| | Understanding Ourselves and Our Universe: How Psychology Can Turn the "Mysteries of Human Nature" into Useful Tools for Self Improvement and Success in Life |
| Part 3: Psychological trauma |
| |
| If you are a typical reader, you've probably been conditioned to think of "psychological trauma" as something metaphysical and mysterious, contrasted with the much more concrete concept of "physical trauma" like broken arms, or lung disease, or blindness, or battering. If so, you need to change your way of thinking to fully grasp and appreciate the important concept of trauma, because while its cause is just as physical as a broken leg, it affects one's cognition, affect, and usually behavior as well (which makes it "psychological" in effect). Psychological Trauma is defined as physical damage that decreases ones cognitive, affective, or behavioral repertoire. Types of trauma include injuries, illnesses, and other disorders involving the central nervous system (CNS), and they may be minor, mild, moderate, major, or severe in their effects on one's psychological repertoire. Trauma usually de-programs a person's genetic and/or learned abilities -- i.e., worsens or destroys some capability of thought, feeling, or behavior (although it is possible to "beneficially damage" the CNS, such as in brain surgery, and actually increase one's psychological repertoire as a result). But outside of surgery or rare serendipity, significant trauma is almost always a negative determinant that decreases one's psychological repertoire and disables one's adaptive development. (There are some remarkable exceptions to this "trauma = some-degree-of-disability" rule, some of which we'll reveal after further elaboration on the core concept of trauma.) Regardless of what type of trauma one experiences (e.g., injury or illness), there are two broad subcategories of trauma that actually produce the damage at the cellular -- and even intra-cellular or intra-nuclear -- level(s): stress (which at its simplest means too much of a stimulus) and deprivation (which is too little of a stimulus). For some stimuli such as toxins in the brain, any amount is likely to be traumatic. Likewise, there are some stimuli like oxygen in the brain where even tiny losses may produce significant or even severe trauma. Trauma by definition always damages, but intact and healthy humans can be resistant to trauma and resilient in their recovery from trauma. The five key factors in scientifically understanding, treating, and predicting recovery from the effects of psychological trauma are 1. the quality of the trauma (the severity of the traumatic event; e.g., are CNS cells just slightly damaged, or are they destroyed?) 3. the site of the trauma (what part of the body is damaged; e.g., the big toe, or the frontal lobe of the brain?) 5. the timing of the trauma (at what developmental period the damage occurs; which is highly correlated with the subject's age) The first four factors are probably obvious; the greater the quality and/or quantity of damage, the greater the detrimental effects the trauma is likely to have. And the brain and CNS are clearly more important body parts to normal psychological development than are the skin or hair or feet. But the fifth key factor is little known -- or misunderstood -- and underappreciated by most people, so let's give it more attention. Possible effects might be for: Quint #1 to suffer absolutely no long term damage; Quint #2 to be partially or completely blinded; Quint #3 to have improved vision; Quint #4 to experience only minor, if any traumatic effects; Quint #5 to be killed by the infection. What on earth could explain this extreme variety of effects? What natural processes underlie these remarkable results? The key to understanding this apparent mystery is the concept of genetically pre-programmed developmental periods. Every cell of every organ system in the human body undergoes a basic 4-step sequence of development: 1. pre-formation (the cells are not yet specialized to their eventual function) 2. critical period (the cells have started specializing and begun to form the critical components of the organ) 3. sensitive period (the organ has formed, is functioning at its peak level, but has numerous unspecialized cells still available -- a period of "plasticity" or modifiability of the organ cells) 4. maturity (specialization is complete and the organ is functioning routinely as a fully developed, specialized system) The human occipital lobe in the back of the brain is the primary reception and association area for the sense of vision. Thus, this major German Measles infection hit Quint #1 during pre-formation; other cells took the place of the unspecialized cells that were destroyed, and normal development continued unabated. It hit Quint #2 in her critical period; specialized cells were killed, and no others took their place, causing blindness (despite having normal eye functions). Quint #3 was in her sensitive period; a few defective specialized cells that were killed were replaced by perfect unspecialized cells, actually improving her eventual visual abilities. Quint #4 caught the measles in adulthood, and his immune system shook off the infection with just a little fever. But Quint #5 was a debilitated elderly person with numerous other major illnesses, and the measles infection was the "last straw" in a series of serious physical disorders that proved fatal. (The first four examples represent the four developmental periods; the last example was just a case of any major infection being too much for Quint #5 to survive.) This series of examples demonstrates not only the critical role of timing in psychological trauma, but also the way trauma routinely interacts with one's genes -- and more rarely, learning experiences -- to determine the effects on development. Just as a traumatic infection of the brain like this can slightly or totally decimate a sensory function, so too can significant stress or deprivation disrupt, debilitate, or destroy learned abilities. For example, a stroke can destroy one's learned language skills. But we must also appreciate that lack of access to education can not only deprive one of specific knowledge, but can also retard one's learning abilities for that whole type of knowledge in the future (even though that brain could have learned that knowledge were it not deprived of the opportunities, too much and/or for too long). Likewise, extreme stress (such as verbal or physical abuse, malnutrition) during learning experiences can re-program a normal brain to respond to punishing or reinforcing experiences in the future in abnormal ways. These complex interactions among one's genes, learning experiences, and trauma -- which totally determine how we naturally develop into who we are, and who we can and can't become -- will be covered in much greater detail in the Comprehensive Module. |
Luggage? GPS? Comic books?
Check out fitting gifts for grads at Yahoo! Search. __._,_.___
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___