32

CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL OVERVIEW OF TRAUMA

3.1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on psychoanalytic theory and concepts related to trauma. As was
mentioned in chapter one, psychoanalytic theory reflects my epistemology. Much of
the trauma literature in psychology has been based on a psychoanalytic paradigm
(Garland, 1998; Van der Kolk, 1987). A brief history of trauma and a discussion of
psychoanalytic thinking related to trauma is used as a point of departure and to
provide a context for the study. The final section of the chapter constitutes a
deliberation of key psychoanalytic concepts which are relevant to the current research.

The historical perspective on trauma indicates that since the earliest involvement of
psychiatry with traumatised patients there have been vehement arguments about the
aetiology of trauma. Is it organic or psychological? Is trauma caused by the event
itself or by its subjective interpretation? Or is it perhaps caused by pre-existing
vulnerabilities? Are trauma patients malingerers who suffer from moral weakness, or
do they experience an involuntary disintegration of the capacity to take charge of their
lives? (Van der Kolk, Weisaeth & Van der Hart, 1996). The way in which clinicians
and researchers regard trauma has shifted over the years. Recent authors such as Allan
Young (1995) have asked whether this shift reflects a change in the symptomatic
expression of traumatic stress in Western culture over time, or rather whether
clinicians have focussed on different aspects of the same syndrome during the past
century and a half. The question becomes relevant if one looks at the historical
meaning of this shift of focus. While not being able to answer these questions with any
certainty, the following section attempts to clarify certain aspects of the questions
posed.
 33

3.2 A brief overview of the historic construction of trauma1

The effects of trauma on humans were described for the first time in the 1860s by
physicians such as John Erichsen and Herbert Page. The effects of trauma were mostly
associated with railway accidents and were called “railroad spine”. From this genesis,
the role of mental factors, especially that of fear and the desire for compensation, was
recognised in the onset of symptoms (Erichsen in Young, 1995). Thus the concept of
trauma as physical injury (wound) was extended to include psychogenic ailments
whose starting point was the experience of fear, conceived as a memory, of traumatic
pain. It was discovered early on that fear seemed to play an important part in cases of
both surgical and nervous shock: fearful patients sometimes died before their surgery
and the surgeons linked their deaths to the power of their emotions (Young, 1995).
Van der Kolk, McFarlane and Weisaeth (1996) mention that an association between
psychological trauma and hysteria has been noted ever since psychiatry was
recognised as a scientific discipline. A traumatic memory was considered to be
different from an ordinary memory because the individual was unable to assimilate its
meaning (Janet, 1925) and it was noted that the failure to integrate traumatic
memories led to dissociation.

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud showed an interest in traumatic events

during two periods: the years between 1892 and 1896 when he examined the causes
of hysterical attacks, and the years following World War I when he turned his
attention, very briefly, to the aetiology of the war neuroses. His original theory
postulated actual sexual experiences during infancy and early childhood as the cause
of all trauma and the basis for neurosis. In his later work with war veterans, Freud
acknowledged the role of actual experiences in the development of neuroses, and
distinguished between traumatic neuroses and anxiety neuroses on the basis of
whether a neurosis was caused by a real occurrence or an imaginary experience.

1
This section of the discussion relies strongly on Allan Young’s “The harmony of
illusions: Inventing post-traumatic stress disorder” (1995). The primary sources are
not easily accessible and/or are written in French or German.
 34

According to Freud (1919/1955a), traumatic neuroses were caused by real

experiences such as accidents, death and combat, whereas anxiety neuroses were the
result of sexual and aggressive fantasies based on early witnessing of the primal scene.
In his short paper, “Thoughts for the times on war and death”(1915/1957), Freud
recognised not only that “in the unconscious every one of us is convinced of his own
immortality”, but that in the death of an other, even when it is someone we love, there
is something of a triumph for the survivor. Added to the impact of the traumatic event
is the task of mourning, for others and for the self - for the person’s own lost world,
pre-trauma life and identity, as well as guilt feelings. Freud also compared the fear of
losing one’s own life with the fear of taking someone else’s life. This suggested that
a person might also be traumatised by the violence he2 inflicts on others, and thus a
soldier can be both the victim and perpetrator of his traumatic violence. With this
observation, a place is opened for traumatic guilt alongside traumatic fear.

Freud believed that the pathogenic agency is invested in the patient’s memory of the
trauma. When the attached affect of traumatic experiences is discharged, memories
of the events become ordinary recollections and are accessible to the conscious mind.
A reaction discharge is, however, not always possible and undischarged memories are
said to enter a “second consciousness” (Freud, 1966, p.153) where they become
secrets, either isolated from the conscious personality or available to it in a highly
summarised form. The paper, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920/1955b) reflects
on Freud’s experience with soldiers who had survived extremely frightening
experiences during World War I, and who showed a compulsion to repeat in recurrent
memories and re-enactments of some of the most frightening moments of the
experience, as though they needed to do this in order to master the anxiety produced.

Throughout the twentieth century, wars and its devastating effects on humanity have
had a profound impact on the development of ideas surrounding trauma. Most army
doctors in World War I were inclined to believe that flawed heredity and constitution

2
Between 1895 and 1974 the study of trauma centred almost exclusively on its effects
on white males (Van der Kolk, McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). Using “he” is in this
sense not ignoring women but reflective of the historic state of affairs.
 35

have a determining effect in the majority of cases of war neuroses (Smith, 1916;
Wolfsohn, 1918), which stigmatised the condition. The German neurologist Herman
Oppenheim (1885), who was the first to use the term “traumatic neurosis”, proposed
that functional problems are produced by subtle molecular changes in the central
nervous system. Ascribing an organic origin to traumatic neuroses was particularly
important in combat soldiers as it offered a honourable solution for all parties involved
(Van der Kolk , McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). Abram Kardiner (1941), an American
psychoanalyst in World War 2, describes the symptomatic reaction that follows
traumatic events as a form of adaptation. It is an effort to eliminate or control painful
and anxiety-inducing changes that have been produced by the trauma in the
organism’s external and internal environments. The kind of adaptation that occurs in
a particular case will depend on the individual’s psychological resources and the
person’s relations to his primary social group (Kardiner, 1959). In Kardiner’s account,
traumatic events create levels of excitation that the organism is incapable of mastering,
and a severe blow is dealt to the total ego organisation. The individual experiences
this as a sudden loss of effective control over his environment which leads to an
altered conception of the self in relation to the world. After World War 2,
psychological interest in trauma declined until the Vietnam War (1969-1975).

