Author: drglenndoyle

Many people reading this are an acquired taste. I know I am.

Our life experiences may make us hard to know. 

Some of our life experiences have resulted in an emotional life or behavioral choices that may be difficult for others to understand. 

When we’ve experienced trauma, our perspective on the world and other people often shifts— often radically. 

We can’t go back and un-know what we know. Un-experience what we’ve experienced. 

All that may make us seem kind of mysterious to many people. 

Add to that the fact that many of our life experiences have resulted in us intentionally keeping many people at arm’s length. 

Add to THAT the fact that our highly sensitive nervous system is often too keyed up or burned out to tolerate prolonged social interaction. 

It all adds up to the fact that, yes— trauma survivors may be sort of difficult to understand, know, or be close to. 

Believe me— most of us survivors are WELL aware of that fact. 

For some of us, it’s a feature, not a glitch. There are survivors reading this who DEFINITELY don’t mind the fact that we’re often kind of apart from other people. 

But for others of us it’s DEFINITELY a glitch. There are survivors reading this who would give almost ANYTHING to be ABLE to be closer to others. 

Then there are those of us who have radically different needs and preferences at different times when it comes to being close to other people. 

Sometimes we can’t stomach the very IDEA of being close to others or letting them close to us. 

Except for those times when we desperately crave that closeness. 

You need to know that our push-pull relationship with closeness or letting ourselves be known isn’t just a “you” thing— it’s a trauma thing. 

It’s not that YOUR ability or inclination to be close to others is broken— it’s that trauma, especially complex trauma tends to scramble EVERYBODY’S relationship with attachment and vulnerability. 

Think about the experiences that create complex trauma: painful experiences that occur over time (often years or decades); are for all practical purposes inescapable; and— this is the REALLY important part— are entwined with our important relationships. 

How is someone supposed to go through those kinds of experiences and NOT have an ambivalent relationship with attachment, vulnerability, and closeness? 

The fact that we— you AND me— are an acquired taste doesn’t mean were are LESS lovable or even LESS desirable. 

The fact that we can be difficult to really “know” doesn’t mean we’re “broken” (though many people mistake our apart-ness as “aloofness”). 

The fact survivors’ life experiences and needs are kind of opaque to many people out there doesn’t mean that we don’t WANT to be known or understood— or that we REMAIN enigmatic to people who are willing to put in the work. 

The factors that lead us to kind of be “apart” from so many people and opportunities for connection? We didn’t ask for those things to happen to us. 

Sometimes we’re frustrated by all of it. 

Sometimes we’re comforted by all of it. 

But it doesn’t make us “less than.” 

It don’t make us irreparably broken— or even necessarily ‘broken.” 

It means our combination lock has a few extra twists and digits than you average non-trauma survivors’. 

No more; no less. 

(Trust me— WE are more frustrated trying to figure out our combination lock than YOU could EVER be). 

No kid deserves to be neglected. 

No kid needs to “earn” their right to attention and love. 

But our culture just can’t quite seem to wrap its collective brain around this. 

We didn’t “deserve” love and attention and care and the basics of survival because we’re cute, or well-behaved, or intelligent kids. 

We deserved them because we exist. 

Our culture kind of has this problem where it just can’t NOT think in terms of “earning” and “deservingness.” 

When somebody dies tragically, it’s often discussed in terms of how the victim didn’t (or did) “deserve” what happened to them. 

When somebody comes forward and describes a painful or exploitative relationship experience, it’s often discussed in terms of whether they “did enough” to extricate themselves from the situation. 

We’re very used to discussing the pain of adults in terms of whether or not they “deserve” what they are experiencing, based on their behavior (or, just as commonly, based on how attractive, appealing, or relatable they are). 

This in itself is pretty f*cked up— but even more so is the fact that we often retroactively think of children in much the same way. 

Whatever a person goes on to do or be in their life, when they were kids, they absolutely deserved shelter and nourishment and comfort. 

Is it any wonder survivors of neglect in particular grow up to doubt their essential worth? 

The implicit message of many of our cultural institutions— and a LOT of our popular media and entertainment— is that those who “deserve,” get. 

We LOVE the story of people who “deserve” things, getting them. 

But we struggle with the idea that maybe EVERY child— maybe EVERY human being— deserves to be sheltered, nourished, and even loved. 

