3/3/2015 Mandatory Reporting
29/5/2012
Trauma, storytelling, resilience On Sunday I attended the regular professional development interview with Online Events, free and open to anyone, therapist or otherwise, to learn about a specialist area of counseling. Last nights interview was with Felicity Biggart and Martin Weaver on the theory and teaching of Trauma Resilience.
It is possible to successfully work ones way through trauma with the use of some fairly straightforward techniques and with the support of a diffusion group, that is, a number of people chosen by the traumatized person who will listen with care to whatever the traumatized person needs to say. You can read more about this work here. The interview took place on the same day that the atrocity in Heula came to light, one amongst many atrocities in Syria and indeed all over the world. What made this news particularly awful are images of a large room filled with shrouded bodies including 46 children. The bodies were not available for forensic examination because they had to be buried within 24 hours but reports are that most of these people weren’t killed by artillery but murdered at close quarters. Some of the children are reported to have had their throats cut. We all know that some humans can be savage and monstrous but to hear a very current report of savagery can (perhaps should) shock us anew. This is a very healthy, proper response demonstrating that we’re not shut down, blasé or uncaring; we absorb the news and then life takes over again allowing us to function – if we were to empathise with all the barbarism in the world we’d become mentally ill. And still, for a great many people the story of Heula will remain with them and be part of a small traumatisation, which is healthy and normal. If we make no connection between Heula and our own children having their throats cut, their terror and agony, then we have lost the basis for our own humanity. The Heula massacre was mentioned in the Trauma Resilience interview and Martin suggested that a way of dealing with this trauma-at-a-distance was to find a diffusion group, perhaps even from the people in the chat room, and in sharing ones upset and sadness with a group of people prepared to hear it, reduce it. It strikes me that we have lost this very human response not just to shock and trauma but also to sharing joy and delight. News media have taken over the storytelling and we suck up detail at-one-remove. Telling stories, hearing and seeing other people respond empathically, reminds us that we are actually alive in the world, and matter. A large number of my clients don't have this kind of support system, not because they're isolated, elderly or mad but because it's part of normal life now. Coming to counselling is almost all about telling your story and having it really heard. Perhaps for the first time. http://www.counsellingconnections.ie/cc/mothersandbabies/dealing-with-traumatic-birth-experiences/
Although written from an Irish perspective the experience remains the same: giving birth can be a harrowing experience that leaves many mothers in unrecognised shock. A cascade of intervention, maternal, midwife or obstetrician fear, an unhelpful partner or giving birth alone, not going to C section soon enough or going too quickly can all lead to PTSD, which sounds OTT but is becoming more recognised. This is not to pathologise childbirth or the post-partum but to recognise that some women can suffer terribly in silence while appearing to be getting on with being a new mother. We've lost all the rituals, the stories and routines around childbirth and left a void in their place. Telling your story, having it heard, hearing it yourself goes an awful long way to bring you back into the world that a painful and frightening event can shock you out of. |
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July 2020
CategoriesAll Abandonment Abuse Ancestors Anger Anxiety Ash Wednesday Attitude Banking Bereavement Birthday Bravery Breivik Bystander Effect Camila Batmanghelidjh Carnival Cbt Challenger Charlotte Bevan Childbirth Childhood Children Christmas Coaching Compassion Contemplation Control Counselling COVID 19 Culture Dalai Lama Death Death Cafe Democracy Denial Depression Domestic Violence Dying Eap Earth Day Empathy Employment Eric Klinenberg Ethics Exams Existential Failure Family Annihilation Fear Founders Syndrome Francis Report Gay Cure Genocide George Lyward Goldman Sachs Good Death Greg Smith Grief Grieving Grooming Groupthink Happiness Hate Hungary Illness Interconnectedness Jason Mihalko Jubilee Kids Company Kitty Genovese Life Light Living Loneliness Love Mandatory Reporting Meaning Men Mental Health Mid Staffs Mindfulness Money Mothers New Year Nigella Lawson Optimism Organisational Collapse Oxford Abuse Panama Papers Panic Panic Attacks Parenthood Petruska Clarkson Pleasure Politics Positivity Post Natal Depression Power Priorities Priority Productivity Psychotherapy Ptsd Red Tent Reflection Rena Resilience Riots Rites Of Passage Ritual Robin Williams Sad Sales Savile Scared Seasonal Affective Disorder Self Care Self Preservation Self-preservation Shock Sin Singletons Sport Spring Status St David St Georges Day Stress Suarez Suicide Support Talking Terry Pratchett Time Transition Trauma True Self Truth Understanding Unemployment Valentines Day Viktor Frankl Violence Whistleblowing Who Am I Winter Blues Women Work |