5 ms·

There's been an attempt to redefine "trauma" broadly. Technically trauma is acute stress. That is, a great deal of stress delivered all at one time. There's bee

There's been an attempt to redefine "trauma" broadly. Technically trauma is acute stress. That is, a great deal of stress delivered all at one time. There's been an attempt to redefine it to include chronic stress. That is, generally living under stressful conditions. I don't know why people are doing this, but it's almost always closely bound to politics. For example, the commenter below mentioning the political commentators Will Self and Dan Carlin as evidence for the theory. I've noticed generally that people who talk about trauma being broad in this sense also tend to have a confused understanding of psychology in general. > One of the main premises of this article is that society today is more traumatic than in the past, which I find to be laughably incorrect. They are definitely incorrect. One pop culture way of looking at this is fairy tales. Not too long ago we used to tell children that if they went into the woods they could get eaten by people who lived there and lured children into their houses.

elmomle 1y ago
Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD? It's now quite broadly recognized that its effect on the psyche is severe and if anything broader in impact and more difficult to heal than acute trauma.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD? True CPTSD as diagnosed over time by a clinician is the result of complex traumas (complex, specifically, as that’s part of the definition. It’s what the C is for). The term is valid in that context. In common social media language, even the term CPTSD has become diluted. It was intended to represent complex cases of PTSD which were edge cases, and correspondingly rare. At some point the social media version of CPTSD emerged as a generic term and nearly everyone who self-diagnosed as having PTSD started upgrading themselves to CPTSD. The comment above is right that “trauma” has become so generic as to cover everything stressful or saddening in common vernacular. The concept of CPTSD was supposed to be a step above even normal trauma, but now even CPTSD is being brought out as a generic term for any post-trauma response, which was never the definition of CPTSD. A similar trend is happening on social media with the ADHD influencers now upgrading themselves to “AuDHD” which they say is a special more difficult variant of ADHD combined with Autism. My friends in psychiatry are at their wits end with all of the people coming in and demanding Autism diagnoses or “AuDHD” diagnoses despite not showing Autistic traits at all. There’s an arms race going on where some people try to amplify experiences into something much more dramatic. These therapy and psychiatry terms start to lose their meaning when they get adopted by social media.
  - lanstin 1y ago
    This phenomenon is not new; the love of drama that even common and routine trauma leaves many people with makes these sorts of attractions to diagnoses very appealing. I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies. My own childhood included the relatively common experience of being sexually assaulted by a relative and being threatened with death if I talked about it, and as a young adult, while I never quite believed I had MPD, I read so many books by and on multiple personality disorder, and took both comfort and inspiration from the stories. Like so many other things in our human society, networked technology is making this part of society more visible.
    - watwut 1y ago
      > I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies. Something similar happens with medical students. They kind of start to recognize themselves in all kinds of physical conditions. It is fairly common phase they go through.
  - crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
    Your friends in psychiartry...are they acknowledging the impact of living under oppression as a direct cause of issues & advocating for an end to oppression? Because that's what many healers outside of western medicine are touting. People are amplifying because the western medicine approach isn't addressing underlying issues & so people are trying to explain the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine. The dismissiveness in these comments is a direct driver of this culture.
    - resonious 1y ago
      I'll be honest, I don't think I would've interpreted "demanding an AuDHD diagnosis" as "explaining the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine". Especially if their issues are just oppression. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding. Western medicine is well aware of the fact that they can't treat the underlying cause of things like autism and ADHD. If you're a real patient with one of these diagnoses (or even depression), they will tell you that upfront. They're not pretending to fix anything with pills.
nyolfen 1y ago
> One of the strangest fixations of AWFL metaphysics is on a substance called 'trauma' that they believe is 'stored in the body' in small saclike organs where it constantly threatens to be 'triggered' and erupt out of its ducts. They assert life itself is about 'processing trauma'
oofbey 1y ago
Language constantly evolves. So it’s a little unfair to say anybody is trying to change a definition. In specific professional contexts, definitions are necessarily much more precise. Because in these contexts definitions have consequences. But in general dialogue being pedantic and sticking to a strict definition generally just makes you an ass. In psychiatry trauma has long been defined much more narrowly than just acute stress. Specifically exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. So not just any acute stress but stress associated with real life violence. That’s the DSM definition of trauma for PTSD and you’ll sometimes find nitpicky professionals sticking to this narrow definition. But it’s not how most people use the word.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I think it's understandable that someone with the experiences to give them "real" DSM-defined PTSD might look sideways or roll their eyes at someone claiming PTSD because they had strict parents who made them go to church or didn't let them play video games. Doesn't make them an ass.
  - sokka_h2otribe 1y ago