Our culture tends to plant this poison seed in the minds of kids who were neglected: “you must not have been attractive enough/endearing enough/entertaining enough/smart enough/(whatever) enough to be loved.” 

It’s really hard to shake that BS (Belief System— but the OTHER Kind of BS, too). 

Telling a victim of neglect that they ARE, in fact, worthy, that they SHOULDN’T have been without shuttler or nourishment or care, can often SOUND hollow to victims of neglect. 

It might SOUND like something that someone is saying “just to be nice.” 

That’s how powerful that early programming, that early CONDITIONING, can be. 

Make no mistake: trauma CONDITIONS us. 

Neglect CONDITIONS us to question our worth. To assume the worst about how valuable we are. 

Recovery is a process of RECONDITIONING— but it can be hard to recondition beliefs and attitudes that were formed around the ABSENCE of care. 

Telling someone they deserved better can be a tough sell. 

We don’t like to imagine that the universe is unfair. We don’t like to imagine that, through sheer dumb f*cking luck, we got sh*tty caretakers who didn’t know how to meet our needs. 

On some level we might even WANT to believe that neglect WAS our fault— because we were annoying, or needy, or unattractive, or stupid. 

Recovery asks us to come face to face with how unlucky we were. 

The culture might tell us that’s just “whining.” After all, who spends time in THERAPY, complaining about how UNLUCKY they were? 

“Suck it up,” we’re told. “Take responsibility,” we’re told. 

We can’t “take responsibility” for love we didn’t get. 

And make no mistake: it WAS love you deserved. 

You still do deserve it. 

Yes, you. 

I’m always really disappointed when I see mental health professionals, especially those who claim to be trauma informed, post food-shaming content on social media. 

Trauma survivors very often struggle with food. 

Sometimes we literally struggle to get ourselves to eat. 

Other times we seem to struggle with getting ourselves to STOP eating. 

Many of the addictive and compulsive dynamics that trauma amplifies play out around food— our food choices, our eating habits, and our attitudes and habits around physical exercise. 

Sexual trauma in particular tends to show up in our beliefs and attitudes about our physical body and our experiences of pleasure, control, satiety, and deprivation. 

All of which is to say: when we’ve experienced trauma, eating, exercise, and everything around it, often tends to be complicated. 

What seems to be “common sense” for many people when it comes to eating and exercise often gets turned on its head when trauma, especially sexual trauma, is in the mix. 

Our cultural attitudes toward consumption, body size, and and “character” are often kind of f*cked up to begin with. 

The very LAST thing trauma survivors need is mental health professionals reinforcing simplistic “wisdom” around diet and exercise that doesn’t scratch the surface of how complex their actual experience is. 

Yet, some mental health professionals just can’t seem to help themselves. 

We have a long, problematic history in our culture of associating deprivation with “discipline.” 

We love the simplistic equation of, “if you have ‘character,’ that shows up in your willingness and ability to deprive yourself.” 

This pervasive cultural trope dovetails in perfectly toxic ways with a specific way trauma impacts many people: cultivating a belief that in order to be “safe,” one has to be physically smaller, require less, consume less. 

Many survivors get it in our heads that it is not safe to be seen, noticed, or to take up space. 

Many survivors get it in our heads that it is not safe or “right” to consume resources— we can quite literally get it in our head that we are a “waste of oxygen” and “don’t deserve to eat.” 

Survivors of sexual trauma in particular often come out of the experience with a very ambivalent relationship toward their body— which can manifest in a reluctance to literally, physically feed it. 

When we do “break down” and allow ourselves to eat, we often struggle to set limits with what we eat— which makes us feel worse— and then we do a hard shift into obsessively exercising to rid ourselves of the nourishment we feel we “don’t deserve.” 

If you have been caught in this cycle of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, you know it is hell. Absolute hell. 

And it’s a hell that the culture simply does not understand, nor does it care to understand. 

This is why I get so bummed when I see mental health professionals posting “health hacks” designed to get people focused on calories in vs. calories out. 

I get bummed when I see mental health professionals sharing “tips” on how to short-circuit the body’s natural hunger cues. 

