Crawling out of the age of Savagery - One generation at a time

Nadine Burke Harris is doing a great job promoting the most important social issue of our time. Child abuse: Its impact, prevalence, and near overwhelming importance. But frustratingly, most of us do not want to go where Nadine is trying to take us, and may I say that is our shame.

The result, is that we see people still circumcising their young boys, putting kids through bad birthing practices (unnecessarily), farming out kids to daycare centers too young, hitting children in anger in the name of 'correction', pushing kids to live in scholastic ambition by threatening them with rejection if they don't, and depriving children of privacy and freedom because we twist ownership with love...etc.

We do all of this and more, because we believe we already know how kids should be brought up. And when people "already know" they will not even think to test their assumptions. They don't need to.

Today, we now know some facts. Facts that serious research over decades has made plain. Nadine Harris is a champion on this topic, and that is why I like to link to her talks. She brings attention to the issue of adverse childhood experiences (ACE's) in the right way, and on the right level, to impact people today which is anything but easy. You always have to start where the open people are at, or you'll lose them before you get anywhere at all. And again this is what Nadine does, and very well.

Anyway, what Nadine points to is how trauma from childhood leads to high-stress over-reactions during childhood and later in life as well, which in turn damages our wellbeing and our health - badly. It knocks literally decades off our lives.

What Nadine expresses is true, but the picture of the impact of trauma is more complicated than what her looking-glass is thus far telling us. From here I would like to model what really goes on with trauma, on a psychological level.

Second-level versus First-level psychotherapy:

What makes trauma, trauma, is a pain so great that it's experientially blocked outright. By definition, we don't feel trauma. This blocking of great pain is the reason why it continues to affect us later, even once the original traumatic event has long gone. Repressed trauma acts like a constant force on the mind, making the past drive our present. It imprints itself because the traumatic information cannot be updated due to the mechanics of repression.

Let me give you an example of a Vietnam war veteran. The war veteran, once home and safe, still feels like he's living in a dangerous context. He still feels like there might be a sniper out there just around the corner, waiting to shoot him. Intellectually he knows that the threat is no longer there, but he still can't help feeling this way nonetheless. So his traumatic past is pushing him around in his present. However, if his defense system is working well he will not feel his fear directly. He will act in a way that keeps the perceived threat under control. He will ultimately act like he's still in Vietnam...

Now, if that same war veteran sees a shrink, the psychologist will probably help him to boost his defense system, so that he doesn't over-react to his perceived threats. This way his heart palpitations and periodic gross stress-responses will be subdued. That's all good and well, except what we're looking at with this game is what I call second-level psychotherapy; which is controlling over reactions, though not getting to the root cause of them. If second-level psychotherapy is working well, the war veterans' over-reactions will calm down. He will then only tend to over-react in his sleep (night terrors)...

However, we can see from this example that the war veteran is still living in the past - because he still feels the snipers are out there. Second-level psychotherapy does not touch this. It only touches the over-reactions (at best) and it's notoriously high maintenance...those over-reactions keep on coming back. First-level psychotherapy is what touches this. First-level psychotherapy moves in the opposite direction of second-level psychotherapy. Rather than boosting defenses, it carefully weakens them so that the real fear (repressed traumatic fear) can be brought to consciousness, for emotional processing.

Note, the prior-repressed pain must be felt to be resolved, otherwise the brain literally doesn't know what it's dealing with. Think about it: How can the brain process information if it doesn't even know what it is? When you feel a repressed trauma you're actually feeling it (and therefore knowing it, and potentially dealing with it) for the first time. It's specifically the original repression of the trauma which created the enduring problem. It's the reason why the past was not left in the past.

With first-level psychotherapy you don't just relieve the over-reactions, you also get rid of the emotional delusion itself that was driven by original repression. In turn you get rid of the need to act-out, and you get rid of the constant tension created by the repression as well. Alas, it's the only way we can really leave the past in the past. You must feel it.

-Are you interested in this possibility? I recommend Arthur Janov's Primal Center to learn more. If getting to Los Angeles is impossible, I recommend purchasing France Janov's legacy programme, online. [Note: I am in no way professionally associated with Arthur Janov's Primal Center. I have no financial incentive in promoting their therapy or their educational products].

Pulling ourselves out of the age of savagery:

Levels of child abuse in times past--for all cultures--were almost beyond imagination. Killing, copulating, mutilating children was once so commonplace that it was not even culturally taboo. How was it that we were once so deeply sick? I don't have a time machine but I can make a logical speculation...

It's only a matter of time that a given group of humans will expand out to the limits of the given resource base. Then what? From here the tribes have two choices. You can watch your children starve or go to war in brutal competition. Inter-tribal brutality then leads to massive trauma, which in turn creates sick and violent cultures...eventually, as a norm. Because humans are extremely intelligent they have the ability to survive in spite of their then-created madness, and so the inter-generational trauma-chain goes on. Brutality is basically the historic way of maintaining the balance between population and available resources. (Yes, we can do a lot better).

The western world in particular has come farthest, in pulling itself out of the age of savagery. Modern western society is the most humane of all cultures, and the least repressed. It's also the most intelligent and successful of human cultures because it's the least oppressive, abusive, and traumatised...

However! We still have a long way to go, and we're still much too bull-headed in our resistance to learning what we need to learn. Science is clearly ahead of our culture today, because the latter continues to put tradition ahead of facts. But we will get there - and we are indeed getting there. Maybe in another 50 to 100 years we will have a society with nearly no serious trauma and its problematic effects - or even a whole world with no serious trauma. But we do need to keep on keeping on with this.











Psychotherapy is great. It can ultimately do a lot, but more importantly is can teach us a lot. It can help to bring light on what does and does not matter. Though no force will do more for our species as a whole than prevention, and this is where we need to focus before anything else. My included video is about prevention.