    No, it's not actually understandable to me. I don't believe the person with PTSD of your definition benefits from gatekeeping an understanding of ptsd. It also just flatly does not correspond to the research. Modern PTSD and cptsd concepts exist because the existing concepts didn't work, and the patients fit classic outcomes. Put another way, If someone was assaulted in church, maybe they had a more "real" PTSD If someone was different in their head and felt constrained at church everyday and their heart rate goes up every time they enter a church to the same degree as the assaulted persons does too....that's the outcome being similar (with some simplifications). Trauma is the bad thing and being unable to do anything about it, and what that can do to your psyche. People develop trauma not just because of how bad the experience was, but the circumstances before and after.
WombatsRiots 1y ago
A completely underrated author on trauma is C. Fred Alford. PTSD morphed from a diagnosis for soldiers returning from Vietnam to encompass everything. Life is traumatic. Everyone you know and love will die, and you will die. We also individually react differently to traumatic experiences, and a life changing positive moment for one person could destroy another. https://traumatheory.com/time-to-drop-ptsd/ https://traumatheory.com/time-to-drop-ptsd/
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  The really interesting discovery made about trauma in veterans is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury
esseph 1y ago
Dan Carlin as a political commenter? Definitely a historian (tons of works).
- Ryder123 1y ago
  Have you listened to his Common Sense podcast? He doesnt produce many episodes anymore (he talks about why in some of his most revent ones) but it used to be far more regular than Hardcore History.
  - esseph 1y ago
    No, have not. Have listened to quite a few HH segments though.
libertine 1y ago
> They are definitely incorrect. One pop culture way of looking at this is fairy tales. Not too long ago we used to tell children that if they went into the woods they could get eaten by people who lived there and lured children into their houses. You're probably right that in the past there were more messed up events, which had high chance of being traumatic. But you're forgetting the role that Perception has in that equation - from the perspective of a human, a traumatic event isn't a comparison exercise to all possible events, or to past events on previous generations. Your subjective experience is bound to your context. In that sense, I wouldn't be shocked if there was more trauma now from the amount of stimulus were getting throughout our life, and the volume of dramatic changes we go through, and the amount of people and chaos that comes with it. For example, we have way more accidents, and we also have higher survival rates from accidents due to safety measures, and a advanced medical care. So, many deadly events in the past became accidents now, and by consequence, a high chance of it being a traumatic event, sometimes for the victim and the family (directly or indirectly). Not to mention that our life styles don't even allow us to process traumatic events properly.
cycomanic 1y ago
> There's been an attempt to redefine "trauma" broadly. Technically trauma is acute stress. That is, a great deal of stress delivered all at one time. There's been an attempt to redefine it to include chronic stress. That is, generally living under stressful conditions. > Do you have any references for trauma being tide to short acute stress? Looking at Wikipedia does not include acute stress and even talks about the difference between short trauma and long term trauma. Also I definitely recall that even when I was young (>30 years ago) we would talk about e.g. the trauma of child abuse or sexual abuse, which is often not acute.
- ants_everywhere 1y ago
  Acute in the sense that it's delivered all at once, not that its effects are short-lived. For example, the DSM defines PTSD, which is post-traumatic stess disorder. I.e. a trauma occurred (acute stess) and the lingering disorder is a stess disorder rather than a trauma disorder. You might colloquially say you have been living with the trauma of PTSD, but that doesn't make sense; you're really living with the stress of PTSD after having experienced the initial trauma. They don't use the words "acute" or "chronic", that was my attempt to explain it to a lay audience. The first paragraph of Wikipedia describes it as "caused by severe distressing events, such as bodily injury, sexual violence, or other threats to the life of the subject or their loved ones." The DSM-V diagnosis requires "exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence." I.e. a traumatic event. You can experience multiple traumatic events. But, medically, the distinction seems to be that delivering stress chemicals to your body all at once produces a different response than delivering them consistently over time. > the trauma of child abuse or sexual abuse, which is often not acute. People talk this way. Dictionary.com also mentions the "trauma of divorce." The trauma of divorce is clearly metaphorical rather than actual trauma. Sexual violence does count as a traumatic event. Violence toward children would also count as a traumatic event. Whether a child (or even adult) that has been abused has PTSD depends on the facts of the case. One should not assume that trauma is better or more severe than stress delivered over a longer period. Imprisonment, child abuse, and working in a military hospital are all things that come to mind as experiences that would leave a lasting impression. But those symptoms would generally not be the same as trauma symptoms. You do have to be careful on Wikipedia with this topic because they mention unconscious suppression of child abuse, which is not a thing that happens. It also says awareness of climate change causes trauma, which it does not. The article needs a pass from someone with a professional background.
PaulHoule 1y ago
I like this concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome in that it describes the interaction of poverty and mental illness which can well be interpreted in a left-wing frame (these people are victims of the system, they need to get some more resources to get their footing) or a right-wing frame (these people don't take responsibility, they drive away, squander or destroy resources) At times theories of broad trauma were respectable such as Freud's Oedipus theory and even today I think certain kinds of organizations such as the U.S. Marines and the medical profession can be seen as transmitting their culture through traumatic experiences.
- gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
  Right-wing trauma gets misdiagnosed (as autism, moral injury eg etc) because that setting is way less gauche. Adding to your examples, there's tiger-mom type trauma (+Jewish variants of that) which has inherited the superficial respectability of Oedipal (neo-Bronze? Neo-aetic? Neo-chalcic?) myths Tying back to GP's fairytales, obviously