I get bummed when I see mental health professionals using therapy concepts, often from cognitive or behavioral therapy, in the service of health tropes that can be incredibly harmful (even life threatening) to people struggling with disordered eating. 

Yes, I know it’s not the case that EVERYONE who follows EVERY therapist on social media struggles with disordered eating. 

But eating disorders are sufficiently common, and sufficiently overlooked (or, let’s be honest, encouraged) by the rest of the culture, that I really wish therapists would err on the side of acknowledging them. 

And they wonder why I kind of balk whenever they claim that all therapists, by definition, are trauma informed. 

If ONLY that were the case. 

There are people reading this who know what it’s like to feel responsible for every goddamn thing, all the goddamn time. 

They also know what it’s like to feel very burned the f*ck out. 

For many, the experience started when they were young. 

They may not remember when, but they do remember that at some point it was just understood that thy were responsible for managing the reactions and feelings of the people around them. 

Many people who felt this way were complimented on how “mature” they were for their age. 

Sometimes they were called “old souls.” 

They were kids— but, ever since they can remember, they’ve carried a certain weight on their shoulders. 

It’s not a physical weight— though we often feel its effects QUITE physically, don’t we? 

It’s an emotional weight. 

It’s the weight of being expected to perfectly hold your sh*t together at a time of life when we’re not designed to BE perfect at holding our sh*t together. 

It’s the weight of being made to feel at fault for everything, and responsible for everything, the happens not only to you, but AROUND you as well. 

There are lots of reasons some of us were handed this weight. 

Sometimes it was because a parent or other caretaker died or was otherwise absent. 

Sometimes it was because the adults that WERE there, weren’t up to the emotional or other tasks of parenting or running a sane, stable household. 

Sometimes it was just…because. 

Very few people who have that weight handed to them have the thought, “I SHOULDN’T have been handed this. I’m not READY for this. I should have HELP with this.” 

More often, we think, “even if another person my age couldn’t handle this, I can handle this. I’m the exception. I can make it work.” 

You know what happens when kids are expected to be adults, emotionally or otherwise? They miss the opportunity to be kids. 

And kids kind of NEED to be kids. 

Not because childhood is this magical time of carefree spontaneity. As many people reading this can tell you, it’s very often…not that. 

Rather, kids need the chance to be kids because it’s when we’re kids that we should, by rights, get the kind of modeling and guidance we need to become thoughtful, effective, compassionate (and self-compassionate) adults. 

When we don’t get that, because we’re busy being the ACTUAL grown ups in our ass-backwards family, we often enter into adulthood lacking the skills, tools, and experiences necessary to BE thoughtful, effective, compassionate adults. 

Then, when we realize something’s gone wrong, who do we blame?

That’s right— we tend to blame ourselves. 

Why? Because, since Day One, EVERYTHING has been our “fault,” and EVERYTHING has been our “responsibility.” 

At least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. That’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe. That’s what we’ve believed so long, that to challenge it now feels kind of like blasphemy. 

It was not your fault that you were tasked with being the “grown up” in your family. 

It’s not your fault that you didn’t get the modeling and guidance you needed then, to regulate your emotions and set effective boundaries now. 

It’s not your fault that you were made to feel responsible for every goddamn thing, all the goddamn time. 

You deserved better. 

And you still do. 

Complex trauma survivors often have this tortured relationship with our desires and needs. 

That’s not an accident. 

Many of us have that tortured relationship with our desires and needs because someone or something conditioned us into that tortured relationship. 

Sometimes it was a person— maybe a parent, teacher, or caretaker. 

Sometimes it was an institution— such as a church or company. 

Whoever or whoever it was, they conditioned us to believe that we shouldn’t want what we want. 

They conditioned us to believe we don’t actually “need” what we need. 

Often this conditioning took on moralistic overtones. 

We were taught it was “wrong” to want or fantasize about something. 

We were taught that only “bad” people want or fantasize certain things. 

Pejorative labels were ascribed to people who “wanted” certain things. 

“Sinner.” “Whore.” “Glutton.” 

We were taught that it was “weak” to need certain things. 

That it was “lazy” to need as much rest or sleep as our body was telling us we needed. 

That it was “gluttonous” to need as much food as our body was telling us we needed. 

That it was “selfish” to need time alone— or to need to avoid certain people. 

The thing is: it’s very HUMAN to want and need things. 

