrative is that if you could just prevent ACEs, the individuals who would have developed chronic illness would instead turn out healthy. Research, and life experience, has shown that this assumption isn't true. People who tend to believe that nurture and the environment are the prime cause of disadvantages in life tend to deny the existence of genetic-based human behavior. This is evident throughout the past century of the social sciences. A caveat to all of this, however, is whether even the correlation between ACEs and medical disease is true. One hundred percent of the ACE literature is based on retrospective self-reports which are vulnerable to faulty recall and bias in attributions.

American science will be fine, probably better. In FY 2024, the NIH budget was $47.3 billion. Even if all the Trump cuts were enacted (most were not), the U.S. health research budget would still be more than twice the research budgets of the five largest Western nations combined.

Those patients must find different people to follow on the internet. CPTSD is a fake disorder.

A great quote from Trivers has been pinned on my account for three years: “Self-inflation is the rule in life.”

I am hearing a lot about this new sub type of trauma they call "moral injury". Pretty clear that it's just a byword for; "when I'm at work I may have to deal with issues/people I politically disagree with and that is intolerable for me".

@JohnSmithupmq @VirgilMSW Lie (Merriam-Webster): to create a false or misleading impression Claim 1 from my book: VdKolk claimed trauma causes abnormal activation of the insula. Citing no evidence, he omitted 21 studies that disprove this. I debunked 122 of his claims in my book. Keep going?

@m_scheeringa @VirgilMSW Define lie

The Body Keeps the Score is criticized rightly because van der Kolk created a fictitious alternative reality. It contains dozens of lies, misrepresentations, and errors about trauma research on the body. Isn't that reason enough @VirgilMSW ? Details in my book:

Van der Kolk is aiming in the right direction, but what? He's too confused? Too narcissistic? Too deceptive?

One of the greatest works of fiction ever written. Right up there with The Communist Manifesto and Oliver Sacks' fake stories.

@amobeirne If you could only understand how your hurtful words are shrinking my amygdala.

@m_scheeringa Was that the most original title u could have come up with? 🤦‍♀️ No wonder so many people are struggling to recover when this is what we have to deal with. #TheBodyKeepsTheScore Only if u have C PTS could u even try to understand "The Frozen Present". Caused by the MH system!

Right on cue. The rise in popularity of "moral injury" - another fake trauma concept - is replacing the fake concept of burnout.

This is a great essay by Mike Males that points to a wrinkle in the ongoing Meta social media “addiction” lawsuit…it turns out the plaintiff was horribly abused by her parents prior to her social media use. Further, the mother in question may be using this as a kind of “payday.” We will, of course, see what transpires in the future but there may be a cynical disaster in the making here. Link in follow up.

Indeed another meta-analysis finds near zero effects for screen time. This, despite many of the effect sizes being bivariate correlations, and the authors acknowledging many of the longitudinal studies failed to correct for the Time 1 outcome variable...a very basic control, meaning even these tiny effects are likely inflated. This is how badly done science continues to misinform. Unfortunately JAMA Pediatrics is a constant source of bad studies.