http://malignantselflove.tripod.com/trauma.html
(“He” in this text - to mean “He” or “She”).
We react to serious mishaps, life altering setbacks, disasters, abuse, and
death by going through the phases of grieving. Traumas are the complex
outcomes of psychodynamic and biochemical processes. But the particulars of
traumas depend heavily on the interaction between the victim and his social
milieu.
It would seem that while the victim progresses from denial to helplessness,
rage, depression and thence to acceptance of the traumatizing events -
society demonstrates a diametrically opposed progression. This
incompatibility, this mismatch of psychological phases is what leads to the
formation and crystallization of trauma.
PHASE I
Victim phase I - DENIAL
The magnitude of such unfortunate events is often so overwhelming, their
nature so alien, and their message so menacing - that denial sets in as a
defence mechanism aimed at self preservation. The victim denies that the
event occurred, that he or she is being abused, that a loved one passed
away.
Society phase I - ACCEPTANCE, MOVING ON
The victim’s nearest (“Society”) - his colleagues, his employees, his
clients, even his spouse, children, and friends - rarely experience the
events with the same shattering intensity. They are likely to accept the bad
news and move on. Even at their most considerate and empathic, they are
likely to lose patience with the victim’s state of mind. They tend to ignore
the victim, or chastise him, to mock, or to deride his feelings or
behaviour, to collude to repress the painful memories, or to trivialize
them.
Summary Phase I
The mismatch between the victim’s reactive patterns and emotional needs and
society’s matter-of-fact attitude hinders growth and healing. The victim
requires society’s help in avoiding a head-on confrontation with a reality
he cannot digest. Instead, society serves as a constant and mentally
destabilizing reminder of the root of the victim’s unbearable agony (the Job
syndrome).
PHASE II
Victim phase II - HELPLESSNESS
Denial gradually gives way to a sense of all-pervasive and humiliating
helplessness, often accompanied by debilitating fatigue and mental
disintegration. These are among the classic symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder). These are the bitter results of the internalization and
integration of the harsh realization that there is nothing one can do to
alter the outcomes of a natural, or man-made, catastrophe. The horror in
confronting one’s finiteness, meaninglessness, negligibility, and
powerlessness - is overpowering.
Society phase II - DEPRESSION
The more the members of society come to grips with the magnitude of the
loss, or evil, or threat represented by the grief inducing events - the
sadder they become. Depression is often little more than suppressed or
self-directed anger. The anger, in this case, is belatedly induced by an
identified or diffuse source of threat, or of evil, or loss. It is a higher
level variant of the “fight or flight” reaction, tampered by the rational
understanding that the “source” is often too abstract to tackle directly.
Summary Phase II
Thus, when the victim is most in need, terrified by his helplessness and
adrift - society is immersed in depression and unable to provide a holding
and supporting environment. Growth and healing is again retarded by social
interaction. The victim’s innate sense of annulment is enhanced by the
self-addressed anger (=depression) of those around him.
PHASE III
Both the victim and society react with RAGE to their predicaments. In an
effort to narcissistically reassert himself, the victim develops a grandiose
sense of anger directed at paranoidally selected, unreal, diffuse, and
abstract targets (=frustration sources). By expressing aggression, the
victim re-acquires mastery of the world and of himself.
Members of society use rage to re-direct the root cause of their depression
(which is, as we said, self directed anger) and to channel it safely. To
ensure that this expressed aggression alleviates their depression - real
targets must are selected and real punishments meted out. In this respect,
“social rage” differs from the victim’s. The former is intended to sublimate
aggression and channel it in a socially acceptable manner - the latter to
reassert narcissistic self-love as an antidote to an all-devouring sense of
helplessness.
In other words, society, by itself being in a state of rage, positively
enforces the narcissistic rage reactions of the grieving victim. This, in
the long run, is counter-productive, inhibits personal growth, and prevents
healing. It also erodes the reality test of the victim and encourages
self-delusions, paranoidal ideation, and ideas of reference.
PHASE IV
Victim Phase IV - DEPRESSION
As the consequences of narcissistic rage - both social and personal - grow
more unacceptable, depression sets in. The victim internalizes his
aggressive impulses. Self directed rage is safer but is the cause of great
sadness and even suicidal ideation. The victim’s depression is a way of
conforming to social norms. It is also instrumental in ridding the victim of
the unhealthy residues of narcissistic regression. It is when the victim
acknowledges the malignancy of his rage (and its anti-social nature) that he
adopts a depressive stance.
Society Phase IV - HELPLESSNESS
People around the victim (“society”) also emerge from their phase of rage
transformed. As they realize the futility of their rage, they feel more and
more helpless and devoid of options. They grasp their limitations and the
irrelevance of their good intentions. They accept the inevitability of loss
and evil and Kafkaesquely agree to live under an ominous cloud of arbitrary
judgement, meted out by impersonal powers.
Summary Phase IV
Again, the members of society are unable to help the victim to emerge from a
self-destructive phase. His depression is enhanced by their apparent
helplessness. Their introversion and inefficacy induce in the victim a
feeling of nightmarish isolation and alienation. Healing and growth are once
again retarded or even inhibited.
PHASE V
Victim Phase V - ACCEPTANCE AND MOVING ON
Depression - if pathologically protracted and in conjunction with other
mental health problems - sometimes leads to suicide. But more often, it
allows the victim to process mentally hurtful and potentially harmful
material and paves the way to acceptance. Depression is a laboratory of the
psyche. Withdrawal from social pressures enables the direct transformation
of anger into other emotions, some of them otherwise socially unacceptable.
The honest encounter between the victim and his own (possible) death often
becomes a cathartic and self-empowering inner dynamic. The victim emerges
ready to move on.
Society Phase V - DENIAL
Society, on the other hand, having exhausted its reactive arsenal - resorts
to denial. As memories fade and as the victim recovers and abandons his
obsessive-compulsive dwelling on his pain - society feels morally justified
to forget and forgive. This mood of historical revisionism, of moral
leniency, of effusive forgiveness, of re-interpretation, and of a refusal to
remember in detail - leads to a repression and denial of the painful events
by society.
Summary Phase V
This final mismatch between the victim’s emotional needs and society’s
reactions is less damaging to the victim. He is now more resilient,
stronger, more flexible, and more willing to forgive and forget. Society’s
denial is really a denial of the victim. But, having ridden himself of more
primitive narcissistic defences - the victim can do without society’s
acceptance, approval, or look. Having endured the purgatory of grieving, he
has now re-acquired his self, independent of society’s acknowledgement.
----- Original Message -----
From: “thephoenix101” npd-cpt6892@lists.careplace.com
To: palma@unet.com.mk
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: [npd] Grieving
