American Indian Historical Trauma: Community Perspectives from Two Great Plains Medicine Men

The field of community psychology has long been interested in the relations between how community problems are defined, what interventions are developed in response, and to what degree power is distributed as a result. Tensions around these issues have come to the fore in debates over the influence of historical trauma (HT) in American Indian (AI) communities. After interviewing the two most influential medicine men on a Great Plains reservation to investigate how these tensions were being resolved, we found that both respondents were engaging with their own unique elaboration of HT theory. The first, George, engaged in a therapeutic discourse that reconfigured HT as a recognizable but malleable term that could help to communicate his “spiritual perspective” on distress and the need for healing in the reservation community. The second, Henry, engaged in a nation-building discourse that shifted attention away from past colonial military violence toward ongoing systemic oppression and the need for sociostructural change. These two interviews located HT at the heart of important tensions between globalization and indigeneity while opening the door for constructive but critical reflection within AI communities, as well as dialogue with allied social scientists, to consider how emerging discourses surrounding behavioral health disparities might be helpful for promoting healing and/or sociostructural change.     

Coping With Vicarious Trauma in the Aftermath of a Natural Disaster

This study documents the vicarious psychological impact of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on Haitians living in the United States. The role of coping resources—family, religious, and community support—was explored. The results highlight the importance of family and community as coping strategies to manage such trauma. Este estudio documenta el impacto psicológico vicario que tuvo el terremoto de 2010 en Haití sobre los residentes haitianos que viven en Estados Unidos. Se explora el papel de los recursos de afrontamiento—apoyo familiar, religioso y comunitario. Lo resultados destacan la importancia de la familia y la comunidad como estrategias de afrontamiento para superar un trauma de esas características.     

Child and Caregiver Dropout in Child Psychotherapy for Trauma

This study focused on the identification of variables collected at baseline assessments that predict children and caregivers who are at risk for dropout from treatment. A sample of 115 children and their caregivers who received evidence-based treatment for traumatic stress was utilized for this study. Multinomial logistic regression analyses indicated that caregiver and child age, the child's externalizing behaviors, and the child and caregiver's acknowledgment of posttraumatic stress symptoms significantly predicted premature dropout from treatment. Clarification of child and caregiver characteristics that increase the risk of dropout allows for the identification of families in need of additional support to stay in treatment.     

A Rare Kind of Light at the End of a Rare Kind of Tunnel: Trauma of a Life-Altering,Chronic, Degenerative Disease and Its Redemption

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, degenerative neurological disease that traumatizes and retraumatizes victims. As a result of the absence of a human perpetrator and collectivity of experience, this trauma tends to be highly internalized. The trajectory of the disease ultimately results in absolute disillusionment in all systems that sustain life. While recovery might not be possible in the face of a degenerative, chronic illness, the patient may be able to find redemption by focusing on greater truths and little joys, which in turn could place him or her on a higher plane.     

The Going Gets Tough,So Let's Go Shopping: On Materialism,Coping, and Consumer Behaviors Under Traumatic Stress

This study investigated the way in which exposure to traumatic stress, posttraumatic reactions, and materialistic values impact coping and maladaptive consumption behaviors in a real-life traumatic situation. One hundred thirty-nine Israelis were sampled from a town under constant rocket fire (a high-stress environment), and 187 comparison respondents were sampled from a low-stress location. Our data show a main effect for materialism for all of the distress and maladaptive consumer behaviors under study, as well as for most coping behaviors with the exception of interpersonal expressive coping. In the high-stress group, interpersonal expressive coping, reflecting an inclination to utilize social support, was highest among mildly materialistic individuals. Highly materialistic persons were, presumably, more oriented to objects than humans, rendering a more support-seeking way of coping less relevant for them. Highly materialistic participants in the high-stress group reported the highest levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms. The results of this study also suggest that the pleasures of shopping cannot attenuate posttraumatic distress and that maladaptive shopping behaviors increase with the level of traumatic exposure.     