The immense impact of the Vietnam War on the psychological health of veterans lead
to the current classification and “defining” of trauma in terms of post-traumatic stress
disorder (Young, 1995; Van der Kolk , McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). Careful
research and documentation of what is now labelled post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) began in earnest after the Vietnam War when a large number of American
war veterans suffered from undiagnosed psychological effects of war-related trauma.
The Vietnam War was different from previous wars in that it was experienced as
dreadful, filthy and unnecessary (Allerton, 1970; Bourne,1970; Haley, 1984). Public
support was minimal and the meaning of the war was questioned by society. In 1978
the psychiatrist Chaim Shatan listed typical symptoms of what he called “post-
Vietnam syndrome” namely, guilt, rage, psychic numbing, alienation and feelings of
being scapegoated (Shatan, 1978). Post-traumatic stress disorder was adopted by the
American Psychiatric Association as part of its official nosology in 1980 and included
 36

in the DSM-III (APA, 1980). PTSD in relation to the current study will be discussed
in chapter four.

Through the years the effect of trauma on people has been called various names such
as “railroad spine”, “traumatic neurosis”, “cardiac neurosis”, “shell shock”, “war
neurosis” and “combat neurosis” and culminated in the current label of post-traumatic
stress disorder. Perhaps the most important lesson from the history of psychological
trauma is the intimate connection between cultural, social, historical, and political
conditions on the one hand, and the ways that people approach traumatic stress on the
other (Fischer-Homberger, 1975).

3.3 Shifts and developments in psychoanalytic thinking relating to trauma3

What has been largely overlooked in accounts of psychoanalytic theory concerning

trauma is that Freud himself used the word trauma rather loosely in a range of
contexts and circumstances (Greenacre, 1967), and that the term trauma is used just
as loosely today among both psychoanalysts and non-analytic clinicians (Yorke,
1986). According to Laplanche and Pontalis (1973), the use of the term trauma or
“wound” in psychoanalytic terms implies three ideas: a violent shock, a wound (which
would relate to castration anxiety or narcissistic injury), and consequences which
affect the whole organisation of the psychic system.

Developments and shifts in classical psychoanalytic thought and the emphasis on the
role of fantasy in the development of trauma are well documented by Ulman and
Brothers (1988) and Scharff and Scharff (1994). These authors note that Freud’s
underestimation of the role of actual traumatic experiences in the development of
adult psychopathology was challenged in the writings of many classical psychoanalysts
including Ferenczi (1913/1952), Anna Freud (1967) and Masson (1984), all of whom
emphasise the reality of early childhood traumatic experiences. In line with Freud’s

3
This section is organised according to psychoanalytic themes rather than according to
a chronologic account of events.
 37

later acknowledgment of the role of real experience in the development of the

symptoms of trauma, the revisionist school of thought, including the work of Kardiner
and Kelman with war veterans (cited in Ulman & Brothers, 1988), represents a shift
away from the role of fantasy in the psychogenesis of symptoms in response to
exposure to traumatic experiences. According to this view, reaction to trauma occurs
as a result of the disturbance in adaptational functioning which results from “a
pathological alteration in images of the self and the outer world”(Ulman & Brothers,
1988, p.59). This view adds a valuable contribution to the understanding of trauma
in that it highlights the disillusionment that occurs with regard to the individual’s sense
of self. The unconscious meaning of exposure to the trauma of combat is understood
in terms of the individual’s sense of having failed to live up to an idealised sense of
self. The important contribution of this approach is the shift in the person’s sense of
uniqueness and strength to one of vulnerability, worthlessness and dependency.

Infantile dependency is also highlighted by Fairbairn (1941/1952) in all

psychopathological developments in adults. Fairbairn’s contribution to the
development of psychoanalytic theory lies in the shift from viewing the development
of personality as a closed system, with emphasis on inner instincts and drives within
the individual, to an emphasis on interpersonal or social relationships in which the
individual is viewed as an open system, constantly interacting with the environment.
This interaction is considered as central to the development of the personality.
Behaviour is therefore motivated by a dynamic self, constantly seeking an object from
whom it will gain recognition, security and nurturance. More specifically, Fairbairn
proposed that central to healthy personality development is the existence of “trusting,
good-enough early experiences with the mother (object)” (Scharff & Scharff, 1994,
p.50). Incorporated in his view on the development of the personality is Fairbairn’s
important description of the process of differentiation from the object.

Fairbairn highlights the fact that the individual is constantly dependent upon
relationships with others in the outside world, but that the nature of this dependency
shifts from one in which the infant does not perceive its distinction from others, to one
in which the dependency is mutually beneficial and respectful. This holds important
 38

implications for the victims of trauma, as the traumatic experience is likely to trigger
or cause a regression to early immature dependency in which the person is dependent
on the other for survival (Scharff & Fairbairn Birtles,1997). The experience of trauma
therefore results in a regression to what Scharff and Scharff (1994) refer to as “the
most fundamental trauma” which is “that the child cannot count on being held securely
and with respect for the body, the mind, the emotions, and the essence of the child”
(p.62). It therefore triggers regression to the earlier state of immature dependency
involving early intrapsychic conflicts and directly affects the manner in which the
individual relates to inner and external objects in his or her world. Dependency is
linked to helplessness; and Freud hypothesised that when the “stimulus barrier” is
breached, the mental apparatus is flooded with excitation, causing a feeling of
helplessness (Van der Kolk, 1987).