When “they” brandished shame to make us feel bad about wanting and needing things, it was an attempt to control us. 

When “they” tried to make us believe that only “certain kinds” of people wanted or needed certain things, what “they” were actually trying to do was anchor “their” behavioral preferences to our very identity. To our craving for approval. To our desire to be a “good boy” or “good girl.” 

There are a number of factors that make complex trauma “complex,” but one of the main characteristics of complex trauma survivors tends to be that we have been head f*cked about wanting and needing things. 

You need to know that just wanting or fantasizing about something— anything— doesn’t make you any more or less than a normal human being. 

You need to know that the biological needs of your body and the psychological and social needs of your nervous system do NOT reflect on your character or worthiness. 

You need to know that pathologizing the human experience is one of the oldest mind- and behavior control strategies in the world. 

Abusers and bullies don’t want us at peace with our wants and our needs. 

Abusers and bullies want us at WAR with our wants and needs. 

If we’re at war with ourselves, notably our wants and needs, we are FAR easier to control. To manipulate. To sell to. To deceive. 

One of the most important tasks of trauma recovery is making peace with WHO WE ARE— and that includes our wants and needs. 

Yes— even those wants and needs that we’re kind of embarrassed about. Even kind of ashamed of. 

We’re not gonna recover from trauma AND wage war on ourselves. 

We want what we want. 

And we need what we need. 

And maybe— just maybe— we don’t deserve to be shamed, ostracized, or otherwise punished for any of it. 

Many complex trauma survivors have this tortured relationship with visibility and intimacy. 

On the one hand, both visibility AND intimacy can feel VERY dangerous to us. 

To be visible, to be seen, meant to be vulnerable. 

Many of us learned that our only safety was in being as INVISIBLE, as HIDDEN, as possible. 

We learned to associate relative safety with making ourselves smaller. Taking up as little space as we could. Being as quiet as we could. 

This is the essence of the “freeze” trauma response: when in danger, try not to move, and hope you blend in. 

Of course, to invite intimacy was to invite the opportunity to be hurt. 

Why on earth would we give ANYBODY the opportunity to get physically OR emotionally close enough to hurt us? 

Many of us experienced our most damaging trauma in our most intimate relationships growing up. 

For many people reading this, both intimacy and visibility were, and are, VERY tangled up in fears and wounds from the past. 

But then, on the other hand…there is often at least a part of us that wants nothing MORE than to be seen and held. 

There’s often a part of us that absolutely HATES the idea of being invisible. 

Many people reading this have had the experience of feeling invisible, particularly in certain relationships— and it making them feel hurt and furious. 

Many trauma survivors have also had the experience of wanting nothing BUT intimacy— often a particularly intense kind of intimacy, for that matter. 

Many complex trauma survivor figure, if I’m going to take the risk of being intimate at ALL, it’s going to have be REAL intimacy. We’re going to have to dive DEEP. 

Survivors often find themselves annoyed and disinterested in relationships that DON’T dive deep— we frequently want the mind-melding kind of intimacy where we really feel connected in our GUT, in our BONES. 

It’s a tug of war. 

The fear of being seen vs. the overwhelming need to be seen. 

The fear of intimacy vs. the overwhelming yearning for intimacy. 

It’s the kind of “both-can-be-true” conflict that complex trauma survivors live with every day. 

So where “should” we land on ANY of these questions in realistic, sustainable trauma recovery? 

Realistic, sustainable trauma recovery asks us to acknowledge that there IS no “right” or “wrong” answer to how much visibility or intimacy we “should” tolerate. 

The REALLY important thing is for us to not deny or disown EITHER our fear, OR our want for visibility OR intimacy. 

The fear is okay. 

And the want is okay. 

We’re NOT going to avoid ALL risk by permanently boycotting intimacy OR visibility. 

And we’re NOT going to get ALL our our interpersonal needs perfectly met by going all in on our desire for either visebity OR intimacy. 

What we DON’T want to do is shame ourselves for either impulse. 

What we DON’T want to do is tell ourselves we’re UNWORTHY of being truly seen or deeply known. 

What we DON’T want to do is let our trauma responses limit or dictate our interpersonal decisions. 

Neither fear NOR desire are the enemy. 

