Synchrony: The Band Of Brothers Effect
People survive trauma by bonding through shared physical rhythm — not by talking about it.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 93%
Van der Kolk's later work has moved from trauma itself to what he considers its underlying condition: trauma is largely a breakdown of connection and synchronicity between human beings. His evidence is that the interventions that reliably work are collective and physical. Military basic training takes people who are frequently not very well put together, has them march together, sing together, climb barricades and go through composite physical experiences, and after twelve weeks they feel competent, connected and have found a band of brothers — achieved, he stresses, not by talking but by deep shared physical experience. Combat veterans healed in groups where they learned from each other what it was like, and the moment they made that connection they became a band of brothers. He says he learned about male love from combat veterans, and that danger is the ingredient: in danger you need each other, count on each other, have each other's back, and making that commitment is a profound human experience you cannot get from a screen. He extends the same logic to English public schools, where sport was what helped his friends, and to San Quentin, now trauma-based, where dancing classes are part of the programme. His foundation now funds projects where people make music, make theatre and create things together, which he calls our glory as human beings.
Origin
Van der Kolk was a conscientious objector during Vietnam and had never been a combat veteran, so he could not tell veterans what their experience was like. Watching them form groups and learn it from each other — becoming a band of brothers at the moment of connection — showed him the mechanism was peer synchrony rather than expert interpretation.
Core principles
- 01Trauma is to a large degree a breakdown of connection and synchronicity.
- 02Bonding through shared physical experience beats talking.
- 03Danger creates the deepest bonds because it creates real mutual need.
- 04Rhythmicity and synchronicity sit at the core of internal safety and belonging.
- 05Humans survived through collective creation, not individual gifts.
- 06Screens deliver a cheap dopamine reward without the relational learning.
How to run it
- 1
Move together, physically and rhythmically
Marching, singing, climbing, dancing, throwing balls, playing sport. Van der Kolk's repeated observation is that moving together with other people gives a sense of connection and pleasure.
Pro tip San Quentin, now trauma-based and using his book as a text, runs dancing classes — something he notes Harvard hospitals would never do.
Watch out The gym does not automatically deliver this — he calls sitting on a treadmill watching cable news the opposite of trauma treatment.
- 2
Put people with peers who share the experience
Veterans learned what combat was like from each other, not from him. Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles works with formerly incarcerated men who had no fathers by asking what do you need, how can we care for you, how can we make a safe place.
Pro tip The question set — what do you need, how can we make this safe — is the operative move, not the programme content.
Watch out An expert without the shared experience cannot substitute for the peer group.
- 3
Create something collectively
His foundation funds people making music together, making theatre together, creating projects together. He calls this collaborative active physical creation who we are and our glory as human beings.
Pro tip Creation adds the effort component that screens strip out.
Watch out He notes bluntly that this has not been part of mental health, which talks and gives pills but does not connect people deeply.
- 4
Guard against the screen substitute
Van der Kolk calls screens as virtual realities our biggest challenge. They give a virtual reality of pleasure that is not real and not a product of your effort — a cheap dopamine reward where the real thing would require a lot of activity.
Pro tip The specific loss is that you do not learn how to get along with other people, or the visceral pleasure of we are friends.
Watch out He cites the collapse in people the average person could turn to in a crisis as the visible symptom.
In the wild
People join the military often not very well put together, then march together, sing together, climb barricades and go through composite physical experiences with others.
→ After twelve weeks they feel competent and connected and have found a band of brothers — achieved, van der Kolk stresses, not by yakking but by deep shared physical experience.
Van der Kolk visited Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, a programme for formerly incarcerated, largely Latin men who had no fathers, which asks what people need and how to make a safe place. San Quentin is now trauma-based and uses his book as a text.
→ He describes seeing real treatment at both — transforming lives by acknowledging reality, making people part of the healing system, working in groups and working with movement, including dance.
Common mistakes
Treating healing as an individual project
Van der Kolk says we do not exist as individuals; we are meant to live in troops. Humans survived not through individual gifts but through banding together, and treatment that ignores this ignores the mechanism.
Substituting talk for shared physical experience
His repeated contrast is that veterans did not heal by yakking. Mental health talks and gives pills but does not connect people on a deep level.
Solitary exercise as a connection strategy
He accepts the gym helps but notes it tends to become a very solitary experience, and that the treadmill-and-television version misses the synchrony ingredient entirely.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone designing a team, community or recovery programme, and individuals trying to rebuild connection in adulthood.
Not ideal for
People without access to any group setting, for whom the individual routes have to come first.
From the transcript
“trauma is to a large degree a breakdown of connection between human beings and synchronicity between other human beings”
“how do they do it not by yakking but by having very deep shared physical experiences”
“the issue of rhythmicity and synchronicity is really at the core of our internal sense of safety and belonging”
From the episode
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Bessel van der Kolk