Scharff and Scharff (1994) and Ulman and Brothers (1988) note that the neoclassical
school of theorists, including Greenacre and Jacobson, made valuable contributions
to the theory of trauma in their focus on development and regression, and their
emphasis on the central role of the sense of self in determining reactions to real
traumatic experiences. Jacobson’s (1959) major contribution to the theory of trauma
lies in her emphasis on the individual’s sense of self in the experience of trauma. Her
view of trauma is that of a narcissistic disturbance in the ego which involves problems
in the development and maintenance of the sense of self as a result of conflicts
between different self-representations. Because of the experience of trauma and the
resultant narcissistic regression, the patient’s initial self-representations, organised in
accordance with a healthy sense of self-respect, are altered to form new self-
representations based on a painful sense of self as worthless and humiliated. The
ensuing conflict between these different self-representations is seen as the major cause
of symptoms. Jacobson’s contribution to the theory of trauma is important in terms
of her emphasis on the process of regression as a result of a traumatic experience, as
well as her emphasis on the effect of trauma on the sense of self.

Greenacre (cited in Ulman & Brothers, 1988) added to the theory of trauma in her
proposal that trauma is an “inevitable part of psychological development” which every
 39

individual is likely to experience, and that it is the “timing, type and intensity”(p.50)
of the trauma that are the crucial factors in the psychogenesis of symptoms. Greenacre
proposed that the “primary traumatogenic event” of witnessing the primal scene
renders the individual susceptible to the development of pathology later in life when
traumas are imbued with meaning based on early traumatic events. Greenacre’s work
is valuable in that she linked the concept of regression to early experiences of trauma
in her understanding of later experiences of trauma. A range of experience may be
traumatic. On the one hand, these may be violent and unexpected incidents but, on the
other hand, the event may be apparently minimal but one which “owes its importance
merely to its intervention in a psychical organisation already characterized by its own
specific points of rapture” (Lapanche & Pontalis, 1973, p.467).

Once Freud had moved away from the notion that all anxiety derived from
undischarged libidinal excitement, he relocated anxiety firmly within the ego (Garland,
1998). The ego can differentiate between anxiety experienced in an actual situation
of danger (automatic anxiety) and anxiety experienced when danger threatens (signal
anxiety). Signal anxiety warns of an impending situation of helplessness. According
to Garland (1998), this distinction holds true in most lives, but once the threat of
annihilation has been encountered face to face, something changes: once the ego has
been traumatised (or raptured), it “can no longer afford to believe in signal anxiety
in any situation resembling the life-threatening trauma: It behaves as if it were flooded
with automatic anxiety” (p.17). She calls this a crucial factor in the loss of symbolic
thinking in the area of the trauma, which is a marked feature of the behaviour of
survivors.

Through his exploration of the inner world of trauma, Kalsched (1996) found that the
traumatised psyche is self-traumatising: “Trauma doesn’t end with the cessation of
outer violation, but continues unabated in the inner world of the trauma victim, whose
dreams are often haunted by persecutory inner figures”(1996, p.5). His second finding
is the seemingly perverse fact that victims of psychological trauma continually find
themselves in life situations where they are retraumatised: “It is as though the
persecutory inner world somehow finds its outer mirror in repeated self-defeating ‘re-
 40

enactments’ - almost as if the individual were possessed by some diabolical power or

pursued by a malignant fate” (Kalsched, 1996, p.5).

According to Garland (1998), universal anxieties that are potentially traumatic for
anyone have a single crucial feature in common: “they (the anxieties) consist of the
separation from, or the loss of, anything that is felt to be essential to life, including
life itself”(p.16). Kohut (1977, p.104) called the distinguishing feature of trauma
“disintegration anxiety”, an unnameable dread associated with the threatened
dissolution of a coherent self. Ulman and Brothers (1988) who based their work on
the tenets of Kohut’s theory of self-psychology, argue that “it is neither the reality nor
the fantasy that causes trauma but, rather, that the unconscious meaning of the real
occurrence causes trauma” (p.2) by changing the person’s experience of the self in
relation to self-objects. At the core of Ulman and Brothers’ (1988) theory of trauma
is the view that the traumatic experience shatters the individual’s sense of self in ways
that are intolerable. The self is viewed as the centre of mental activity and plays a vital
role in organising the meaning of experience. The trauma therefore takes on an
unconscious meaning which challenges and undermines the person’s sense of self, and
is symbolically represented in the symptoms of trauma.

To conclude, according to psychodynamic theory, traumatised individuals are faced

with the task of integrating the traumatic event into their understanding of the
meaning of life, self-concept, and world image (Gerrity & Solomon, 1996). The
emotional reactions of traumatised individuals are viewed as the result of
discrepancies between internal and external information (Horowitz, 1986; Horowitz
& Kaltreider, 1980; Schwartz, 1990; Widom, 1989).

The following section attempts to present the basic tenets of the psychodynamic
approach which are essential to understanding the discussions and analysis which
follow in the dissertation.
 41

3.4 Basic tenets of the psychodynamic approach

The psychodynamic perspective believes the mind to consist of two distinct systems,
the conscious and the unconscious4. When we deal with an emotionally loaded
situation, both systems operate in parallel according to their own ways of experiencing
and understanding the meaning of that situation (Langs, 1988). The conscious
response is logical and problem solving. The unconscious reaction includes all those
frightening desires and painful thoughts and feelings that the conscious mind finds too
distressing to acknowledge, much less deal with. A fundamental principle of the
psychodynamic approach is that behaviour is the result of conflict between the
conscious and unconscious systems. Human behaviour is the product of the
unconscious mind’s attempts to express and gratify its desires and the conscious
mind’s defences against those attempts (Freud, 1986).

