The Psychology of Trauma

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Opinions, Mental Health
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When President Trump stood before the audience of his Mississippi rally last Tuesday evening, he did what he and his fellow Republican colleagues have made into a sacred sort of science: denial. He ridiculed the testimony of the brave psychology professor and researcher Christine Blasey Ford when he waved his finger in the air, parodying, “I had one beer!” He mocked the terrified victim when he imitated the Kavanaugh hearings, “How did you get home? I don’t remember. How did you get there? I don’t remember. Where is the place? I don’t remember. How many years ago was it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” But most importantly, he discredited her when he insisted that her allegations were false because of a lack of details.

Denial in the context of sexual assault allegations has become both a science, due to its repetitive methodology, and an art, due to its success in shifting social convention, for Republicans. The process relies heavily upon vouching for the character of the accused then questioning the character, credibility, and motivations of the accuser. The problem, however, that lies in doubting victims due to lacking details is the psychology of trauma. That is, when a person undergoes a period of immense stress, the brain releases a variety of hormones, including dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol. These affect key brain regions by impairing the prefrontal cortex, stimulating the amygdala, and hindering the hippocampus.

In effect, these alterations to brain function impair its ability to store contextual and sequencing information. According to clinical psychologist David Lisak and Harvard psychology instructor James Hopper, these effects make us “less able to willfully control what we pay attention to, less able to make sense of what we are experiencing, and therefore less able to recall our experience in an orderly way.” In their 2014 Time article “Why Rape and Trauma Survivors Have Fragmented and Incomplete Memories,” the two go on to explain that, for these reasons, the brain’s fear circuitry provides only partial recollections by focusing on minor details typically of the times directly preceding and proceeding an attack.

These looks into the psychology of survivors certainly help us to recognize the reasoning behind their sometimes fragmented stories. Although the countless studies on the subject seem wholly unnecessary if one just considers the perspective of a survivor with empathy, logic, and a lack of mindless Republican allegiance. If one is, as in Ford’s case, put into a situation that causes the individual to fear for his or her life, it is easy to understand why certain details slip the mind of those so desperately trying to forget their trauma.

So, yes, even though Ford cannot remember the exact date or location of the crime committed against her, that does not mean it did not happen; rather, that her brain has put forth its best efforts to prevent her from doing so. I think that we can all take after the actions of Ford and be called to action by what we feel are our civic duties. For me, that starts with believing survivors when they come forward with their stories.