Post traumatic SHAME is the enemy. 

It’s harder than you might think to get validation for how painful and impactful the experience of peer group bullying in childhood is. 

For all the lip service our culture pays to how bad bullying is, we pay surprisingly little attention to it in therapy. 

Many of the people who seek out my help in their trauma recovery identify childhood abuse as one of the main contributors to their trauma. 

Many people can identify childhood neglect as having contributed to their trauma (though many MORE people experienced neglect than acknowledge it— which is another pervasive cultural problem). 

But relatively few people who seek out trauma therapy tend to identify peer group bullying in childhood as significant to their complex trauma history. 

Speaking partly from personal experience, partly from my experience as a trauma therapist: peer group bullying is one of the most stressful, damaging experiences a kid can have growing up. 

It’s also an experience that our culture loves to mock and trivialize.

Our culture kind of has this thing where a not-small subset of adults think bullying is kind of, sort of, good for kids. 

It’s kind of this “tough love” idea— that kids need adversarial experiences to “toughen” and “grow.” 

I’ve also seen the argument advanced that bullying in the form of social ostracism serves a constructive purpose— that it helps “weirdos” understand that only so much deviance from the social norm is realistically acceptable out there in the world. 

Our pop culture entertainment features lots and lots of examples of bullying framed as funny or ultimately harmless— or, not infrequently, justified, depending on who is bullying whom. 

The realty of bullying is, it can really make a kid’s life hell. 

We almost never choose whether or where we go to school. We rarely choose who we go to school with. Every single day, victims of bullying are literally forced to share space with their bullies. 

That leaves a mark. 

The fantasy that adults can even sort of effectively intervene to stop peer group bullying among kids s a joke. Reaching out for an adults’ help can often make bullying worse— and even the best intentioned adults can’t be around at all times to protect a kid who’s being bullied. 

That leaves a mark. 

Complex trauma is trauma that occurs over time, is often entwined in our important relationships, and is perceived by the victim as inescapable (often because the situation is not, in fact, easily or realistically escapable). 

Childhood peer group bullying hits each one of those points. 

Sometimes survivors of bullying downplay the impact of what happened to them— much like survivors of MANY kinds of trauma downplay what happened to them. 

We want to think that bullying is a thing that happened to us when we’re kids, and we just grew out of it. 

It’s true that some peoples’ experience of having been bullied impacted them more than others’. But that’s also true for every kind of trauma. The impact on survivors varies depending on multiple factors. 

If you need to dig into your history of childhood peer group bullying in your own trauma recovery— dig into it. 

No shame. It’s not stupid or silly or weak. 

Many peoples’ trauma recovery experiences are actually stalled due to their, or their therapists’, reluctance to explore if and how they were bullied as kids. 

(And, yes— bullying isn’t ONLY a problem for kids, either.) 

Most of us had to go to school (or other social situations, like summer camp) every day for years. For many of us, that meant we got virtually zero days off from being bullied. 

That leaves a mark. 

Many of us have to revisit the wound childhood peer group bullying inflicted if we want our trauma recovery to stick. 

No. I don’t believe in playing “nice” with shame in trauma recovery. 

I do believe there is value in understanding, and even “befriending,” many of our trauma responses— notably “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” “fawn,” “flop,” and even “f*ck it.” 

If we try to avoid or aggressively push back against our “F” trauma responses, they only tend to intensify. 

Our “F” trauma responses represent parts of us that are engaging in those respective behaviors— fighting, fleeing, fawning, flopping, and/or f*cking— as aways to cope with memories or feelings that would otherwise be overwhelming. 

But shame is not a trauma response in the sense that the “F” responses are. 

Shame is a toxic amplification of guilt and embarrassment that trauma CONDITIONS us into. 

Guilt is the feeling of discomfort when our behavior doesn’t match our goals or values. 

It says, “I did something wrong.” 

Guilt can, at least sometimes (arguably often), be used to constructively shape our experience. People who don’t experience guilt are often at a loss when it comes to making needed adjustments to our behavior. 

Shame is a different animal. 

Shame doesn’t say “I did something wrong”— it says “I AM wrong.” 

Shame takes the discomfort we experience with guilt, and it personalizes it.

Instead of framing our decisions in terms of what we value or what we want, shame frames our behavior in terms of who we are. 