Freud (1923/1955c) devised a theory of mind to describe the relationship between the
conscious, the unconscious and the individual’s development of a set of moral values.
He formulated a topological structure of the psyche that has three components: the
id, the ego and the superego. All three have their own spheres of influence, but are
also influenced by each other. The id is entirely unconscious, is governed by the
pleasure principle and wants all its needs satisfied immediately. The ego deals with
reality, understands logic and is capable of organising experience and behaviour. The
essential function of the ego is to master the environment and the id (Brenner, 1973).
The superego is defined by Cameron (1963) as “an organisation of mental systems
whose major functions are those of scanning ego activities at all levels, of supplying
approval and disapproval, self-criticism and self-esteem” (p.188). The superego
operates on the conscious level as conscience, is punitive on the unconscious level and
(according to some theoreticians) contains the ego ideal. The ego ideal is basically a
view of one’s self as perfect and loved. It is an unconscious image of being without
a flaw or weakness. The ego strives to attain these perfect qualities regardless of

4
Some psychoanalytic writings, however, refer to three layers of consciousness,
namely, the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious.
 42

whether or not they can be realised. The ego ideal has a major influence on one’s self-
esteem: satisfying the ego ideal brings about pleasurable feelings of self-confidence
and self-worth.

The ego tries to satisfy the id and the superego while seeking to maintain some control
over them. When the ego fails to satisfy the person’s conscience by permitting too
much gratification to the id, the person experiences guilt. Feelings of shame result
when the ego fails to live up to the expectations of the ego ideal (Piers & Singer,
1971). When the ego anticipates impending shame or guilt, or being overwhelmed by
strong id impulses, it experiences anxiety. The ego uses defence mechanisms to avoid
feeling anxious when it cannot remove the cause of the anxiety (Freud, 1920/1955b).
However, the ego’s use of defence mechanisms comes at a price as they “deny, falsify,
or distort reality”(Hall & Lindzey, 1957, p.49).

A characteristic of the id is that it permits opposing impulses and feelings to coexist

alongside each other and to demand that each be gratified at the same time. But the
ego cannot tolerate the simultaneous presence of incompatible wishes, ideas or
feelings in relation to someone or something. The term “ambivalence” is used to
describe the simultaneous experience of feelings of love and hate for someone or
something. The nature of ambivalence is complex. First of all, ambivalence is
characterised by the simultaneous operation of opposing feelings and secondly,
ambivalence is present to some degree in every emotional experience. Thirdly, when
the opposing feelings grow in intensity so that they can no longer be controlled by the
ego, repression is used to keep one of the opposing feelings from awareness while
allowing the other to become conscious. Finally, it is usually the negative feeling that
is repressed and the positive feeling that is given access to consciousness (Moore &
Fine, 1968).

Within the context of the development of psychoanalytic thinking on trauma, the

following theoretical concepts are deemed most relevant to the currents study and are
therefore given further attention below.
 43

3.5 Theoretical concepts linked to a psychoanalytic construction of trauma

3.5.1 Traumatic memory versus ordinary memory

Ordinary memories fade and belong to the past. They are eventually confused and
conflated with other ordinary memories and assimilated into webs of remembrance.
When they penetrate into the present, it is as nostalgia, regret, and a desire for things
now gone. In each of these respects, the traumatic memory is different. Years after
its creation it remains unassimilated, a self-renewing presence, perpetually reliving the
moment of its origin (Horowitz, 1976). According to Van der Kolk, McFarlane and
Weisaeth (1996), the post-traumatic syndrome is the result of a failure of time to heal
all wounds. The memory of the trauma is not integrated and accepted as a part of
one’s personal past (history); instead it comes to exist independently of previous
schemata (i.e. it is dissociated). The traumatic memory is dominated by imagery and
bodily sensation, and is in these respects similar to the memories of young children
(Herman, 1992).

Immediately after a traumatic event, almost all people suffer from intrusive thoughts
about what has happened (McFarlane, 1992). These intrusions help them either to
learn from the experience and plan for restorative actions (accommodation), or to
gradually accept what has happened and readjust their expectations (assimilation)
(Horowitz & Kaltreider, 1980). One way or another, the passage of time modifies the
ways in which the brain processes the trauma-related information. Either it is
integrated in memory and stored as an unfortunate event belonging to the past, or the
sensations and emotions belonging to the event start leading a life of their own (Van
der Kolk, McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). When people develop post-traumatic stress
disorder, the replaying of the trauma leads to sensitisation; with each replay of the
trauma, there is an increasing level of distress. In those individuals, the traumatic
event, which started out as a social and interpersonal process, comes to have
secondary biological consequences that are hard to reverse once they become
entrenched. These biological (mal)adaptations ultimately form the underpinnings of
the remaining traumatic symptoms: problems with arousal, attention, and stimulus
 44

discrimination, and a host of psychological elaborations and defences.

The psychological process through which irreconcilable memories are assimilated is

believed to consist of phases and cycles: the conscious mind engages the traumatic
memory ÿ this encounter generates anxiety ÿ the conscious mind disengages from
the memory through denial, self-dosing with alcohol or drugs, etcetera ÿ the level of
anxiety is reduced, the conscious mind re-engages the traumatic memory and attempts
to process it (via responses one and two) ÿ anxiety increases, and a new cycle begins.
Normally cycling and processing continue until the memory is metabolised, at which
point it becomes part of the individual’s inactive memory. That is, it is retrievable but
is no longer intrusive. In effect it is buried in the past. PTSD is exceptional in this
respect because its traumatic memory generates a high level of anxiety. Consequently,
the engagement phase is brief and ineffective, and the memory cannot be buried. It
lives on for decades, a source of suffering and socially and psychologically
maladaptive behaviour (Horowitz, 1986).

