National trauma

Last updated

National trauma is a concept in psychology and social psychology. A national trauma is one in which the effects of a trauma apply generally to the members of a collective group such as a country or other well-defined group of people. Trauma is an injury that has the potential to severely negatively affect an individual, whether physically or psychologically. Psychological trauma is a shattering of the fundamental assumptions that a person has about themselves and the world. [1] An adverse experience that is unexpected, painful, extraordinary, and shocking results in interruptions in ongoing processes or relationships and may also create maladaptive responses. [2] Such experiences can affect not only an individual but can also be collectively experienced by an entire group of people. [2] Tragic experiences can collectively wound or threaten the national identity, [3] that sense of belonging shared by a nation as a whole represented by tradition culture, language, and politics. [4]

In individual psychological trauma, fundamental assumptions about how the individual relates to the world, such as that the world is benevolent and meaningful and that the individual has worth in the world, are overturned by overwhelming life experiences. [1] Similarly, national trauma overturns fundamental assumptions of social identity – something terrible has happened and social life has lost its predictability. [2] The causes of such shatterings of assumptions are diverse and defy neat categorization. For example, wars are not always national traumas; while the Vietnam War is experienced by Americans as a national trauma [5] Winston Churchill famously titled the closing volume of his history of the Second World War Triumph and Tragedy. [6] Similar types of natural disasters can also provoke different responses. The 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire in Alberta was a collective trauma for not only that local community but also the large Canadian province of Alberta despite causing no direct deaths [7] yet the much larger Peshtigo Fire responsible for thousands of deaths is largely forgotten. [8]

Responses to national trauma also vary. A nation that experiences clear defeat in war which had mobilized the nation to a high degree will almost inevitably also experience national trauma but the way in which that defeat is felt can change the response. [9] The former peoples of the Confederate South in the American Civil War and the German Empire in World War I both created post-war mythologies (the Lost Cause in the former and the Stab-in-the-back Myth in the latter) of "glorious" defeat in unfair fights. [9] The post-war experience of Germany after World War Two, however, is much more complex and provoked reactions from a sense of German national guilt [10] to collective ignorance. [11] A common national response to these traumas is repeated calls for national unity and moral purification, as in the post-9/11 United States [12] or post-war Japan. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a person's life or well-being. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues, alterations in the way a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event and can include triggers such as misophonia. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk of suicide and intentional self-harm.

Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word κάθαρσις, katharsis, meaning "purification" or "cleansing", commonly used to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. The desired result is an emotional state of renewal and restoration.

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.

Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events that are outside the normal range of human experiences. It must be understood by the affected person as directly threatening the affected person or their loved ones generally with death, severe bodily injury, or sexual violence; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not produce trauma per se. Examples of distressing events include violence, rape, or a terrorist attack.

Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire collective" appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century. The philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs analyzed and advanced the concept of the collective memory in the book Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire (1925).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Complex post-traumatic stress disorder</span> Psychological disorder

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress-related mental disorder generally occurring in response to complex traumas, i.e., commonly prolonged or repetitive exposures to a series of traumatic events, within which individuals perceive little or no chance to escape.

In psychology, posttraumatic growth (PTG) is positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging, highly stressful life circumstances. These circumstances represent significant challenges to the adaptive resources of the individual, and pose significant challenges to the individual's way of understanding the world and their place in it. Posttraumatic growth involves "life-changing" psychological shifts in thinking and relating to the world and the self, that contribute to a personal process of change, that is deeply meaningful.

Historical trauma or collective trauma refers to the cumulative emotional harm of an individual or generation caused by a traumatic experience or event.

Vicarious trauma (VT) is a term invented by Irene Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman that is used to describe how work with traumatized clients affects trauma therapists. The phenomenon had been known as secondary traumatic stress, a term coined by Charles Figley. In vicarious trauma, the therapist experiences a profound worldview change and is permanently altered by empathetic bonding with a client. This change is thought to have three requirements: empathic engagement and exposure to graphic, traumatizing material; exposure to human cruelty; and the reenactment of trauma in therapy. This can produce changes in a therapist's spirituality, worldview, and self-identity.

PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a psychiatric disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts and memories, dreams or flashbacks of the event; avoidance of people, places and activities that remind the individual of the event; ongoing negative beliefs about oneself or the world, mood changes and persistent feelings of anger, guilt or fear; alterations in arousal such as increased irritability, angry outbursts, being hypervigilant, or having difficulty with concentration and sleep.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transgenerational trauma</span> Psychological trauma

Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary mode of transmission is the shared family environment of the infant causing psychological, behavioral and social changes in the individual.

Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at a loss. They may feel like they have been cut off from a crucial source of sustenance or feel withdrawn, either suddenly or through a process of erosion. Emotional abandonment can manifest through loss or separation from a loved one.

Anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) is an application of terror management theory to explain an individual's reaction to a traumatic event, which leads to post traumatic stress disorder. Terror management theory posits that humans, unlike any other organism, are uniquely aware that death is the inevitable outcome of life. When thoughts of death are made salient, such as when a terrorist attack carries those thoughts into the level of consciousness, humans are subject to debilitating anxiety unless it can be "buffered." Humans respond to the anxiety and dread mortality salience produces by clinging to their cultural worldview, through self-esteem and also close personal relationships. Cultural worldviews, with their cultural norms, religious beliefs and moral values infuse life with meaning. They give life a feeling of normalcy and also a feeling of control. There is no way to definitely prove one's cultural worldview, there they are fragile human constructs and must be maintained. Clinging to a cultural worldview and self-esteem buffer the anxiety connected to thoughts of mortality. When thoughts of death are salient, humans are drawn to their cultural world view which "stipulates appropriate social requirements, and standards for valued conduct, while instilling one's life with meaning, order and permanence."

