Trauma and Abuse

Fresh Perspectives on Trauma and Abuse

In the battle against trauma, people, the community and societies institutions, are either trauma supporting or fighting against trauma - there is no middle ground.

To treat trauma as a problem merely about food, to believe in a genetic basis of behavior, to simply locate the problem as a pathology of the individual, or to treat the problem only through pharmaceuticals is extremely pro-anorexic. These treatment strategies help to maintain the problem by denying the scope of the problem.

Pro-Anorexic ideas would have us believe that trauma exists in a vacuum - that it just is, that it is a freak of nature, that it is merely a case of bad genes or being a spoiled little rich girl.

To take up a stance against the problem - to be anti-anorexic - is to realize that there is a definite and necessary place for medicine in the treatment of trauma. It is also important to realize that there are a multitude of social factors living at the very heart of the problem.

• What if we began to imagine the problem of trauma as a cultural by-product, a dysfunctional western theme, a living reproduction of the social order?

• What if we were to begin to realize that each of us, in our own way, support and maintain the ideas of trauma.

• What if we began to locate this problem within a persuasive set of rules for living as dictated by a very persuasive society of rules for living?