Because of the timeless and unintegrated nature of traumatic memories, victims

remain embedded in the trauma as a contemporary experience, instead of being able
to accept it as something belonging to the past (Horowitz & Kaltreider, 1980; Van der
Kolk, McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). One of the serious complications that interferes
with healing is, according to Van der Kolk, McFarlane and Weisaeth (1996), that one
particular event can activate other, long-forgotten memories of previous traumas, and
create a “domino effect”. A person who was not previously troubled by intrusive and
distressing memories may, after exposure to yet another traumatic event, develop such
memories of earlier experiences.

The traumatic memory is a kind of pathogenic secret (Ellenberger, (1966/1993). Such

memories are “pathogenic” because they are reputed to cause psychiatric disorders
and “secret” because they are acts of concealment. Two kinds of concealment are
possible. In one, the owners wants to hide the contents of their recollection from other
people. In addition, they want to forget the memory themselves or, failing this, they
want to push it to the edges of awareness. The second kind of concealment involves
 45

a memory that the owners hide from themselves. They know that they have a secret
memory, because they sense its existence, but they are unable to retrieve it; or, what
is more common according to Young (1995), they do not remember that they have
forgotten and have to learn about their memory from someone else, typically a
therapist.

Freud found a home for the pathogenic secret in the patient’s anxiety dream. These
dreams originate, according to Freud, in the compulsion to repeat or the patient’s
unconscious urge to return to the situation in which the pathogenic trauma occurred.
He stated that dream anxiety is instrumental as it attempts to anticipate, be it
retrospectively, the danger that precipitated the trauma.

The discovery of traumatic memory revised the scope of two core attributes of the
Western self, namely free will and self-knowledge (Dworkin, 1988; Harris 1989;
Johnson, 1993). At the same time, it created a new language of self-deception (Rorty,
1985) and justified the emergence of a new class of authorities, the medical experts
who claim access to memory contents that owners (patients) have hidden from
themselves (Young, 1995). Post-traumatic stress disorder patients are assumed to
have three main ways of responding to the cognitive dissonance that originates in
traumatic experiences. They can attempt to reframe their traumatic memories, making
the memory content consistent with their pre-existing cognitive schemas. They can
attempt to revise the cognitive schemes, making them consonant with their memories.
They can also try to empty the memories of their salience and emotional power or
erect defences against them via denial, efforts at avoiding the stimuli that trigger
recollections, generalised emotional numbing and other defence mechanisms.

3.5.2 Trauma, memory and a sense of self

According to Young (1995), the term “memory” has three meanings in everyday
usage: the mental capacity to retrieve stored information and to perform learned
mental operations; the semantic, imagistic or sensory content of recollections; and the
location where these recollections are stored. John Locke and David Hume proposed
 46

that memory, in the second and third senses, is intrinsically connected to our
conception of “self” and “self-awareness” (Richards,1992; Warnock, 1987). “By
connecting self-awareness with the past, memory provides the body with a subject and
subjectivity” (Young, 1995, p.4). Our sense of being a person is shaped not simply by
our active memories, however; it is also a product of our conceptions of “memory”.

The capacity to regulate internal states and behavioural responses to external stress
defines both one’s core concept of oneself and one’s attitude towards one’s
surroundings (Van der Kolk, McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996). Since a sense of “self”
is derived from the interactions between children and their caregivers, and is founded
on the important relationships of early childhood, trauma during this period interferes
with the development of ego identity and with the capacity to develop trusting and
collaborative relationships (Cole & Putnam, 1992; Herman, 1992). Results of recent
studies indicate that vulnerability does play a significant role in the development of
trauma, as well as in the long-term adjustment to living with the legacy of traumatic
stress (Van der Kolk, Weisaeth, & Van der Hart, 1996). A large number of studies has
shown that in both children and adults the security of the attachment bond is the
primary defence against trauma-induced psychopathology (Finkelhor & Browne,
1984; McFarlane, 1987).

In recent years, much has been written about the effects of trauma on people’s sense
of themselves and their relationship with their environment (Cole & Putnam, 1992;
Herman, 1992; Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995). Reiker and Carmen (1986) point out
that
confrontations with violence challenge one’s most basic assumptions
about the self as invulnerable and intrinsically worthy, and about the
world as orderly and just. After the trauma the victim’s view of self
and world can never be the same again, it must be reconstructed to
incorporate the abuse experience (p.362).

According to Van der Kolk (1987) the essence of psychological trauma is the loss of
faith that there is order and continuity in life.
 47

Age and previous life experiences will profoundly affect the person’s interpretation
of the meaning of the trauma. Many traumatised individuals, particularly children, tend
to blame themselves for having been traumatised. Assuming responsibility for the
trauma allows feelings of helplessness and vulnerability to be replaced with an illusion
of potential control. Trauma is usually accompanied by intense feelings of humiliation:
to feel threatened, helpless and out of control is an incisive attack on the capacity to
be able to rely on oneself. Shame is the emotion related to having let oneself down
(Van der Kolk, McFarlane & Weisaeth, 1996).

3.5.3 Fear, pain and defences

Intense fear - characteristically, fear plus the element of surprise - is an assault

equivalent or analogous to physical violence (Young, 1995). Since it was found that
fear (nervous shock) and injury (surgical shock) produce similar effects, the question
arose of how they were connected to one another. Erichsen and Page (in Young,
1995) concluded that this occurs through patho-anatomical and/or pathophysiological
pathways. Crile and Cannon (in Young, 1995) accepted this proposition but argued
that it was only part of the story since there is one more element connecting fear with
injury, namely pain. Pain is an experience that the organism strives to avoid, but it is
also a signal of bodily injury and an indication of mortality. The meaning of fear lies
in its pathogenic effects.