In social psychology, shattered assumptions theory proposes that experiencing traumatic events can change how victims and survivors view themselves and the world. Specifically, the theory – published by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman in 1992 – concerns the effect that negative events have on three inherent assumptions: overall benevolence of the world, meaningfulness of the world, and self worth. These fundamental beliefs are the bedrock of our conceptual system and are the assumptions we are least aware of and least likely to challenge. They constitute our "assumptive world," defined as "a strongly held set of assumptions about the world and the self which is confidently maintained and used as a means of recognizing, planning, and acting" by C. M. Parkes. According to Janoff-Bulman, traumatic life events shatter these core assumptions, and coping involves rebuilding a viable assumptive world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National memory</span> Form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture

National memory is a form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture. It is an integral part to national identity.

Betrayal trauma is defined as a trauma perpetrated by someone with whom the victim is close to and reliant upon for support and survival. The concept was originally introduced by Jennifer Freyd in 1994. Betrayal trauma theory (BTT), addresses situations when people or institutions on which a person relies for protection, resources, and survival violate the trust or well-being of that person. BTT emphasizes the importance of betrayal as a core antecedent of dissociation, implicitly aimed at preserving the relationship with the caregiver. BTT suggests that an individual, being dependent on another for support, will have a higher need to dissociate traumatic experiences from conscious awareness in order to preserve the relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dual representation theory</span>

Dual representation theory (DRT) is a psychological theory of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) developed by Chris Brewin, Tim Dalgleish, and Stephen Joseph in 1996. This theory proposes that certain symptoms of PTSD - such as nightmares, flashbacks, and emotional disturbance - may be attributed to memory processes that occur after exposure to a traumatic event. DRT proposes the existence of two separate memory systems that run in parallel during memory formation: the verbally accessible memory system (VAM) and situationally accessible memory system (SAM). The VAM system contains information that was consciously processed and thus can be voluntarily recalled or described. In contrast, the SAM system contains unconsciously processed sensory information that cannot be voluntarily recalled. This theory suggests that the VAM system is impaired during a traumatic event because conscious attention is narrowly drawn to threat-related information. Therefore, memory of the trauma is heavily focused on fear, which affects information processing. This gives rise to PTSD symptoms such as trauma-related cognitions, appraisals, and emotions. The SAM system captures vivid sensory information during the traumatic event, which is automatically recalled through exposure to trauma-related triggers. This system is thought to be responsible for the presence of flashbacks and nightmares in PTSD symptomatology.

Camille B. Wortman is a clinical health psychologist and expert on grief and coping in response to traumatic events and loss. She is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University.

Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is classified as a set of symptoms, ranging in severity, experienced by those who have participated in or left behind authoritarian, dogmatic, and controlling religious groups and belief systems. It is not present in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) or the ICD-10 as a diagnosable condition, but is included in Other Conditions that May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention. Symptoms include cognitive, affective, functional, and social/cultural issues as well as developmental delays.

In psychology, primal world beliefs are basic beliefs which humans hold about the general character of the world. They were introduced and named by Jeremy D. W. Clifton and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania between 2014–2019 and modeled empirically via statistical dimensionality reduction analysis in a 2019 journal article. This publication posited twenty-six primal world beliefs that people held. Most cluster under the beliefs that the world is Safe, Enticing and Alive, which in turn cluster under the overall belief that the world is Good. The beliefs that the world is Just or Dangerous had received extensive prior study in other research on the just-world belief, which is the belief the world is a karmic place where outcomes are typically deserved. Each primal is modeled as a normally-distributed continuous variable. Research has shown that primals remain quite stable over time, including across the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Primal world beliefs are largely independent of most demographic variables, but correlate strongly with many personality and wellbeing variables—including depression, optimism, spirituality, extraversion, curiosity, and so forth. Researchers think that primals may affect a wide range of human experiences, from parenting to political ideology.

References

  1. 1 2 Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie (1992). Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. New York: Free Press. ISBN   978-0029160152 . Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Neal, Arthur G. (2005). National Trauma and Collective Memory: Extraordinary Events in the American Experience. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. ISBN   978-0765615817 . Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Elovitz, Paul H. (Summer 2008). "Presidential Responses to National Trauma: Case Studies of G.W. Bush, Carter, and Nixon". The Journal of Psychohistory. 36 (1): 36–58. PMID   19043998.
  4. ↑ "Definition of National Identity in English". Oxford Dictionaries. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17.
  5. ↑ Kiernan, David (10 October 2017). "Why Americans still can't move past Vietnam". Washington Post. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  6. ↑ Churchill, Winston; Keegan, John (1954). Triumph and Tragedy: The Second World War, Volume 6. London: Cassell. ISBN   978-0304929733 . Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  7. ↑ Koziol, Carol A. "Individual and Collective Trauma: The Fort McMurray Fire". Academia.edu. Academia. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  8. ↑ Hipke, Deana C. "The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871". The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  9. 1 2 Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (2004). The culture of defeat : on national trauma, mourning, and recovery. New York: Picador. ISBN   978-0312423193 . Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  10. ↑ Davis, Mark (5 May 2015). "How World War II shaped modern Germany". euronews. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  11. ↑ Bowie, Laura (2012). "The Impact of World War Two on the Individual and Collective Memory of Germany and its Citizens" (PDF). Newcastle University. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  12. ↑ Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie; Sana, Sheikh (1 December 2006). "From national trauma to moralizing nation." Basic and Applied Social Psychology". Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 28 (4): 325–332. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp2804_5. S2CID   145300103.
  13. ↑ Hashimoto, Akiko (2015). The long defeat : cultural trauma, memory, and identity in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780190239152 . Retrieved 1 December 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.