Event centrality and posttraumatic outcomes in the context of pervasive violence: a study of teachers in El Salvador

It is well established that the importance assigned to a trauma can affect one's recovery and psychological health in numerous ways. Event centrality is an increasingly popular construct that captures the tendency among survivors to reevaluate and possibly accommodate their worldviews posttrauma. The centrality given to trauma appears to serve as a “double-edged sword” in that this construct might factor prominently in both posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Focusing on 257 violence-exposed teachers from educational departments throughout El Salvador, we examined whether the centrality assigned by the teachers to stressful life events uniquely predicted both PTSD symptomatology and PTG. Results revealed that event centrality was positively related to both PTSD and PTG, even when controlling for demographic factors, violence exposure, and depression. In addition, PTSD symptomatology and PTG were not associated with one another in this sample. In summary, these findings support the role of event centrality as a contributing factor for PTSD and PTG among persons exposed to pervasive trauma.     

The psychological process of reintegration following a nine month/260 day solo sailboat circumnavigation of the globe

The focus of this case report is on the psychological reintegration process following the achievement of a highly challenging long‐duration and solitary endeavor. The participant was a 29 year old male who successfully circumnavigated the globe during a 260 day solo sailing expedition. We assessed the psychological aftermath in terms of stability and change in personality characteristics and personal beliefs prior to, and at 180 and 360 days after the completion of the journey. Overall, the personality configuration reflected adaptive personality functioning. A belief in an internal locus of control was consistent throughout, as were perceptions of personal growth as a result of the circumnavigation experience. NEO PI‐R Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, and Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (Tri‐PM) Boldness scores remained stable. Positive personality change was reflected by an elevation in Conscientiousness; negative change by a decline in Agreeableness and an increase in Tri‐PM Disinhibition. While overall the participant exhibited positive change as a result of his journey, there were also some negative aspects of the reintegration phase in regard to interactions with other persons. This latter change may be related to the effects of isolation from usual social contacts over an extended period.     

MEDEA BY EURIPIDES: PSYCHIC CONSTRUCTIONS FOR PREVERBAL EXPERIENCES AND TRAUMAS

The author introduces Euripides's Medea as a metaphor of the psyche's attempt to express and symbolize preverbal, unrepresented experiences and wounds visited upon it before there was any word for trauma. He suggests that Medea, the wild foreigner whose murderous magic is unleashed when the facilitating environment betrays her, could be thought of psychoanalytically as the deepest uncharted realms of primitive, traumatized existence yearning to find a way to represent itself on the stage of language and reality. Euripides can help us understand this deep realm of the psyche, with which psychoanalysis also grapples; he presents the realization of an object that traumatically fails to contain preverbal elements and transform them.     

Trauma and substance use: the role of defences and religious engagement

Substance use disorders commonly co-occur with posttraumatic stress disorder and are associated with greater impairment. There is some evidence to suggest that different coping strategies, including defence mechanisms and religious forms of coping, may buffer the relationship between trauma and SUDs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential moderating roles of defence mechanisms and religious coping on the already-established relationship between trauma symptoms and substance abuse. Data were gathered from a sample of college students (N?=?380). Trauma symptoms were associated with increased substance use and abuse. The use of immature defences was significantly associated with trauma and substance use. Increased substance abuse was also associated with higher rates of negative religious coping. Individuals who endorsed trauma symptoms were also more likely to use positive and negative religious coping. Defences and coping did not moderate the relationship between trauma and substance use.     

An Author's Response

Honored by the colleagues who celebrate Jesus ACTED UP with their reflections on the book's twentieth anniversary of publication, I respond briefly to each other them in turn. I frame my response with recollection of the trauma of the 1980s and both governmental and ecclesial homophobia and AIDSphobia at the beginning and a brief portrait of ways I am still “ACTing UP” in partnership with my husband Joe and the members of MCC in the Valley, especially in relation to ecology and US–Mexican border violence. With Michaelson, I reflect on the necessity of confrontational activism in the pursuit of social justice reforms. With Cheng, I consider the role of Jesus ACTED UP in inspiring the continuing development of queer theology. With Jordan, I emphasize the interdependence of silence and the speech of protest, of spiritual disciplines and social activism. Finally, with Hunt, I recognize my own journey of spiritual development and growth in relation to the diversity of LGBTQ communities and the intersectionality of the structures of dominance against which we contend.