It is common knowledge that an unending state of arousal leads to exhaustion, a drop

in blood pressure and death. But when exposure to traumatic shock is intermittent
rather than continuous, Young (1995) mentions three possible ways in which victims
can respond to their pathogenic memory. Some victims develop strategies and
routines that allow them to avoid harmful stimuli (phobias), other victims simply give
up (learned helplessness), and thirdly, victims of traumatic experiences may seek out
circumstances that replicate their traumatogenic events. The last option is based on
evidence that suggests that endogenous opiates (endorphin) may be released into a
victim’s bloodstream during moments of traumatic shock. In the case of post-
traumatic stress disorder, the endorphin may have a tranquillising effect, reducing the
 48

feelings of anxiety, depression and inadequacy that are associated with this syndrome.
Over time, these people would become addicted to their endorphins and to the
memories that release these chemicals. When the intervals between exposures grow
too long, people can be expected to experience the symptoms of opiate withdrawal,
namely anxiety, irritability, explosive outbursts, insomnia, emotional lability and hyper-
alertness. These symptoms would exacerbate the ongoing distress intrinsic to post-
traumatic disorders.

According to Young (1995), pain (of “withdrawal”) may build up to the point where
individuals are induced to self-dose with endorphin by re-exposing themselves to
traumatogenic-like situations. Van der Kolk, McFarlane and Weisaeth (1996) mention
the compulsive re-exposure of some traumatised individuals to situations reminiscent
of the trauma. Freud (1920/1955) thought that the aim of such repetition is to gain
mastery, but clinical experience shows that this rarely happens; instead, repetition
causes further suffering for the victims and for the people around them (Van der Kolk,
1989). In this re-enactment of the trauma, an individual may play the role of either
victimiser or victim. Van der Kolk, McFarlane and Weisaeth (1996) cite three ways
in which the re-enactment of the trauma may crystallise: harm to others, self-
destructiveness and re-victimisation.

3.5.4 Avoidance, numbing and dissociation as defence mechanisms

The human response to sudden and overwhelming events is increasingly recognised

as a stable psychological entity (Burgess & Holmstrom, 1974; Figley, 1978; Green,
Wilson, & Lindy, 1985; Horowitz, 1976). The central nervous system seems to react
to any overwhelming, threatening and uncontrollable experience in a consistent
pattern. Regardless of the precipitating event, traumatised people continue to have a
poor tolerance for arousal. They tend to respond to stress in an all-or-nothing way:
either unmodulated anxiety, often accompanied by motoric discharge that includes
acts of aggression against the self or others, or else social and emotional withdrawal
(Krystal, 1978).
 49

The psyche’s normal reaction to a traumatic experience is to withdraw from the scene
of the injury. If withdrawal is not possible, then a part of the self must be withdrawn,
and for this to happen the otherwise integrated ego must split into fragments or
dissociate. Dissociation is a normal part of the psyche’s defences against trauma’s
potentially damaging impact. Kalsched (1996) calls dissociation a trick that the psyche
plays on itself, and says that it allows life to go on by dividing up the unbearable
experience (trauma) and distributing it to different compartments of the mind and
body, especially the unconscious aspects thereof. This means that the normally unified
elements of consciousness are not allowed to integrate and experience itself
consequently becomes discontinuous. The psychological defence of dissociation
against the experience of unbearable pain carries a great internal cost, “the
psychological sequelae of the trauma continue to haunt the inner world” (Kalsched,
1996, p.13). Kalsched (1996) describes dissociation not as a passive, benign process
but rather as an active attack by one part of the psyche on the other parts, involving
a good deal of aggression. Contemporary psychoanalysis recognises that where the
inner world is filled with violent aggression, primitive defences are present too. The
energy for dissociation originates from this aggression.

When people are traumatised the choice of defences is influenced by developmental

stage, temperamental and contextual factors (Van der Kolk, Weisaeth, & Van der
Hart, 1996). Once traumatised individuals become haunted by intrusive re-experiences
of their trauma, they generally start organising their lives around avoiding having the
emotions that these intrusions evoke. Avoidance may take many different forms, such
as keeping away from reminders, ingesting drugs or alcohol in order to numb
awareness of distressing emotional states, or utilising dissociation to keep unpleasant
experiences from conscious awareness. This avoidance of specific triggers is
aggravated by a generalised numbing of responsiveness to a whole range of emotional
aspects of life. Many people with post-traumatic stress disorder not only actively
avoid emotional arousal, but experience a progressive decline and withdrawal in which
any stimulation (whether it is potentially pleasurable or aversive) provokes further
detachment. To feel nothing is better than feeling irritable and upset. According to
Van der Kolk (1987), it seems as though the chronic hyperarousal of post-traumatic
 50

stress disorder depletes both the biological and the psychological resources needed to
experience a wide variety of emotions. One of the most distressing aspects of this
hyperarousal is the generalisation of threat. The world thus increasingly becomes an
unsafe place.

3.5.5 The role of meaning on the experiencing of trauma

Meaning is defined as that which has significance or importance. Gordon Allport

writes in the preface to Frankl’s (1959) Man’s search for meaning that to live is to
suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering: “If there is a purpose in life at
all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying”(p.11). Nietzsche, as quoted by
Frankl (1959, p.12), says that “(h)e who has a why to live can bear with almost any
how”. If they can ascribe some sense of meaning to the trauma, victims often
experience the symptoms of PTSD as natural reactions that do not require
professional help (Van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996).

