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1-Page Summary of Trauma and Recovery
The Study of Trauma – A Brief History
The political environment can either support or impede the study of psychological trauma. In the late 19th century, Jean-Martin Charcot performed studies on hysteria that were well received by his peers. He didn’t want to discuss what caused a patient’s symptoms and focused more on their physical manifestations instead. His followers (particularly Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud) found that hysteria was caused by psychological trauma, which led them to find ways to cure it through psychotherapy. This idea became rooted in modern society when Freud published The Aetiology of Hysteria, which stated that child abuse was the root cause of all cases of hysteria. However, he later realized this wasn’t true because many women who came into his practice had no history of child abuse but still suffered from hysteria.
Various psychologists studied hysteria in the late 19th century, and then again after World War I. Soldiers’ reactions to battle were similar to what they had observed in abused women. Traditionalist thinkers believed that shaming those soldiers back into the field would cure them of their supposed cowardice. However, a British physician named W.H.R. Rivers promoted the idea that brave soldiers could suffer from “combat neurosis.” Advances in psychological trauma continued after WWII and Vietnam, with researchers focusing on sexual violence and domestic abuse as well as rape victims who suffered psychological trauma from these experiences.
Elements of Terror
Humans are programmed to respond with fear and anger when they’re in danger. That’s because it makes them focus on the threat and ignore other things like hunger or cold. They act by confronting the danger or running away from it. Traumatic events overwhelm people’s ability to fight or run, because in those situations they can neither confront nor flee the situation. The traumatic event produces intense changes that last for a long time, which affects their psychology, feelings, cognition and memory. People who suffer trauma also experience rifts between normally integrated functions of their mind such as self-protection systems.
- Traumatized people feel as though they’re constantly in danger. They have sleep disturbances, are jumpy, irritable and aggressive, and experience generalized anxiety. In addition to this hyperarousal state, victims relive the traumatic event over and over again through nightmares or intrusive thoughts during waking hours. The trauma feels frozen in time for them because it’s stuck in their minds. Some victims go into a constricted state when they confront dangerous situations that render them powerless; symptoms of this include numb emotions, distorted sense of time, detached calmness and apparent indifference or passivity.
The Aftermath
When terrible events occur, people’s belief systems can change dramatically. If they survived when others did not, they may experience guilt and feel alienated from their old beliefs. They might also be angry or hate violence after the event occurred. These feelings of anger and alienation affect their relationships with family, friends and community members; these individuals often seek both isolation and closeness in relationships.
When people have a traumatic experience, they are greatly influenced by the response of their family and friends. If these loved ones can be positive and supportive, victims will feel better about themselves. However, if they are judgmental or critical of the victim’s behavior during or after the incident, then it could make things worse for them. Victims need to know that everyone reacts differently in those situations and that recovery takes time.