elmomle 1y ago

Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD? It's now quite broadly recognized that its effect on the psyche is severe and if anything broader in impact and more difficult to heal than acute trauma.

Aurornis 1y ago
> Do you think another term is more appropriate to describe the experiences underlying CPTSD? True CPTSD as diagnosed over time by a clinician is the result of complex traumas (complex, specifically, as that’s part of the definition. It’s what the C is for). The term is valid in that context. In common social media language, even the term CPTSD has become diluted. It was intended to represent complex cases of PTSD which were edge cases, and correspondingly rare. At some point the social media version of CPTSD emerged as a generic term and nearly everyone who self-diagnosed as having PTSD started upgrading themselves to CPTSD. The comment above is right that “trauma” has become so generic as to cover everything stressful or saddening in common vernacular. The concept of CPTSD was supposed to be a step above even normal trauma, but now even CPTSD is being brought out as a generic term for any post-trauma response, which was never the definition of CPTSD. A similar trend is happening on social media with the ADHD influencers now upgrading themselves to “AuDHD” which they say is a special more difficult variant of ADHD combined with Autism. My friends in psychiatry are at their wits end with all of the people coming in and demanding Autism diagnoses or “AuDHD” diagnoses despite not showing Autistic traits at all. There’s an arms race going on where some people try to amplify experiences into something much more dramatic. These therapy and psychiatry terms start to lose their meaning when they get adopted by social media.
- lanstin 1y ago
  This phenomenon is not new; the love of drama that even common and routine trauma leaves many people with makes these sorts of attractions to diagnoses very appealing. I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies. My own childhood included the relatively common experience of being sexually assaulted by a relative and being threatened with death if I talked about it, and as a young adult, while I never quite believed I had MPD, I read so many books by and on multiple personality disorder, and took both comfort and inspiration from the stories. Like so many other things in our human society, networked technology is making this part of society more visible.
  - watwut 1y ago
    > I once hung out a lot with a class of masters students in experimental psychology and they all went thru evaluating their own minds thru the lens of various pathologies. Something similar happens with medical students. They kind of start to recognize themselves in all kinds of physical conditions. It is fairly common phase they go through.
- crawfordcomeaux 1y ago
  Your friends in psychiartry...are they acknowledging the impact of living under oppression as a direct cause of issues & advocating for an end to oppression? Because that's what many healers outside of western medicine are touting. People are amplifying because the western medicine approach isn't addressing underlying issues & so people are trying to explain the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine. The dismissiveness in these comments is a direct driver of this culture.
  - resonious 1y ago
    I'll be honest, I don't think I would've interpreted "demanding an AuDHD diagnosis" as "explaining the compounding of their issues in the language of western medicine". Especially if their issues are just oppression. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding. Western medicine is well aware of the fact that they can't treat the underlying cause of things like autism and ADHD. If you're a real patient with one of these diagnoses (or even depression), they will tell you that upfront. They're not pretending to fix anything with pills.

