The Influence of Trauma

The topic of trauma is powerfully encompassing. All human beings experience trauma at various points in their life. It is difficult to define. Essentially, trauma is an experience of often overwhelming input that is difficult to absorb and put in perspective. Over the years, many authorities have cited the trauma of birth as the initial stage. The fetus arrives in the world suddenly exposed to glaringly new stimuli that would be experienced as overwhelming. Most mothers intuitively seek to heal and protect their newborns.  Below I will discuss the traumas of some of my patients, veterans, and of two of our presidents.

In a brief overview of a few of my patients’ recent traumatic experiences, one was in a traffic accident, through no fault of his own, and still has nightmares about it. We are slowly examining how this ties in with how his older brother would often suddenly assault him out of the blue. Another patient recently learned that

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her spouse was having an affair. It emotionally crushed her. In her early life, her father similarly cheated on her mother. Did she unconsciously marry a man who would repeat the behavior of her father? Perhaps. We unconsciously tend to repeat early traumas unless we are aware, conscious, and non-masochistic. A new patient revealed that she was sexually assaulted as a child but doesn’t want to know anything about it. Her presenting problem was a lack of intimacy with all men. Clearly, the pain is so great that she is not ready to face the root causes of her lack of intimacy with men. This is an example of how the repression of trauma is harmful.

It is crucial to review and reexperience a trauma rather than burying it. It used to be that soldiers were told to bury and forget their painful war experiences. Now PTSD is better understood and we have learned that the painful review and even reliving wartime experiences can eventually be a freeing process.

The late President Bush was a war hero. His plane was shot down over the Pacific and two of his mates bailed out but both died in the process. Starting at age 70 and continuing every five years, he parachuted out of planes to celebrate his birthdays. Probably advancing age played a role in this activity aimed at attempting to master his war trauma.

President Trump was the fourth of five children and the second of three sons in a successful, highly competitive family. His oldest sibling, retired Judge Maryanne Barry, said he was “a brat.” A startling example of his early style of handling his feelings is in his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, when he reports that in the second grade, he punched his male music teacher, giving him a black eye. The reason given was that the teacher didn’t know anything about music. One must assume that his teacher attempted to correct little boy Trump’s music. For Trump, almost all criticisms are experienced as traumatic. So many of his late-night tweets are in response to that day’s disagreements and attacks on him. He grew up in a walled home and is obsessed by his need to build a wall at the Mexican border, keeping out allegedly dangerous characters. This ties in with his inability to handle trauma, which he experiences whenever he is challenged. Symbolically, he desires, but can’t, build a wall around himself, even if he gets the country to spend billions building a bigger one than we already have on our southern border.

All humans face traumas, starting with the trauma of birth.

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At the personal level, psychoanalysis is an invaluable way to help people deal with their traumas and their often counterproductive efforts to avert them. Presidents could also benefit from analysis.

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