Trauma?

The understood definition of what constitutes trauma has changed quite a lot over the last century. In 1941 it was considered to be something specific to the neuroses of war veterans. PTSD basically. This, of course, meant there was a belief that only military people, mostly men, could be affected by trauma.

That idea was put forward by the American psychiatrist Abram Kardiner in his book, The Traumatic Neuroses of War. In 1967 the definition was broadened out to mean anything that causes harm to the psyche. It's been broadening out ever since. By 1980 trauma was considered to be "a psychologically distressing event that is outside the range of usual human experience" and, in 1987, Bessel van der Kolk (another American psychiatrist turned author) described trauma, quite simply, as something that affects someone who has undergone "overwhelming life experiences".

Another seven years on and the meaning changed again. Trauma was now something you may suffer if you have undergone "an event involving actual or threatened death or serious injury". It was associated with feelings of intense fear, horror, or helplessness. By 2013 most defined trauma as something you may feel if you have experienced "actual or threatened death, serious injury or sexual violence".

In the following decade that's been added to. Now trauma can be caused by any event that leaves an imprint on the brain or the body. It lingers in thoughts and memories. It is an emotional pain that often goes unseen but changes our brains pyschologically and biologically.

The reason I start with an outline of what trauma is is because that's what Carrie Poppy - an independent journalist and podcaster, in her Mental Health Pseudoscience on Social Media talk for Skeptics in the Pub - Online (hosted by the ever reliable Michael Marshall), did. She felt she needed to explain what trauma is before she could debunk some of the online treatments that have been offered up since we entered the age of social media.

Those online treatments have exploited the ever broadening definition of trauma (now so wide that absolutely anything that might happen to you could cause trauma) and the era has given rise to hundreds of people claiming, wrongly, to be experts on trauma. Regularly, they will espouse antiscientific ideas when it comes to treating, or coping, with trauma.

Carrie's speech was too long, twice the length of a normal Skeptics online lecture, and I've left a lot out here (you can listen to her podcast or buy her book if you want more) but there were some very interesting points. It's just they were often laboured over in such detail I found myself making a sneaky move on Words with Friends on my phone or doing a quick Jetpunk quiz.

I didn't even stick around for the Q&A which is quite unusual. The bits of the talk that were good, though, were really interesting. Carrie's been working, intensely, on a book about trauma. It's a subject she says she has found to be incredibly deep and very complex but this talk was not about the depth and complexity of trauma (well, not much). It was about the fluff around the edges of trauma. The misleading social media take on trauma that, predictably, has resulted in misleading ideas of treatment for trauma.

If almost everything can lead to trauma then, it seems to follow, almost everything can be a sign of trauma. During Carrie's travels online she's seen multiple behaviours described as being symptoms of trauma. They range from people pleasing, over explaining, and being unable to accept kindness from others to defensiveness, sadness, and anger. 

Physically, symptoms of trauma can include headaches, ovarian cysts, numbing, inattention, and detachment. The list does not stop there. In total there are over five hundred different physical issues that online 'experts' have decided are signs of trauma. Many of them genuine and serious physical problems that need treating. They're more likely, especially if untreated, to cause trauma than to be the result of trauma.

Some of the cod psychology offered up by these online frauds comes from Sigmund Freud, other ideas come from Ivan Pavlov, and other theories baked in to this gumbo of half science come from people I've never heard of. It's a mish-mash and though it may sometimes sound scientific, and regularly seems to be accompanied by photographs of young women doing yoga, none of it has really been put to the test.

The few proper studies that have been done as regards these theories have been highly criticised for poor methodology. Trauma therapists are invested in trauma therapy so if you visit one they may, rarely for malicious reasons and more often because they've been blinded by their own biases, see you as a trauma sufferer when you're not. Carrie spoke of her own personal experiences of visiting trauma therapists. One told her, incorrectly, she's been sexually abused by her father and another told her, equally incorrectly, she's grown up in a MKUltra style cult.

The fact she had no recall of being abused by her dad or growing up in a cult didn't matter. In fact, it was 'evidence' that it must have happened and was so bad she'd mentally blocked it out. Perhaps we all grew up in a MKUltra style cult and we've all blocked it out. By that logic, that must be the case.

When dealing with the idea we may be suffering trauma it's good to remind ourselves that the mood we're in at any given time dramatically alters how we remember things. We need to remember that false memories are quite normal, everybody has them, and we need to be aware that, as life goes on, people start to feel haunted or possessed by their learned behaviours.

As if they can't change. As if they're locked in to being a certain person. It's important to evolve our behaviour as we go through life and circumstances change but being resistant to change is also quite ordinary. It doesn't mean we're suffering with trauma. The trouble with ascribing almost everything to trauma is that actual health issues may not be being addressed and that the trauma police of the Internet prime their clients to believe that medical options are a form of 'gaslighting'.

Which, when you think about, is quite an advanced form of gaslighting in itself. If you tell somebody they're suffering trauma so much that they believe they are then you're creating an atmosphere in which any dissenting voice appears to be lacking in empathy, cruel even. Trauma does, indisputably, happen but is far far rarer than depression and anxiety. If you're suffering deep depression or anxiety that is ruining your life, a treatment for trauma probably won't help you.

It's a case of making sure things are labelled correctly and though Carrie Poppy may still be talking now for all I know one thing I can't accuse her of doing is labelling her talk incorrectly. It dealt, as promised, with mental health pseudoscience on social media. Something I suspect isn't going away any day soon.