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I disagree about being trauma naive as a society. Having a scientific understanding of trauma is separate from having phenomenological understanding of trauma,

I disagree about being trauma naive as a society. Having a scientific understanding of trauma is separate from having phenomenological understanding of trauma, and I believe we have a large amount of knowledge and wisdom about the latter. I also believe there is a large repertoire of psychotechnologies that helped people to be trauma resistant or helped them if they had PTSD. We just lost contact with many of them and psychotherapy is perhaps the only dominant vessel for us in rediscovering those. Peter Levine's most famous example is a polar bear that shakes a potentially traumatic stimulus off after being shot with tranquilizer. He argues even non-human mammals have the instinctive know-how to deal with trauma. Why humans would be lagging behind other than undue suppression of their instincts on how to deal with it? If anything, our modern society that puts so much stake at "being in control" is a hindrance to post-traumatic resolution than historical societies would be. A crucial requirement for traumatic retention is a sense of loss of control that accompanies hyperarousal. No perceived lack of control = no trauma. In the context of combat PTSD, there is a large difference between modern warfare technologies and historical warfare in terms of the loss of control it induces (both for soldiers and civillians). At the very least, I would argue historic wars had more contextual meaning with them, fighting for one's land, nation, loved ones were more immediate and connected to the action, as opposed to being flown to a foreign country for less-than-well understood purposes. Even for complex-PTSD, nuclear and even single parent households being a recent state of affairs, I would argue historically having multiple adult figures in one's childhood context prevented a problematic relationship with a single adult dominating the development experience of the child. Also those children had more access to natural world early on (unsupervised play time), developed competencies (e.g. working in the farm with parents) and afforded many other developmental freedoms, therefore likely to have developed trauma resilience. What was a rite-of-passage ritual supervised by the elders if not a training program for developing trauma resilience? I would say it might as well be our current world that is more trauma-naive, trauma-generating and trauma-retaining than historical ones. We have the collective wisdom on how to deal with it, but insurance doesn't pay for it and you gotta show up at the office the next day.

palimpsests 7y ago
Great points on being raised by more adults, rites of passage, and the context in which combat PTSD occurred. I don't disagree - these were definitely (sometimes powerfully) mediating factors. And yes, it's an open question as to the degree of suppression of PTSD and natural traumatic resolution in pre-industrial societies. I do also agree that there has been a deep phenomenological understanding of trauma for many, many generations of humanity. It most likely wasn't called "trauma" (until perhaps recently). I also believe that our current understanding of this phenomenon has reached a level of sophistication that we've never had before, and this is bolstered by various advances in culture, science, and policy. For example, the legal use of entheogens as a medically prescribed treatment for PTSD (of course, these could be used to treat PTSD hundreds of years ago, and there were and are beautiful traditions around this -- the models were just different, though). We may have been less trauma-naive and less trauma-generating at some point in our collective history; I wonder about the level of holism of the models of trauma at that time.
- acituan 7y ago
  That’s a good point, we had the necessary pieces scattered across cultures and time but not all at one place. Looking forward to the integration modern psychology can afford us.
Ar-Curunir 7y ago
> At the very least, I would argue historic wars had more contextual meaning with them, fighting for one's land, nation, loved ones were more immediate and connected to the action, War has been the same across millennia: rulers getting into fights and forcing the ruled to fight for these wars for them.
- ithkuil 7y ago
  Not always. War was also a career, a way to provide to your (present, future) family by stealing resources from others (pillaging). Rulers often rewarded veterans with lands of the conquered etc.
  - Ar-Curunir 7y ago
    That's precisely what war still is for many Americans too: a way to get cheap college, a guaranteed career, etc. Doesn't change the fact that it's still the poor being forced to take this option; the only difference is that it's the economy (controlled by the rulers) that's doing the coercion, instead of the rulers directly.
    - ithkuil 7y ago
      I don't think everything can be explained in such a top down way, as if there is a determined ruling class that subjugates a set of passive actors that don't have any role in the hole story. Society is built by individuals that are ultimately driven by the same things, no matter what is your current place in the dominance hierarchy. Thinking that the average peasant would not engage in aggressive behaviour if it were not for the "ruling class" to provide that incentive fails to explain how the ruling class emerged in the first place. Humans compete. They compete for mates, for prestige, for resources. Harmony and peace require effort to build and sustain, but they pay dividends. Prosperity benefits the rulers too. Paradoxically, harmony and peace in ancient history was often the product of interests of the same ruling classes that engaged in the warring behaviour.
ben509 7y ago
> there is a large difference between modern warfare technologies and historical warfare in terms of the loss of control it induces Certainly, in historical warfare, you faced off against an enemy. There were far fewer devices that could be highly lethal and completely unseen. Even stuff as simple as IEDs is awful, but airstrikes, artillery, etc. probably contribute to that sense of no control. And the counters to them are, generally, prolonged periods of hyper-awareness, continually scanning for threats.
- acituan 7y ago
  Well said. Though as I was re-reading your comment I remembered the incidence of PTSD among drone operators. Even though they have the perfectly controlled physical environment, they seem to be negatively effected too. I doubt their triggers are similar (like fireworks reminding gunfire) though.
hinkley 7y ago
I took an exercise class a while back and the instructor came in one day shaking. On his way to class there was a bad motorcycle accident. Guy didn't die but had life-altering injuries, and the instructor was first on the scene. It was bad. He was vibrating when he came in. I finally convinced him to do some extra shake-out exercises like we already do which helped a bit. After class our timing didn't line up, I was trying to slip him some cash and 'prescribe' him an evening doing something he loves to wind down. He was trying to be macho about it and I was trying to get him to acknowledge that some fucked up shit just happened. Haven't seen him since the COVID thing so I don't know how he's doing.
- acituan 7y ago
  Sounds like you did your best to be of support. I’m curious about the particulars of the shaking exercise you recommended. I have heard of one called TRE (trauma release exercises), perhaps something similar?
  - hinkley 7y ago
    There’s some static strength involved and so it’s not uncommon to “shake out” your limbs as part of a warm up or a transition between sections. And I was trying not to lecture this young(er) instructor in front of a room of his regular students, so I didn’t feel I could do more than encourage him to dump some more adrenaline. He was trying to laugh it off, which parts of my extended family are notorious for. Nobody talks about anything.

