The Terror of Trauma
- Trauma renders its victim helpless. It is a confrontation with overwhelming and terrifying violence.
- Trauma tends to be relived by its victims even when it is long past. This makes it difficult to fully live in the present.
- Trauma memory is different from other kinds of memory. It is usually not chronological and often only disconnected fragments are remembered.
Traumatic memories can show up in disturbing feelings, emotional impulses, numbing, nightmares and bodily sensations. Triggers and flashbacks are also a well-known form of traumatic memory.
Trauma and Helplessness
Trauma happens when a person can neither defend themselves against nor escape a perceived threat. They remain helplessly stuck in their response to the threat.
The feeling of being threatened does not go away, even when the actual threat is long past.
Anxiety, panic attacks, hypervigilance, avoidance behaviour, and sleep disturbances are all results of trauma, and make victims once again feel helpless. But all these are natural reactions to threat, and they stay around even when the actual threat is gone.
Four Natural Responses to Danger
- We all have four basic responses to danger meant to ensure our survival.
- Fight – Flight – Freeze – Fawn
- Healthy access to these responses helps us in our everyday lives.
The fight response is important for self-assertion and helps us to establish boundaries.
The flight response helps us to take a step back when others cross our emotional boundaries.
The freeze response helps us to let go when efforts have proven useless.
The fawn response helps us to accept other people’s points of view, even when they do not correspond to our own.
How does trauma develop? The four danger responses become stuck and harmful
Trauma develops when we are stuck in one of the danger responses. We get stuck because it was not possible to defend ourselves or to flee.
And we remain stuck even when the danger is long past.
A stuck danger response thwarts healthy access to our danger responses.
- The fight response leads to controlling behaviour, even when we do not want to be controlling.
- The flight response leads to panic attacks, addiction and hyperactivity.
- The freeze response leads to isolation and depression.
- The fawn response leads to co-dependency, people pleasing and the loss of a sense of self.
What did Freud say about all this?
Freud’s concept of “repetition compulsion” is very helpful for understanding trauma.
According to this concept, trauma is repeated in a compulsive way, again and again, even when we are not aware of it.
This means that we also compulsively repeat our responses to danger. We are stuck in an endless cycle of repeating our unsuccessful fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses.
Freud also wrote about the ways in which past trauma impacts the present. He understood that past and present can be so intertwined that it is difficult to know what belongs to the past, and what belongs to the present.
Trauma – A Bit of History
The 20th century paved the road for contemporary trauma research.
The study of hysteria by Charcot in France was an incentive for Freud to explore the traumatic causes of the illness. Janet also made an important contribution with his theory of psychological dissociation.
The First World War and the discovery of shell shock further contributed to an understanding of the extreme impact that trauma has on psychological wellbeing.
The 1960s and 70s and were a time of heightened awareness of Holocaust trauma. This had to do with an increased respect for witnesses speaking out at various trials.
The women’s liberation movement of the 70s led to a long-awaited awareness of violence against women and subsequent trauma. Rape and domestic violence were largely freed from previous taboos and began to be openly discussed.
Today’s trauma research and theories are based on these 20th century developments. Without them, current acceptance and understanding of trauma, and the development of a range of therapies to treat trauma related illnesses would not exist.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD
In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association recognized post-traumatic stress disorder as a psychiatric illness. While PTSD refers to a disorder resulting from single incident trauma, such as an accident or natural catastrophe, C-PTSD results from prolonged or repetitive trauma such as occurs within family or intimate relationships. Symptoms such as anxiety, panic, hypervigilance, depression or addictions can occur in both types of PTSD.
Trauma Therapy – even the most severe trauma can heal
In therapy we’ll explore how …
- past trauma makes itself felt in your present life and relationships,
- how to recognize and cope with triggers and flashbacks,
- your strengths helped you to survive trauma,
- you can shape your future in a freer and better way.
Because trauma is essentially speechless, it is very important to find language for it in therapy.
Grieving is another aspect of trauma therapy. As Gabor Mate has pointed out, grieving is the antidote to trauma. It is a grief for all the feelings you weren’t allowed or able to feel as the trauma occurred or was unfolding.
Trauma leaves its victims disconnected and alone, and it’s therefore helpful to build new connections. Psychotherapy is one way of connecting in an empathic and supportive relationship.
My interest in trauma therapy grew out of my personal life experiences. These are an integral part of my work and have given me the basis for my deeper understanding of trauma.
