Trauma's Not the Problem
Trauma is a problem, no doubt about it.
We know that people with Adverse Childhood Experience's (ACE's) are more likely to suffer from addiction, mental illness and a wide range of other health and wellness issues, including significantly higher rates of all-cause morbidity (more on ACE's here).
But trauma is not THE problem (unless it's currently unfolding), at least, it's not the problem that most addiction and mental health practitioners are dealing with on a day to day basis. They're dealing with the downstream consequences of trauma.
The big three. Addiction, Anxiety and Depression.
I wrote about the "Problem with Trauma Informed Practice" awhile ago, and the take-home message from the research around trauma and its impacts on people...that we should be compassionately present with the people that we serve, and assume that there's some sort of trauma history in all of their (and, let's face it, our) stories.
In a TEDx talk that I gave a few years ago (The Power of Human Nature), I argued that addiction isn't the problem, it's a symptom of a deeper problem, namely; disconnection. I suggest the same of anxiety and depression...that they are normal manifestations of deeper issues.
Issues related to trauma, of course.
But more so, the trauma that's been internalized. Internalized into a story of being unsafe, un-worthy and un-lovable. Internalized into a story of shame and disempowerment.
In the TEDx talk, I suggest that dis-connection is at the root of addiction.
I think that we can add "dis-empowerment" as the next layer of the addiction and mental health onion, and actively work to empower our clients to take ownership and control of their lives...starting with the treatment process and their ownership and authorship of their own stories within it.
A recent conversation with an organizational client about "trauma-informed practice" has really stuck with me. She was worried that her team was trying to unpack the trauma histories of students, in an effort to be "trauma informed", and working outside of their scope of practice.
My response was "you don't need to talk about trauma to be trauma informed...because trauma's not the problem."
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