The personal meaning of a traumatic experience evolves over time, and often includes
feelings of irretrievable loss, anger, betrayal and helplessness. Wolff (personal
communication, 1995) attributes many of the delayed-onset symptoms of post-
traumatic stress disorder to a loss of meaning of the traumatic event. He postulates
that many South African soldiers went through severe traumatic situations during the
war in Angola without showing signs of PTSD because they could attribute some sort
of meaning to the war. After 1994, when that meaning was questioned, the symptoms
of PTSD multiplied and the diagnosis escalated.

The critical element that makes an event traumatic is the subjective assessment by
victims of how threatened and helpless they feel. So although the reality of
extraordinary events is at the core of post-traumatic stress disorder, the meanings that
victims attach to these events are as fundamental as the trauma itself (Van der Kolk,
McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996). A crucial element of an experience which becomes
a trauma is the aspect of loss, be it loss of life, possessions, integrity or beliefs. When
people lose their faith that their world is a safe, orderly and just place to live in, it
 51

colours their relation to it. As such, individuals experience a loss of effective control
over their environment and perceive the world increasingly as an unsafe place. (In
object relations theory the absence or loss of a sense of meaning is linked with the loss
of the object.)

After having been traumatised, only a minority of victims seem to escape the notion
that their pain, betrayal and loss are meaningless. For many this realisation is one of
the most painful lessons that the trauma brings and they often feel godforsaken and
betrayed by their fellow human beings. Usually, suffering does not bring an increased
sense of love and meaning; it more often results in loneliness and disintegration of
belief (McFarlane & Van der Kolk, 1996). The unpredictability of a traumatic event
renders individuals unable to prepare themselves and may be viewed as a fundamental
reason for the lasting consequences and severe feelings of helplessness experienced.
The inability to take action in many traumatic instances emphasises the helplessness
which triggers issues of vulnerability and dependency. According to Young (1995),
the clinical ideology linked veterans’ disorder with a loss of ontological security that
was traced to the veteran’s inability to reconcile their traumatic memories of Vietnam
with their cognitive schemas, the moral codes, self-concepts, beliefs about human
nature and notions of cosmic justice through which these men attempted to impose
a sense of order and meaning on the world. Trauma challenges previously held
assumptions, beliefs and understandings about the world and oneself in the world
(Everly, 1995). When a person is victimised, three basic assumptions or beliefs about
the self and the world are challenged. They are the belief in personal invulnerability,
the view of oneself in a positive light, and the belief in a meaningful and orderly world
(Janoff-Bulman, 1985).

3.5.6 Meaning and perceived support 5

Most researchers recognise that contextual factors are important in determining the

5
Although this section forms part of the theoretical concepts some empirical data is
included to illuminate the point.
 52

meaning of the traumatic event and in promoting or impeding recovery (Krugman,

1987). The personal meaning of traumatic experiences for individuals is influenced by
the social context in which they occur. Victims and the significant people in their
surroundings may have different and fluctuating assessments of both the reality of
what has happened and of the extent of the victim’s suffering. As a result, victims and
bystanders may have conflicting assessments of the meaning of the trauma, and this
might set the stage for the trauma to be perpetuated in a larger social setting. This, in
turn, may lead to the allocation of blame and responsibility which then often becomes
the central issue rather than the trauma itself. McFarlane and Van der Kolk (1996)
found the issue of blame to be extraordinarily complicated. Trauma provokes
emotional reactions and one way of dealing with these intense emotions is to look for
scapegoats who may be held responsible for the tragic event.

Emotional attachment is probably the primary protection against feelings of

helplessness and meaninglessness; it is essential for biological survival in children, and
without it existential meaning is unthinkable in adults (McFarlane & Van der Kolk,
1996). In recognition of this need for affiliation as a protection against trauma, it is
widely accepted that the central issue in disaster management is the provision and
restoration of social support (Raphael, Wilson, Meldrum & McFarlane, 1996). Lindy
and Titchener (1983) have called the social support that surrounds victims “the trauma
membrane”. When people’s own resources are depleted, outside help needs to be
mobilised to compensate for their helplessness (Hobfoll & De Vries, 1995).

External validation about the reality of a traumatic experience in a safe and supportive
context is a vital aspect in the prevention and treatment of post-traumatic stress.
However, the creation of such a context for recovery can become very complicated
when the psychological needs of the victims and the needs of their social network
conflict (McFarlane & Van der Kolk, 1996), or if the social network is depleted or
unavailable. When there is a lack of validation and support, traumatic memories are
more likely to continue to prey on the victim’s minds, and to be expressed as anger,
withdrawal or otherwise disrupted and disrupting behaviour (McFarlane & Van der
Kolk, 1996). It is noted in Kaplan and Sadock (1991) that the availability of social
 53

support may influence the development, severity and duration of PTSD. This social
support may be compared to the mother’s holding capacity with regard to the infant
in object relations theory. A study by Solomon and Horn (1986) found that the more
support an officer had from fellow officers, supervisors and administration, the less
post-shooting trauma occurred. Lifton (1983) found that many trauma survivors who
report a lack of social support or find blame placed on them experience deeper scars
as a result of this rather than the traumatic event itself.

McFarlane and Van der Kolk (1996) find it ironic that both the victims of PTSD and
the larger society which has to provide support play a part in believing that the trauma
is not really the cause of the victim’s suffering. On the one hand, society becomes
resentful about having its illusions of safety and predictability ruffled by people who
remind them of how fragile security can be. On the other hand, many victims suffer
from an impaired capacity to translate their intense trauma-related emotions and
perceptions into communicable language. As such they find it difficult to articulate
their needs.

