As a therapist, I have spent many years trying to help people make meaning from painful experiences, and to make sense of senseless behavior. I've seen cases involving everything from child rape to domestic violence to spousal abandonment to the uncertainty of early addiction recovery or recovery from extramarital affairs.
As I frequently tell families, "We were hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships." The power of psychotherapy is, in part, a new experience based on a solid relationship with a safe person whose sole role is to provide professional care without the expectation of a quid pro quo. You don't exist to please the therapist. You don't have to put on a false self. You can explore the disguised or denied parts of yourself which have been exiled due to shame and fear. And as that begins to happen, healing takes place.
One of the key questions asked by researchers on abuse and trauma centers around resiliency. Why is it that some people are able to experience horrible events and come through it emotionally intact, while others lose their minds and become emotionally scarred?
To explain this (and I highly recommend the book Strengthening Family Resilience by Froma Walsh), I want to introduce a simple and uncomplicated model to understand the nature of trauma:
Trauma = Distress + Powerlessness
Distress, in itself, is not traumatic. If we have the emotional, spiritual, or physical resources to deal with events that threaten the ego or our physical well-being, then we do not experience it as traumatic. In fact, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi pointed out in his book, Finding Flow, many high-functioning individuals are able to withstand high amounts of stress with extraordinary grace and fluidity as long as they have the skills and resources to meet the challenges. (I'm indebted to Patrick Carnes for his insights on this as it relates to addiction and recovery.) Too much challenge, and you eventually experience trauma. Too little challenge, and you become bored or experience atrophy.
The basic principles behind SERE training are rooted in this understanding of resilience and trauma. By helping individuals to experience mastery over their situations through mindfulness and resistance training, or by helping them to find productive and ego-syntonic ways of distracting themselves from the painful reality, SERE training and other forms of psych ops can help people to withstand extraordinary challenges and develop skills for high levels of performance.
(A good example of this is Jason Bourne's character in The Bourne Trilogy. It's another reason why Jack Bauer is deified in the American imagination.)
But the thing that SERE trainers and others recognize is that a simulation is just a simulation. You can never fully simulate the real-world experience of undergoing torture or interrogation, because you can never fully reconstruct the situation of powerlessness that makes torture traumatic.
In truth, as Alice Miller has argued persuasively from her clinical experience in the book The Drama of the Gifted Child, children frequently experience trauma in small and seemingly everyday moments. This is because children don't have the experience, resources, or personal power to deal with novel circumstances or experiences of powerlessness. Children who are unable to develop secure attachments (as John Bowlby argued and observed) develop a learned helplessness that makes them unable to form a healthy ego. And this is part of the reason why we talk about "crying like a baby," or shame people by saying, "Don't be such a baby!"
In his book Real Boys, Harvard psychologist William Pollack discusses what he calls "The Boy Code" - an unspoken set of rules embodied in phrases like, "Don't be such a sissy!" or "Don't cry or I'll give you a reason to cry!" The Boy Code moves from an accepting, "Boys will be boys" attitude to a "gender straitjacket" that says, "Boys must be boys." This set of rules is evident in the chest-thumping of Oliver North and Sean Hannity, but also in the response of Keith Olbermann when he says, "Put your money where your mouth is." This unspoken code of conduct is rooted in the honor ethic of warrior society, and is at the heart of thousands of years of war and conflict. One of the gifts that Pollack and others have given to us is the recognition that we don't have to do things that way, and that there are other models of authentic manhood beyond the aggressive, stoic, Rambo type of hero.
As many of us have experienced in our relationships, "hurt people hurt people". When we've experienced hurt, it's easy to turn from victim into persecutor. Part of maturity, and part of the solution, is to let go of the need to control, manipulate, counteraccuse, and seek vengeance. As psychologist Everett Worthington has noted, forgiveness requires serious moral fiber. It's not a wimp's response.
And it is this kind of strength and maturity that has been exemplified by President Obama in his effort to move forward rather than to seek a politically-expedient or personally vengeful response.
Part of the dilemma of forgiveness, however, is that forgiveness does not eliminate the wrong that has been done. In order for reconciliation to take place, there must be some amends or restitution made in order to right the wrong and create a new balance. This is where the Justice Department and the judiciary ought to have its place. (And this is also one of the reasons why it's so insidious that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and others within the Justice Department wrote legal memos that authorized and justified torture.)
Up to this point, the Republican Party has been more interested in counteraccusation, denial, minimization, and projection of blame. There has not, to this point, been a recognition of harm or an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. And this is where I believe we must focus our efforts if we are going to experience the healing that this nation so desperately needs and wants.
Yes, we can heal this nation.