The APS sat down with renowned trauma researcher, Bessel van der Kolk, to learn more about his perspectives on the ways in which the digital and social world we live in could be impacting our mental wellbeing.
Many people will know of Bessel van der Kolk from his best-selling book The Body Keeps The Score, which explores the ways in which traumatic experiences reshape both the body and the brain.
As a psychiatrist, author and educator, van der Kolk has spent his professional life studying how people adapt to traumatic experiences, and translates his findings from neuroscience and attachment research to develop and study a range of effective treatments for traumatic stress and developmental trauma in children and adults.
Last year, when van der Kolk was visiting Australia, the APS sat down with him to learn more about how he traces trauma back to the loss of synchrony with other people.
From that vantage point, he examines what the digital world offers – instant, low-effort hits of connection – and what it erodes: reciprocity, play and the slow work of becoming attuned to one another through shared activity.
Based on this interview, and additional research, the APS has created a CPD-approved e-learning event exploring trauma and the digital world.
Recorded in person in 2024, this conversation explores social synchrony and relationships, the consequences of perpetual scrolling and how our sense of time and agency can narrow when life moves online.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and flow.
Note: While Bessel van der Kolk is a globally recognised trauma researcher, he notes that his research focus is not in the digital and social spaces.
Q: How can we explain what's happening in our brains when we experience trauma?
Bessel van der Kolk: One issue that has increasingly emerged in our work is that trauma can be understood as a loss of synchrony with other people.
Most trauma occurs in the context of that loss. If I start yelling at you and you ask me to stop and I keep going, there’s a disengagement. There’s a lack of synchrony between you and the people who hurt you.
Our minds and brains develop in the context of synchronous relationships – how you play, interact and make music together. We become who we are by being in sync with the people around us, and that gives us pleasure and a sense of counting and being significant. If you feel happy being with me and show that in your face and movement, I feel like a good person, and that becomes part of me.
Q: Where does digital and social media fit into the ecology of a traumatised person’s life?
Bessel van der Kolk: While I wouldn’t make a direct connection between trauma and digital media, I can say that if you don’t have a direct connection with the feedback you get, you don’t get a feeling of being connected.
The trouble with screens is that you get a virtual sense of connection. Your dopamine system gets rewarded, but not on the basis of what you really do – you don’t have to work for it.
If people don’t acquire synchrony with those around them, it becomes more challenging to be in [connection] with others. People aren’t as gratifying as your screen, so you keep going back to it and to virtual reality. I think the consequences are terrifying.
Q: In your research you’ve shown how trauma can affect areas like the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Could doomscrolling alter time perception or other systems?
Bessel van der Kolk: It affects many different systems, including people's sense of time, but most of all their sense of what effect they have on the world and what effect the world has on them.
We naturally seek out other people in order to get our needs met and be gratified. If we go to screens instead, we don’t learn how to be with others.
For example, people talk a lot about bullying in schools. I don’t remember people bullying each other in the same way [when I was at school]. You used to play a lot, negotiate a lot, do sports together, do homework together – you had many interactions with other kids. If those interactions become virtual, the reward system changes.
Q: What about online hostility and its impact on young people?
Bessel van der Kolk: I think we lose value for each other. We earn our friendships and our sense of adventure by playing together and doing things. Those are core parts of becoming human, and the virtual reality of screens interferes with them.
You learn through friendships – the playground is where you learn how mean people can be, how to stand up for yourself, to form alliances, to articulate what you need and want and how to get it. On screens you don’t learn those capacities, so [the perception that some young people might have is that] you and your feelings stop mattering.
Screens also make it possible to dehumanise others. In friendships, when I hurt, you hurt; when I do something, I can hurt you and you can hurt me, and I know what that feels like. You develop compassion for others and for yourself. That [can be lost on screens].
The way the media shows ongoing violence – people get saturated and desensitised. The connection is lost.
Q: How should we ensure that constant exposure to traumatic content doesn't affect people's levels of empathy?
Bessel van der Kolk: I think about prevention. During the pandemic, kids at home fell behind academically, so now there’s pressure to test more. But another thing that those kids lost was the capacity to play and to negotiate friendships. How do we get kids to play again and interact?
If you feel connected and surrounded by friendship, you’re curious and want to learn. If you’re by yourself, you have no motivation. Kids need [to play] team sports, to make music, to act – things that get them in touch with people around them, so they actually feel in sync together.
Telehealth is interesting – I do a lot of it – but you don’t get that heart-to-heart connection. The challenge for clinicians and teachers is to cultivate that, through activities that require cooperation and being part of a team.
Q: Is there a positive side to digital connection for traumatised people?
Bessel van der Kolk: Absolutely. It’s wonderful that you can call anyone in the world at any time and find people who share your particular [area of interest]. And if you have any particular issue that makes you feel [different] you’ll find someone in India, Siberia or Argentina [who experiences] the same thing as you do. Digital connection has its upside also.
Q: The rapid pace of the news cycle can keep people in a constant state of tragedy. What does that do to regulation?
Bessel van der Kolk: You have to go with the mind over the brain here. Everyone wants to study the brain [but we also need to] study the mind; we need to study capacities like empathy, understanding others, flexibility, taking different perspectives, the feeling of connection and personal responsibility for what happens.
Dissociation is very important to undo. Trauma is about having feelings you cannot handle. People get overloaded and feel numb. To feel alive, they do dangerous things. I’ve seen this in soldiers and journalists: when I’m in danger I feel alive; when I’m safe I feel numb. That may be happening to kids – life is too safe, there’s too much virtual reality.
The bigger question is motivation. Before screens, friendship was a great motivator – becoming a good team member, actor, musician, etc. The reward came from social activities that made you good at something. The missing pieces now are collectivity and reciprocity.
Q: What strategies do you recommend to rebuild connection?
Bessel van der Kolk: I'd highlight reciprocity again. Clinically, it may be more rewarding to work with groups and have people help each other. Start doing things with people where you feel in sync with each other. This is the missing piece.
We should retool ourselves. Creating things collectively has always been the answer in every culture. I think mental health systems should be based on collective creation.
If you feel victimised, you don’t regain agency unless you do something for someone else – using your suffering to help another person suffer less. Importantly, reciprocity cannot be done through screens; it’s people doing stuff together.
Q: What's your final word of advice for psychologists?
Bessel van der Kolk: What gives us energy and satisfaction in life is connection – collaborating with other people, knowing what others are doing and engaging with them. That human connection is what matters.
Explore the APS CPD-approved e-learning module on trauma and the digital world.