Therapy And Truth

[anthony]

Michel, I don't think anyone is dismissing trauma, as that is not what this forum is about, in fact quite the opposite. The issue in point though regarding therapist views... you have to understand the angles and variations they see across patients. To understand some mental health aspects, you must learn the mental health side of things, hence why I did all my own reading to get both sides of the mental health scenario. Understanding the interaction that severe trauma has upon the brain, and more in point, how PTSD actually manifests traumatic occurrences that never actually happened, you then understand statements made or questions asked by mental health professionals.

A simple way to put it... our brain actually creates lies about our trauma, embeds these lies within our traumatic experiences, then we repeat what is in our brain. That is a very easy way to state what PTSD does in the way of self traumatic manifestations. I am not saying we lie about our trauma/s, but PTSD is very well known to manifest co-current traumatic aspects within our existing actual traumatic experiences.

Ask a group of 5 soliders who all stood side by side about a specific event they all experienced equally, and you will get aspects that are the same, you will then all different aspects from each soldier. The different aspects now makeup this "my truth" aspect of the traumatic event, even though there is only really one truth, being the exact situation itself, you will get 5 truths overall, one from each.

Now if you happened to have a video of the event, then showed all 5 soldiers the video footage after the fact, the actual truth would often depict and remove what they have already learnt / told themselves / emotionally filled in the gaps with, because they now have an actual video of the event that they can study, thus removing many of the emotional aspects that each may off convinced themselves off, hence 5 different answers because we are all unique and feel things differently. Our truth vs. the actual truth. Both are very valid to us, however; only the actual truth exists of an event, as you cannot accurately measure emotional truths.

 

[Deleted member 5760]

Yeah Anthony,

I mean, sort of off topic - but something I thought of when reading your post.

Eyewtiness testimony is incredibly unreliable. Why? Because memory changes and distorts things very quickly. The colour of a car can change from blue to red with the click of a finger, etc. Especially under traumatic circumstances where there is bias (perhaps even subconscious bias) on behalf of the witness.

 

[anthony]

I will add to this... I do remember some aspects I had included in my own trauma therapy process in Townsville years ago, and I had mistruths within them. My therapist actually stated to me then that the idea of what we did, was to identify fact from fiction and remove any aspects that didn't occur, but I had told myself did occur. Basically, I lied to myself about some of the aspects around an event. People do this all the time at the pub.... embellishment is the word I was looking for. It was like having to admit I had lied about some aspects, which infact I did, and didn't really even know it or more so, consciously knew off. The beauty of trauma therapy and value of a damn good therapist.

 

[gdf]

superjen & anthony,

Your comments made me think of this article I read for a class talking about the distortion of memory under crisis in (American) police officers. One of the quotes: "As a consequence of distress, logical thinking patterns may be disrupted and memory affected. When this occurs, previously available coping mechanisms and options may be blanked out and seem non existent." The article talks about how are senses are distorted in situations where officers exchange gunfire, hearing for example. Some officer hear four shots, some five. So if under stressful situations our senses are distorted, then maybe that's part of what starts the process of constructing our own "truth" and reality about the event(s) that actually happen? Interesting read.

You can track it down through inter-library loan in the States (not sure of Australian equivalent) or possibly through your respective local universities. Here is the citation if you are interested in checking it out:

Reiser, M. & Geiger, S. (1984). Police officer as victim. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 15 (3) 315-323.

 

[Deleted member 5760]

Sounds like a very interesting article gdf. I agree. I think it's part of the 'blocking out' self defence mechanism of the brain. I literally cannot remember the moments after my trauma, and I honestly believe it's because my brain was 'protecting me' so to speak. Like hitting 'erase' to protect me from moments I literally could not mentally cope with. So given that memory can be completely erased (and it is - I'm certainly not pretending I can't remember - it is gone) it's perfectly believable to me that senses can be distorted also -all as part of the brain's coping mechanism.

 

[Lauren]

Right on SuperJen! I am new to this forum but understand exactly (I think) what you are saying. Our thoughts and feelings need to be validated.

To me it doesn't matter whether my fragmented memory of what happened is in fact what actually happened or if it was just my "perspective". The terror I felt at that time (I should make that times) is what it was and that was real. It is the terror, the threat & what happened that I have to deal with now as an adult. For me, I think it is the terror and powerlessness that I felt that is the hardest. My therapist has been wonderful in telling me that he thinks certain things really happened, it has validated my thoughts and feelings, helping me to open up. And believe me, trusting another person with the memories that are surfacing is huge to me. My therapist is also pointing out that though those things happened, the fact that I felt (and was) powerless to stop what was happening is the key that I need to work on. To come back to it with an adult's persepective, accept that I couldn't have done anything then, but can protect myself now will be empowering. I hope he is right. I am new to this (if being in therapy for 9 months is new) and am just now starting to remember things that I had pushed aside (not new revelations) and now things I had never remembered are surfacing (and being substantiated by family memebers). I think feeling validated is crucial to my being able to share and even believe what happened to me. Without that I will never be whole.

I don't always agree with my therapist, but if I couldn't trust him.....I would find another one.