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Trauma Recovery

Bobby Newman, Ph.D., C.B.A.

There are times in life when we suffer through events that no one should have to suffer through. These horrible occurrences range from accidents through natural disasters, from attacks by others to emotional betrayal and abandonment by loved ones. While we inevitably learn to deal with what has happened to us, we cannot help but be changed by it. Unfortunately, some of the ways we learn to deal with the trauma may help us in the short term, such as just repressing the memory and all the pain associated with it, but do not help us to function effectively in the long term.

One of my past positions was as a crime victim's counselor, helping people to come to terms with what had happened to them, to fully understand the experience, and to discover the most constructive ways to deal with the personal trauma. While I am no longer employed by the state in this capacity, I continue to work with people who have suffered traumas such as I mentioned above. Sometimes we have to work on cognitive issues related to the suffering. If the person thinks of a random mugging as just that, a random attack, anger and anxiety about future attacks may be the dominant emotions. There will probably not be a lasting depression, however. Contrast this with someone who has suffered an identical violation and begins to think of him/herself as a "natural born victim" and blame him/herself for what happened. If the person somehow believes that (s)he did something to bring the trauma about, depression may become the dominant feeling. Therapy is sometimes a process of helping people to think and feel as rationally as possible about the experience, finding a way to incorporate the incident into their new world view. One of the truths rape victims and I discovered together went something like this:

"You were raped. Nothing we can say will ever change that fact.

This occurrence will be a part of your experience for the rest of your life

and nothing will ever change that. From this point forward, that experience will

be a part of who you are. The work now is to find a way to reconcile that

trauma with the rest of your life and determine how it will now factor in

your view of yourself and your relationship to the world you live in."

Sometimes we are not even aware of the extent to which traumas have affected us. Time allows us to subtly change the memories, to repress the more troubling aspects in an attempt to deal with what happened to us. Anxiety is frequently the natural result, and is not necessarily a bad thing. Anxiety is like physical pain. It lets us know that something is wrong. When we reach a point where we feel anxiety, that is a signal that we are getting close to something that hurts, perhaps the trauma and its personal meaning for us. We may not even know why we feel anxious, just having a vague sense that something is wrong.

Therapy in this latter case is not a straight-forward cognitive work as before. While there is still the cognitive element, we have learned "safe" thought patterns, the trauma is still there and may be affecting us though the altered thought and processing patterns. Here, therapy may be a process of coming to understand and deal with the trauma, recognizing it for what it is and how it has subtly (or not so subtly) affected our thoughts, feelings and behavior. Therapy here may call for other kinds of work in order to explore the feelings in a "safe" manner. Analogies and metaphor are frequently the first line of attack, trying to sneak in through a back door to address the trauma without invoking the defense mechanisms that have inevitably sprang up to defend us against their anxiety provoking pattern. It is often impossible to overtly acknowledge a betrayal by loved one or parent, for example. Only by considering the trauma in a safe, detached and possibly even symbolic manner, can we then find a safe way to deal with the true suffering. In truth, we are often quite skilled at disguising the true meaning of what has happened to us, it's just safer that way. We purchase this safety at a terrible price, however, a nagging anxiety that we can no longer even name or understand. Corrective experiences are needed to bring the issues to the light of day, when we can recognize what happened for what it truly was, and then learn to move on in as constructive a fashion as possible.

Therapy is not easy in either case. As the suffering is great, so there are no simple answers. All is not hopeless, however, and we can incorporate what has happened to us into our world view and grow from the experience. It certainly won't be any fun, but we may arise from the experience stronger and wiser than we imagined we could ever be.

Bobby Newman, Ph.D., C.B.A. is a licensed psychologist and certified behavior analyst.

Dr. Bobby Newman has offices in Manhattan, Long Beach, and, Long Island.

http://www.room2grow.org e-mail at darkoverlordaba@prodigy.net

He will be speaking next at.....