nyolfen 1y ago

> One of the strangest fixations of AWFL metaphysics is on a substance called 'trauma' that they believe is 'stored in the body' in small saclike organs where it constantly threatens to be 'triggered' and erupt out of its ducts. They assert life itself is about 'processing trauma'

oofbey 1y ago

Language constantly evolves. So it’s a little unfair to say anybody is trying to change a definition. In specific professional contexts, definitions are necessarily much more precise. Because in these contexts definitions have consequences. But in general dialogue being pedantic and sticking to a strict definition generally just makes you an ass. In psychiatry trauma has long been defined much more narrowly than just acute stress. Specifically exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. So not just any acute stress but stress associated with real life violence. That’s the DSM definition of trauma for PTSD and you’ll sometimes find nitpicky professionals sticking to this narrow definition. But it’s not how most people use the word.

SoftTalker 1y ago
I think it's understandable that someone with the experiences to give them "real" DSM-defined PTSD might look sideways or roll their eyes at someone claiming PTSD because they had strict parents who made them go to church or didn't let them play video games. Doesn't make them an ass.
- sokka_h2otribe 1y ago
  No, it's not actually understandable to me. I don't believe the person with PTSD of your definition benefits from gatekeeping an understanding of ptsd. It also just flatly does not correspond to the research. Modern PTSD and cptsd concepts exist because the existing concepts didn't work, and the patients fit classic outcomes. Put another way, If someone was assaulted in church, maybe they had a more "real" PTSD If someone was different in their head and felt constrained at church everyday and their heart rate goes up every time they enter a church to the same degree as the assaulted persons does too....that's the outcome being similar (with some simplifications). Trauma is the bad thing and being unable to do anything about it, and what that can do to your psyche. People develop trauma not just because of how bad the experience was, but the circumstances before and after.

WombatsRiots 1y ago

A completely underrated author on trauma is C. Fred Alford. PTSD morphed from a diagnosis for soldiers returning from Vietnam to encompass everything. Life is traumatic. Everyone you know and love will die, and you will die. We also individually react differently to traumatic experiences, and a life changing positive moment for one person could destroy another. https://traumatheory.com/time-to-drop-ptsd/ https://traumatheory.com/time-to-drop-ptsd/

PaulHoule 1y ago
The really interesting discovery made about trauma in veterans is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_injury

esseph 1y ago

Dan Carlin as a political commenter? Definitely a historian (tons of works).

