*Content warning: This article contains references to suicide and psychological trauma.
The Armenian translation of Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma(«Մարմինը ամեն ինչ հիշում է», Newmag) was published in 2025, with support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, at a time when Armenia is still learning to speak openly about psychological pain. The 2020 Artsakh War amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, economic uncertainty, the displacement of an entire population and the instability that continues to shape daily life have left, and continue to leave, deep emotional marks.
For much of Armenian history, trauma has been carried quietly. The inherited memory of the Armenian Genocide, the 1988 earthquake, the first Artsakh war, the economic collapse of the 1990s — these and many other moments throughout our people’s history shaped how families protect one another, avoid certain conversations and measure their expectations, both in Armenia and in the diaspora. Silence was often seen as a survival strategy.
But silence does not mean absence. The emotional residue of these experiences did not vanish; it settled into the body, into relationships, into how danger and loss are understood.
I do not write this as an expert in trauma studies or clinical mental health. I write as someone who has seen, here in Armenia, how difficult it can still be to describe one’s pain without feeling the need to apologize for it. Discussions of mental health remain taboo in many settings. Seeking help can be seen as weakness, and this is especially true for men. Ideas about toughness and self-reliance make it difficult to talk about fear, panic or despair, let alone ask for support. The pressure to endure, to stay composed, to push through on one’s own runs deep in our cultural memory. It has its strengths, but it also closes the door to healing.
In the past month, I have learned of two young Armenian men who died by suicide. I first met one of them more than 15 years ago and would see him from time to time over the years; [he was a veteran of the wars in Artsakh of 2016 and 2020,] and it was difficult to reconcile the news with the person I remembered — a reminder of how little we often know about someone’s private struggles. The second was known within circles close to mine. He was forcibly displaced from his homeland, and his family later said that the psychological difficulties he faced after the war intensified after the forced expulsion. Both men had families. Both had young children. Both were carrying unbearable pain.
These tragedies are not isolated, yet they are rarely spoken about openly. And, sadly, they are neither the first nor the last, unless we learn to talk more openly about what people carry.
This is where the translation of this particular book matters. I recently read The Body Keeps the Score in English, and although I have not yet read the Armenian translation, its central idea — that trauma does not simply pass but leaves real, lasting effects on the mind and body — directly challenges the belief that people should recover through willpower alone. The book offers language to describe emotional responses that are not rational or controllable. For soldiers who returned after 2020, for families who lost homes in Artsakh, for students who carry anxiety they cannot name, for parents who do not know how to support their children, this language matters.
Unprocessed trauma rarely disappears; it usually resurfaces in other forms. Van der Kolk writes extensively about how trauma can manifest as irritability, impulsivity, aggression and difficulty managing emotions — patterns visible in many societies recovering from violence. Armenia is no exception. In 2024, the country saw a 168% rise in reported domestic violence cases, a spike that, according to rights advocates, reflects the persisting psychological fallout of the 2020 Artsakh War. Many men returned from the front lines having witnessed extreme violence, death and loss, yet received little or no psychological support. These patterns are intensified in Armenia by long-standing expectations around masculinity and emotional restraint. And while these dynamics do not excuse harmful behavior, they underscore how urgently accessible mental-health support is needed for young men who have nowhere to direct what they carry.
These difficulties are not confined to Armenia. Armenian communities in the diaspora face many of the same cultural hesitations around acknowledging psychological pain or seeking help. A recent domestic violence tragedy in the Greater Boston area — and the difficult community conversations it prompted — revealed how stigma, silence and the fear of judgment continue to shape the way Armenians talk about mental health, relationships and domestic violence. Even far from Armenia, many Armenian families struggle to name what they are experiencing or to reach out for support.
It should be noted that the book is not without its critics. Some experts argue that certain scientific claims are overstated, and that certain therapies are presented more optimistically than current research supports. When discussing the Armenian translation, these criticisms should also be acknowledged and kept in mind. Despite its limitations, making the book available in Armenian broadens the vocabulary available to Armenian readers, which is a meaningful step. What remains necessary are more books in Armenian that examine traumafrom different angles; expanding community-based mental-health services, especially outside Yerevan; adopting rights-based legislative reforms that remove outdated practices like involuntary hospitalization or declaring people legally incapacitated; and creating more public community spaces that foster social connection. Without these, we risk having the words to describe pain but not the culturally appropriate pathways to address it.
And those pathways, to be meaningful, must take cultural context seriously. Emotional recovery in Armenia cannot simply mirror Western clinical models. Family structures, forms of care, the role of language, history, religion and community shape how pain is expressed and how healing happens. Translation is not only linguistic; it is also cultural. I plan to read the Armenian translation myself, fully aware that I’m not the ideal judge — both because I’m not an expert and because I did not grow up within Armenia’s social and linguistic realities. Even so, it will be meaningful to see how the book’s ideas have been carried across both language and context.
Translation is never only about words; it is also about tone, cultural resonance and how concepts take root in a society with its own history of pain and resilience.
A fair question remains: Who will actually read this book? And will it reach the people who might benefit from it the most? Probably not, at least not directly. The individuals most affected by unprocessed trauma are often the least likely to seek out a book on mental health. But that does not lessen the translation’s importance. Works like this shape public vocabulary, influence educators, clinicians and relatives, and can gradually shift what a society understands as normal, acceptable or worthy of care. Even if it does not reach everyone, it helps move trauma and healing into broader social awareness, where they belong.
Even with limitations and uncertainties, something important begins here.
The Armenian translation of The Body Keeps the Score helps make it possible to name wounds without shame and to approach one another with more patience and understanding.
Naming, of course, is only the start. We need more open conversations in families, more accessible mental-health resources, more acknowledgement from our institutions and more spaces where people can speak without fear of judgment. We are still far from where we need to be, yet each honest conversation and every responsible step to expand mental health knowledge in Armenian communities — in Armenia and the Diaspora — moves us closer to a healthier, more compassionate society.
If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or having thoughts of suicide, please reach out for support. Help is available:
- United States: Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741, calling 911 or going to the nearest emergency room.
- Armenia: Call the Psychological Support Hotline at 060 834 777 for free and confidential counseling. The line operates daily from 8 a.m. to midnight and offers support for anxiety, depression, interpersonal conflict, difficult life situations, loss of emotional balance and suicidal thoughts.
- Canada: Call or text 988 for 24/7 suicide-prevention support and emotional assistance.