Shame is a particularly aggressive monster for trauma survivors because we often do things that we’re not thrilled about. 

We’re not ourselves when we’re triggered. We’re not ourselves when we’re being subjected to tactics of coercive control. We’re not ourselves when our emotions are wildly dysregulated. 

Yet, shame will tell us those moments ARE representative of who we “really are.” 

Shame personalizes EVERYTHING. 

Complex trauma survivors are VERY used to people trying to use shame to control us. 

Shame drives an OVERWHELMING amount of self-destructive behavior for MANY trauma survivors. 

We don’t have things to learn from shame. 

Shame does not represent anything authentic about us. 

There will always be a subset of people in our culture who want to play coy with shame. People who will say “shame is good, actually,” and “the world would be a better place if more people experienced shame.”

Those people are flat wrong, from a behavioral science point of view. 

Shame does NOT work to change behavior long term. 

Shame does NOT work to change attitudes or beliefs long term. 

In fact, we have overwhelming evidence that shame makes many people feel hopeless and helpless about EVER changing their behavior— because shame’s take home message is, “this is who you are.” 

I am sick to death of people suggesting that shame represents anything worth listening to. 

I am sick to death of people trying to use shame to manipulate others, notably trauma survivors who are particularly vulnerable to shame. 

I am sick to death of people trying to intellectualize an “important role” shame plays in understanding ourselves or our experiences. 

Your mileage may vary, but in my book, shame is the result of toxic trauma conditioning and programming. Full stop. 

I’m done playing nice with it. 

Shame is the internalized voice of our abusers and bullies, and I will take the side of any trauma survivor any day against even the echoes of those who hurt them. 

Trauma survivors are used to hearing— and believing— that their struggles in recovery are their fault. 

I wish this wasn’t true. But it is. 

Our culture sometimes TALKS a good game about how victims of abuse, neglect, and other trauma aren’t to blame for what happened to them…but then it often turns around and demands to know why, precisely, survivors of trauma “insist” on making life so difficult for themselves. 

Sometimes our culture pays lip service to the idea that nobody ASKS for trauma. 

But then it turns around and wants to know why, exactly, trauma survivors put themselves in a position to be vulnerable to trauma. 

It is a massive understatement to say that trauma survivors get VERY mixed messages about whether they are to blame for what happened to them— or how difficult it can be to try to recovery from what happened to them. 

Many trauma survivors struggle in therapy and recovery. 

That’s NOT because they are “making” the process difficult— it’s because therapy and recovery after trauma are just DIFFICULT. 

Yet many survivors are used to being blamed for struggling in therapy and recovery. 

You’d think that therapy “should” be a place where it’s okay to struggle. You’d think therapy “should” be a place where someone would’t have to worry about being reprimanded or blamed for finding the process difficult. 

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong. 

There are MANY survivors reading this who have had the experience of others— including therapists— either implicitly or explicitly blaming them for therapy not going well. 

Some survivors specifically have had the experience of being blamed when they have angry or otherwise “unpleasant” verbalizations or other behaviors in therapy. 

Here’s the thing: trauma is awful. Recovery from trauma is no fun. 

NOBODY is doing trauma recovery for kicks; we’re doing it to stay alive. 

It’s VERY common for survivors in recovery to feel hopeless— and sometimes hostile. 

Sometimes this is a manifestation of the “fight’ trauma response; sometimes it’s just a function of the fact that if you’ve been through trauma, chances are you’re feeling pretty sh*tty, and not a lot has helped you over the years. 

Given what you’ve been through and what you’re experiencing every day, who WOULDN’T be feeling sh*tty? Who WOULDN’T lash out, at least at times? 

Yet— survivors who struggle are often blamed. They’re told they have a “bad attitude.” They’re told they need to stop being “hostile” or expressing hopelessness. 

Don’t get me wrong— I don’t find it fun or pleasant when someone I’m working with is in bad headspace. And of course I’m not a fan of when that pain comes out sideways at me, the therapist. 

But I don’t blame the patient. 

I assume that every patient is doing the best they can in any given moment. 

Of course therapists are human, and therapists have every right to also find the dynamics of trauma recovery difficult. 

But we really, really need to resist the urge to blame and shame the patient when things aren’t going well. 