Ryder123 1y ago
Have you listened to his Common Sense podcast? He doesnt produce many episodes anymore (he talks about why in some of his most revent ones) but it used to be far more regular than Hardcore History.
- esseph 1y ago
  No, have not. Have listened to quite a few HH segments though.

libertine 1y ago

> They are definitely incorrect. One pop culture way of looking at this is fairy tales. Not too long ago we used to tell children that if they went into the woods they could get eaten by people who lived there and lured children into their houses. You're probably right that in the past there were more messed up events, which had high chance of being traumatic. But you're forgetting the role that Perception has in that equation - from the perspective of a human, a traumatic event isn't a comparison exercise to all possible events, or to past events on previous generations. Your subjective experience is bound to your context. In that sense, I wouldn't be shocked if there was more trauma now from the amount of stimulus were getting throughout our life, and the volume of dramatic changes we go through, and the amount of people and chaos that comes with it. For example, we have way more accidents, and we also have higher survival rates from accidents due to safety measures, and a advanced medical care. So, many deadly events in the past became accidents now, and by consequence, a high chance of it being a traumatic event, sometimes for the victim and the family (directly or indirectly). Not to mention that our life styles don't even allow us to process traumatic events properly.

cycomanic 1y ago

> There's been an attempt to redefine "trauma" broadly. Technically trauma is acute stress. That is, a great deal of stress delivered all at one time. There's been an attempt to redefine it to include chronic stress. That is, generally living under stressful conditions. > Do you have any references for trauma being tide to short acute stress? Looking at Wikipedia does not include acute stress and even talks about the difference between short trauma and long term trauma. Also I definitely recall that even when I was young (>30 years ago) we would talk about e.g. the trauma of child abuse or sexual abuse, which is often not acute.

ants_everywhere 1y ago
Acute in the sense that it's delivered all at once, not that its effects are short-lived. For example, the DSM defines PTSD, which is post-traumatic stess disorder. I.e. a trauma occurred (acute stess) and the lingering disorder is a stess disorder rather than a trauma disorder. You might colloquially say you have been living with the trauma of PTSD, but that doesn't make sense; you're really living with the stress of PTSD after having experienced the initial trauma. They don't use the words "acute" or "chronic", that was my attempt to explain it to a lay audience. The first paragraph of Wikipedia describes it as "caused by severe distressing events, such as bodily injury, sexual violence, or other threats to the life of the subject or their loved ones." The DSM-V diagnosis requires "exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence." I.e. a traumatic event. You can experience multiple traumatic events. But, medically, the distinction seems to be that delivering stress chemicals to your body all at once produces a different response than delivering them consistently over time. > the trauma of child abuse or sexual abuse, which is often not acute. People talk this way. Dictionary.com also mentions the "trauma of divorce." The trauma of divorce is clearly metaphorical rather than actual trauma. Sexual violence does count as a traumatic event. Violence toward children would also count as a traumatic event. Whether a child (or even adult) that has been abused has PTSD depends on the facts of the case. One should not assume that trauma is better or more severe than stress delivered over a longer period. Imprisonment, child abuse, and working in a military hospital are all things that come to mind as experiences that would leave a lasting impression. But those symptoms would generally not be the same as trauma symptoms. You do have to be careful on Wikipedia with this topic because they mention unconscious suppression of child abuse, which is not a thing that happens. It also says awareness of climate change causes trauma, which it does not. The article needs a pass from someone with a professional background.

PaulHoule 1y ago

I like this concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome in that it describes the interaction of poverty and mental illness which can well be interpreted in a left-wing frame (these people are victims of the system, they need to get some more resources to get their footing) or a right-wing frame (these people don't take responsibility, they drive away, squander or destroy resources) At times theories of broad trauma were respectable such as Freud's Oedipus theory and even today I think certain kinds of organizations such as the U.S. Marines and the medical profession can be seen as transmitting their culture through traumatic experiences.

gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
Right-wing trauma gets misdiagnosed (as autism, moral injury eg etc) because that setting is way less gauche. Adding to your examples, there's tiger-mom type trauma (+Jewish variants of that) which has inherited the superficial respectability of Oedipal (neo-Bronze? Neo-aetic? Neo-chalcic?) myths Tying back to GP's fairytales, obviously