According to McFarlane and Van der Kolk (1996) victims of trauma are vulnerable
to being used for a variety of political and social ends, for both good and evil.
Society’s reaction to traumatised people is rarely the result of objective and rational
assessments. Victims are often perceived as members of the society whose problems
represent the memory of suffering, rage and pain in a world that longs to forget:
“Repression, dissociation and denial are phenomena of a social as well as individual
consciousness” (Herman, 1992, p.8). The issue of responsibility, individual and
shared, is at the very core of how a society defines itself (McFarlane & Van der Kolk,
1996). In The culture of complaint, Robert Hughes (1993) eloquently argues that
trauma and victimisation can become over-inclusive explanations that prevent
uncomfortable self-examination. This is true for both individuals and societies.

The complexity of the issue of social support is illustrated by the finding that after
suffering from heart attacks, men with good social support and a good internal locus
of control fared much better than men who had neither, but that men with good social
 54

support and a poor internal locus of control did worse that those with poor social
support but a solid internal locus of control (Kobasa & Puccetti, cited in McFarlane
& Van der Kolk, 1996, p.29). This suggests that social support in the absence of an
internal locus of control may in fact impair healing processes. Since trauma is known
to decrease a victim’s internal locus of control, the critical question becomes: what
is the optimal amount of social support that will restore a sense of self-efficacy? The
efficacy of social support depends, at least in part, on the amount of comfort that the
individual victims derive from it and the extent to which it motivates them to take
charge of their lives again.

Central to the role of victims in any given society are the demands that they place on
the community’s moral and financial resources. Providing reparation is part of the
recognition that someone has been hurt. Contrary to general perceptions, few victims
make strong demands for compensation and special privileges (McFarlane & Van der
Kolk, 1996). Many victims quietly acquiesce to their suffering; they are contained by
their sense of shame and helplessness, as well as a need to maintain their self-respect
and independence. Others noisily re-enact their traumas by either retraumatising
themselves or traumatising other people. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that
once people have been traumatised, they are liable to be traumatised again (Breslau,
Davis, Andreski & Petersen, 1995; Russell, 1986). Most victims who are conscious
of the effects of trauma on their lives preserve their self-protective instincts and are
highly ambivalent about having people find out what has happened to them. The weak
are a liability, and, after an initial period of compassion, they are vulnerable to being
singled out as “parasites and carriers of social misery” (McFarlane & Van der Kolk,
1996, p.35).

It is widely accepted that the media is a powerful agent in the production and
reproduction of dominant discourses (Hamlin, 1988; Masse & Rosenblum, 1988). The
media is perceived as an authoritative source of information (Hall, Hobson, Lowe &
Willis, 1980) and therefore plays a pivotal role in the ways that societies deal with
traumatised individuals. The media is the prime purveyor of traumatic news. With the
advent of satellite technology, it has become possible to invade homes with tales of
 55

horror from all over the world which may blunt concern and trivialise the suffering
involved (McFarlane & Van der Kolk, 1996). At the other end of the scale, news
reports may have the power of secondary traumatisation, where people are
traumatised by listening, reading or viewing horror stories.

Trauma research has been mostly conducted in Western cultures and one can expect
to find differences in the meaning, support and symptomatology of exposure to trauma
within different cultures. Given the rather marked differences in vulnerability and
symptoms among Vietnam combat soldiers belonging to different ethnic groups
(Kulka, Schlenger, Fairbank, Hough, Jordan, Marmar, & Weis, 1990), it is likely that
the prevailing culture has a marked effect on the symptomatic expression of traumatic
stress (Van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996).

3.6 Conclusion

It is clear from the history of psychological trauma that constructions of traumatic

stress are strongly connected with cultural, social and political circumstances.
Although current psychoanalytic thinking on trauma acknowledges the role of real
experience in the development of the symptoms of trauma, the emphasis is placed on
the meaning of the real occurrence which causes trauma by changing the person’s
experience of the self in relation to self-objects. The (often unconscious) meaning is
believed to be symbolically represented in the symptoms of trauma. Because of the
experience of trauma and the resultant narcissistic regression, the person’s initial self-
representations, organised in accordance with a healthy sense of self-respect, are
altered to form new self-representations based on a painful sense of self as worthless,
helpless and humiliated. As discussed, the distinguishing feature of trauma is
associated with the anxiety of a threatened disintegration of a coherent sense of self
(Kohut, 1977).

The self is viewed as the centre of mental activity and plays a vital role in organising
the meaning of experience. According to psychodynamic theory, traumatised
individuals are faced with the task of integrating the traumatic event into their
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understanding of the meaning of life, self-concept, and world image. Universal human
anxieties have a single crucial feature in common namely “the loss of anything that is
felt to be essential to life, including life itself”(Garland, 1998, p.16).

Traumatic memory differs from ordinary memory insofar as it is timeless and

unintegrated, which causes victims to remain embedded in the trauma as a
contemporary experience instead of being able to accept it as something belonging to
the past. The concept memory is intrinsically connected to the conception of self and
self-awareness, and confrontations with violence challenge one’s most basic
assumptions about the self as invulnerable and intrinsically worthy, and about the
world as orderly and just. After the trauma the person’s views of self and of world can
never be the same again; they must be reconstructed to incorporate the abusive
experience. The psyche’s normal reaction to a traumatic experience is the utilisation
of defences such as dissociation, avoidance or numbing which may lead to a
generalised blunting of responsiveness to a whole range of emotional aspects of life.

The subjective assessment of trauma by the victims or the meanings that victims attach
to these events are as fundamental as the trauma itself. The personal meaning of
traumatic experiences for individuals is influenced by the social context in which they
occur as well as perceived social support. It is important to remember that emotional
attachment is probably the primary protection against feelings of helplessness and
meaninglessness; without it existential meaning is not possible.

Chapter four constitutes the literature chapter and focuses on international as well as
South African literature on trauma, with specific reference to the context of policing.