palimpsests 7y ago

Great points on being raised by more adults, rites of passage, and the context in which combat PTSD occurred. I don't disagree - these were definitely (sometimes powerfully) mediating factors. And yes, it's an open question as to the degree of suppression of PTSD and natural traumatic resolution in pre-industrial societies. I do also agree that there has been a deep phenomenological understanding of trauma for many, many generations of humanity. It most likely wasn't called "trauma" (until perhaps recently). I also believe that our current understanding of this phenomenon has reached a level of sophistication that we've never had before, and this is bolstered by various advances in culture, science, and policy. For example, the legal use of entheogens as a medically prescribed treatment for PTSD (of course, these could be used to treat PTSD hundreds of years ago, and there were and are beautiful traditions around this -- the models were just different, though). We may have been less trauma-naive and less trauma-generating at some point in our collective history; I wonder about the level of holism of the models of trauma at that time.

acituan 7y ago
That’s a good point, we had the necessary pieces scattered across cultures and time but not all at one place. Looking forward to the integration modern psychology can afford us.

Ar-Curunir 7y ago

> At the very least, I would argue historic wars had more contextual meaning with them, fighting for one's land, nation, loved ones were more immediate and connected to the action, War has been the same across millennia: rulers getting into fights and forcing the ruled to fight for these wars for them.

ithkuil 7y ago
Not always. War was also a career, a way to provide to your (present, future) family by stealing resources from others (pillaging). Rulers often rewarded veterans with lands of the conquered etc.
- Ar-Curunir 7y ago
  That's precisely what war still is for many Americans too: a way to get cheap college, a guaranteed career, etc. Doesn't change the fact that it's still the poor being forced to take this option; the only difference is that it's the economy (controlled by the rulers) that's doing the coercion, instead of the rulers directly.
  - ithkuil 7y ago
    I don't think everything can be explained in such a top down way, as if there is a determined ruling class that subjugates a set of passive actors that don't have any role in the hole story. Society is built by individuals that are ultimately driven by the same things, no matter what is your current place in the dominance hierarchy. Thinking that the average peasant would not engage in aggressive behaviour if it were not for the "ruling class" to provide that incentive fails to explain how the ruling class emerged in the first place. Humans compete. They compete for mates, for prestige, for resources. Harmony and peace require effort to build and sustain, but they pay dividends. Prosperity benefits the rulers too. Paradoxically, harmony and peace in ancient history was often the product of interests of the same ruling classes that engaged in the warring behaviour.

ben509 7y ago

> there is a large difference between modern warfare technologies and historical warfare in terms of the loss of control it induces Certainly, in historical warfare, you faced off against an enemy. There were far fewer devices that could be highly lethal and completely unseen. Even stuff as simple as IEDs is awful, but airstrikes, artillery, etc. probably contribute to that sense of no control. And the counters to them are, generally, prolonged periods of hyper-awareness, continually scanning for threats.

acituan 7y ago
Well said. Though as I was re-reading your comment I remembered the incidence of PTSD among drone operators. Even though they have the perfectly controlled physical environment, they seem to be negatively effected too. I doubt their triggers are similar (like fireworks reminding gunfire) though.

hinkley 7y ago

I took an exercise class a while back and the instructor came in one day shaking. On his way to class there was a bad motorcycle accident. Guy didn't die but had life-altering injuries, and the instructor was first on the scene. It was bad. He was vibrating when he came in. I finally convinced him to do some extra shake-out exercises like we already do which helped a bit. After class our timing didn't line up, I was trying to slip him some cash and 'prescribe' him an evening doing something he loves to wind down. He was trying to be macho about it and I was trying to get him to acknowledge that some fucked up shit just happened. Haven't seen him since the COVID thing so I don't know how he's doing.

acituan 7y ago
Sounds like you did your best to be of support. I’m curious about the particulars of the shaking exercise you recommended. I have heard of one called TRE (trauma release exercises), perhaps something similar?
- hinkley 7y ago
  There’s some static strength involved and so it’s not uncommon to “shake out” your limbs as part of a warm up or a transition between sections. And I was trying not to lecture this young(er) instructor in front of a room of his regular students, so I didn’t feel I could do more than encourage him to dump some more adrenaline. He was trying to laugh it off, which parts of my extended family are notorious for. Nobody talks about anything.