This post is Part 2 of a series.<\/p>\n
As you may have seen in your social media<\/a> feeds and in pop psychology books, trauma healing has become big business. We could even call it an industry or an industrial complex at this point. <\/p>\n The language of this industry is everywhere, and we’re all being “triggered,” or “moving into fight and flight,” or “regulating our nervous systems,” or “hacking our parasympathetic” or engaging in “trauma-informed” trainings.<\/p>\n All this in-language could be seen as a positive movement, but what I’m seeing\u2014as a survivor of serious childhood<\/a> abuse, and as a researcher\u2014concerns me. As I wrote in part 1 of this series<\/a>, decades of research has shown that fully two thirds of us will regain our resilience after traumatic incidents<\/a>\u2014of any intensity or duration\u2014without the need for interventions of any kind. No therapy<\/a>, no nervous system<\/a> hacking, no trauma-informed anything.<\/p>\n It is, in other words, natural for us to recover from injuries and traumas, and it is natural for us to restabilize ourselves. And for the one third of us who experience enduring post-traumatic<\/a> difficulties, there are research-backed ways to help us regain our stability and resilience<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Protective Power of the Flexibility Mindset<\/p>\n In researcher George Bonanno’s<\/a> book, The End of Trauma, we learn that humans are a remarkably resilient species. In one of the many surprising findings Dr. Bonanno shares, we learn about a mindset that the two thirds of people who recover their resilience tend to share; it’s called the flexibility mindset:<\/p>\n At the core of the mindset are three interrelated beliefs: optimism<\/a> about the future, confidence<\/a> in our ability to cope, and a willingness to think about a threat as a challenge (Bonanno, 2021, p. 123).<\/p>\n My concern about much of today’s trauma-healing industry is that it tends to get in the way of all three of these essential and protective beliefs. <\/p>\n Instead of optimism about the future, we trauma survivors are warned about the haunting symptoms that may show up years, decades, or even generations after we face traumatic events. Instead of instilling confidence in our natural ability to regain our resilience, we are given a list of dire aftereffects and even the ACES (adverse childhood experiences<\/a>) quiz that predicts the symptoms and diseases children will allegedly develop after traumatic incidents. And instead of helping us see potentially traumatizing events as challenges, we are invited to see them as catastrophic situations that damage our bodies, our emotions, our nervous systems, our capacity for social engagement, and even our cranial nerves.<\/p>\n None of that is true for everyone. In fact, considering the resilience trajectory that 66.6 percent of us follow, we’re twice as likely to regain our resilience after traumatic events than we are to have lasting symptoms.<\/p>\n Trauma is Not an Entity That Forces a Specific Outcome<\/p>\n In The End of Trauma, Dr. Bonanno helps us see that trauma is not an entity over which we are powerless bystanders (or victims). Instead, he refers to “potentially traumatic events,” which is a bit clunky to write out, but also a very important distinction. <\/p>\n A potentially traumatic event does not force me to become damaged, as if I am a nonliving item upon which the troubles of the world are engraved. We cannot responsibly say that X amount of potentially traumatic events will create Y amount of symptoms; that’s overreach, and it sends a terrible message to people like me who faced serious traumatic situations from childhood through early adulthood.<\/p>\n Because depending on the event or situation, I may or may not develop enduring post-traumatic symptoms. In many cases, I may recover quickly, or I may require a period of healing and readjustment; it’s deeply individual. The traumatic incident doesn’t determine my outcome; I do. I have agency, flexibility, and an inborn capacity for healing.<\/p>\n But we can say that no matter the length or intensity of potentially traumatic events, two thirds of us will regain our resilience, because we are not mere victims or bystanders. We are living, capable organisms who bring 200,000 years of homo sapiens survival skills to bear on every situation we face.<\/p>\n Trauma isn’t an entity that causes specific injuries or difficulties; it is a destabilizing situation we experience as whole beings who are a part of an astonishingly resilient species.<\/p>\n Reclaiming the Language of Resilience<\/p>\n I read Dr. Bonanno’s book as I was preparing the 2023 update of my book, The Language of Emotions, and in a final edit, I searched my manuscript for the word trauma. Thank goodness I did, because I had presented trauma as a kind of entity throughout the book. I had bad sentences such as: “When traumas occur…”\u2014as if potentially traumatic events would always cause endless suffering.<\/p>\n Since then, I’ve been aware of the ways that we unnecessarily typecast trauma survivors and surround them with outdated and melodramatic frames that may restrict their natural movements into flexibility and resilience. <\/p>\n At this time, when many trauma healing modalities<\/a> are being called into question<\/a>, it’s important to make sure that our approaches are going to lead survivors somewhere valuable. Through our language, our references, and our approaches, we can either frame trauma survivors as damaged victims, or we can help them develop the flexibility mindset that leads to healing and recovery. <\/p>\n Because regardless of the length, type, or intensity of potentially traumatic events, healing from trauma is natural. <\/p>\n Coming next in part 3: The strange and surprising features of the flexibility mindset.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post is Part 2 of a series. 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