I think I was quite explicit that I am not using the concept of trauma and traumatic injury as a psychiatric “disorder”. Please don’t misrepresent my words.
Iām so sorry to hear about your familyās terrifying experience and the traumatic effects it has had on your lives – the idea that these experiences canāt be talked about is horrific and shocking.
The determination of the Maga/Trump/2025 coalition to make some ideas unthinkable is authoritarianism 101.
I am not surprised to hear that trauma is considered a āwokeā concept – as the concept of trauma frequently draws attention to harms caused by abuses of power – so not a concept that an authoritarian regime would want to support.
I think the concept of traumatic injury – often as the real effects of power on our bodies and minds- can also be liberating and help us to reframe our experiences in terms of wider social forces. But the way it is framed as a ādisorderā in psychiatric discourse can hide these social origins and cover over real causes and prevent healing.
I agree we need to take the effects of adversity very seriously- that they cause deep and lasting effects for the individual and society. And that this understanding can be lost when everything upsetting is called trauma.
However, Iām not sure it is helpful to frame normal responses to adversity as an illness or disorder like OCD, GAD or āclinicalā depression – experiences which are not proven to be medical disorders and diseases – and, evidence is growing, are likely to be just different or more extreme responses to adversity.
Iām confused, it sounds like the authors of the paper are describing complex PTSD which was initially defined by Judith Herman as chronic, compounded, interpersonal trauma. I assumed that was clearly applicable to living through social and political upheaval, war and displacement.
I also am pretty sure that Herman in fact contextualised trauma very firmly in political and social conditions.
Interesting, but not surprising, that the authors identify a tendency to medicalise and decontextualise trauma – I thought by definition this would not be possible.
Great explanations of how trauma is a disruption of the individual-social , not just individual, in the paper.
I wonder if it is, not that the concept of PTS(D) depoliticises trauma, but that the people who use the concept as a diagnosis depoliticise it?
How can we ensure that any concept does not become commodified and individualised in a psychiatric industry that consumes every concept and shapes it to fits its own medical model?
I would include trauma in the social determinants of mental distress, rather than throw it out with the biomedical model.
Trauma is defined as the effect of social factors, which distinguishes it from the so-called “diseases”. This is why PTSD does not fit easily into the biomedical model and is not fully recognised by psychiatry.
Even “individual” childhood and developmental trauma always occurs in a context that is socially determined by factors such as parental isolation, lack of access to services, poverty, racism, intergenerational disadvantage etc.
Integrating our understanding of the effects of trauma with our understanding of the social factors that cause or contribute to trauma and psychological distress has seemed to be the obvious way forward for decades.
I agree that relational healing is probably one of the most important factors for trauma. But I don’t really get the jump from recognising the social determinants of psychological distress, to more drug treatment like psychedelics. Every decade or so psychiatry proposes a miracle chemical cure for harms which evidence overwhelmingly shows are socially and environmentally caused (or highly contributing) and therefore solvable, and chooses to kick the can of fixing them down the road.
If real attention, policy and action was addressed to social determinants and their effects, including trauma, the dominant psychiatric practices of diagnosis and medication would be mostly redundant. Support and healing could be better served by social workers and community support services, with therapy (or medication ) used only for temporary management of more serious effects of trauma and distress.
I think I was quite explicit that I am not using the concept of trauma and traumatic injury as a psychiatric “disorder”. Please don’t misrepresent my words.
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Iām so sorry to hear about your familyās terrifying experience and the traumatic effects it has had on your lives – the idea that these experiences canāt be talked about is horrific and shocking.
The determination of the Maga/Trump/2025 coalition to make some ideas unthinkable is authoritarianism 101.
I am not surprised to hear that trauma is considered a āwokeā concept – as the concept of trauma frequently draws attention to harms caused by abuses of power – so not a concept that an authoritarian regime would want to support.
I think the concept of traumatic injury – often as the real effects of power on our bodies and minds- can also be liberating and help us to reframe our experiences in terms of wider social forces. But the way it is framed as a ādisorderā in psychiatric discourse can hide these social origins and cover over real causes and prevent healing.
I agree we need to take the effects of adversity very seriously- that they cause deep and lasting effects for the individual and society. And that this understanding can be lost when everything upsetting is called trauma.
However, Iām not sure it is helpful to frame normal responses to adversity as an illness or disorder like OCD, GAD or āclinicalā depression – experiences which are not proven to be medical disorders and diseases – and, evidence is growing, are likely to be just different or more extreme responses to adversity.
Report comment
Iām confused, it sounds like the authors of the paper are describing complex PTSD which was initially defined by Judith Herman as chronic, compounded, interpersonal trauma. I assumed that was clearly applicable to living through social and political upheaval, war and displacement.
I also am pretty sure that Herman in fact contextualised trauma very firmly in political and social conditions.
Interesting, but not surprising, that the authors identify a tendency to medicalise and decontextualise trauma – I thought by definition this would not be possible.
Great explanations of how trauma is a disruption of the individual-social , not just individual, in the paper.
I wonder if it is, not that the concept of PTS(D) depoliticises trauma, but that the people who use the concept as a diagnosis depoliticise it?
How can we ensure that any concept does not become commodified and individualised in a psychiatric industry that consumes every concept and shapes it to fits its own medical model?
Report comment
I would include trauma in the social determinants of mental distress, rather than throw it out with the biomedical model.
Trauma is defined as the effect of social factors, which distinguishes it from the so-called “diseases”. This is why PTSD does not fit easily into the biomedical model and is not fully recognised by psychiatry.
Even “individual” childhood and developmental trauma always occurs in a context that is socially determined by factors such as parental isolation, lack of access to services, poverty, racism, intergenerational disadvantage etc.
Integrating our understanding of the effects of trauma with our understanding of the social factors that cause or contribute to trauma and psychological distress has seemed to be the obvious way forward for decades.
I agree that relational healing is probably one of the most important factors for trauma. But I don’t really get the jump from recognising the social determinants of psychological distress, to more drug treatment like psychedelics. Every decade or so psychiatry proposes a miracle chemical cure for harms which evidence overwhelmingly shows are socially and environmentally caused (or highly contributing) and therefore solvable, and chooses to kick the can of fixing them down the road.
If real attention, policy and action was addressed to social determinants and their effects, including trauma, the dominant psychiatric practices of diagnosis and medication would be mostly redundant. Support and healing could be better served by social workers and community support services, with therapy (or medication ) used only for temporary management of more serious effects of trauma and distress.
Report comment