We may not like it when therapy isn’t going well— but neither does the patient. 

OF CORUSE we’d prefer if every patient was cheerful and “treatment compliant” in every moment. 

But that’s not how trauma therapy works, because that’s not how trauma recovery works— because that’s not how trauma works. 

Resist the urge to shame and blame, even implicitly. 

That’s easier said than done in our culture. 

But it’s REALLY important if we’re serious about helping ANYONE climb out of the cave of pain that is trauma and dissociation. 

One of the most publicized and researched forms of therapy, especially for depression, is cognitive therapy (sometimes branded as cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT). 

The central idea of cognitive therapy is that our emotional states are primarily responsive to our thoughts and beliefs. 

Cognitive therapists believe that painful emotional experiences, like depression, prolonged grief, maladaptive anger, or post traumatic stress symptoms, are often caused by “distorted” thinking— thinking hat is “catastrophized,” “overgeneralized,” or which otherwise doesn’t conform to reality. 

Cognitive therapists work with their patients to change how they think about themselves, the world, and the future (the “cognitive triad”)— and, the theory goes, as patients begin to think more “realistic” thoughts, they begin to feel better and stand a better chance at responding effectively to life. 

A type of cognitive therapy called Rational Emotive Therapy takes this framework a step further— RET proposes that people “disturb themselves” by buying into distorted beliefs (the founder of Rational Emotive therapy, Albert Ellis, used this language over and over again— people “disturb themselves” with their beliefs). 

Cognitive therapy has a lot of fans in the mental health world, because it is an often-researched form of psychotherapy, and seems to work— with some people, for some problems, some of the time.

(There have been questions raised about how meaningful much of the research “proving” cognitive therapy’s effectiveness actually is, but that’s a different blog.) 

There are ideas in cognitive therapy I like. I’ve found some cognitive therapy concepts useful in my own recovery, particularly in its emphasis on taking action and disputing distorted thoughts and beliefs about myself. 

But cognitive therapy has real limitations when it comes to its usefulness in working with trauma survivors. 

On of the main tenets of cognitive therapy is that people can feel better by thinking differently or revising their beliefs— but, as survivors of trauma can attest, changing how we think and what we believe is rarely as simple as deciding to think or believe differently. 

Trauma conditions us. It conditions what we find believable or plausible. It shapes or ideas about what is and isn’t true or real. 

We can’t just do away with trauma CONDITIONING with a “decision” to “think differently.” 

Cognitive therapy also has a heavy emphasis on determining how “realistic” a thought is or how “likely” a feared scenario is to occur. 

The problem with this is, MANY complex trauma survivors really HAVE experienced things that MANY people consider “unrealistic” or “unlikely.” 

Cognitive therapy frequently warns against the “cognitive distortion” of “catastrophizing”— i.e., making a mountain out of a molehill (Albert Ellis calls this “awfulizing” in RET). The idea being, if you’re unduly upset about something, it’s probably because you’re making too big a deal out of it. 

The problem with this is, trauma survivors are ROUTINELY told they are “making too big a deal” out of what has happened to them or their experiences in the aftermath— and this doesn’t seem to heal their traumatic stress reactions. 

It is my experience that we can’t meaningfully heal post traumatic stress unless we get realistic about how big a deal what happened to us actually WAS. 

Contrary to the default attitude of cognitive therapy, most trauma survivors AREN’T “catastrophizing”— they almost always MINIMIZE the impact of what happened to them, and blame themselves for “making too big a deal of it.” 

I do think cognitive therapy can be useful in helping us talk to ourselves, ABOUT ourselves, more fairly and accurately. 

But if cognitive therapy isn’t used in a meaningfully trauma informed way, it can VERY quickly side into a form of gaslighting or victim blaming of the type trauma survivors know all too well. 

The truth is, thoughts AREN’T the only, or even the main, factor in how we feel, especially if we’ve been through trauma. In fact our thoughts are often kind of a byproduct of the train wreck that’s happening in our nervous system when we’re having trauma reactions. 

Cognitive therapy is like many tools offered by the mental health field— it can have its uses, but used carelessly or arrogantly, it can be enormously destructive. 

And, as many trauma survivors can attest, the mental health field is really good at handling its tools carelessly and arrogantly.