Traumatizing Your Characters Part 3 Factors That Determine Severity of the Trauma

Welcome back! If you're just coming upon this post, the first two parts of this series are:

Part 1: general information about trauma
Part 2: types of trauma and examples of each

Today I'd like to discuss factors that make trauma worse or ... better (er ... relatively speaking).

But first, I want to stop here and acknowledge that some of you have been through traumatic events in your lives. Some of you are dealing with the aftereffects every day and every moment. Although these posts are in no way meant to be taken as medical or psychological advice, I just want to put it out there that some things I post might be triggering, and if that happens to you, please talk to someone about it. We'll go over factors that make characters (and people) more vulnerable in the next post, but social supports are KEY in recovering from and coping with trauma, so please seek that support if you need it. If you don't already have someone in your life who gives you that, there are several national hotlines of various types. It doesn't mean you have to talk about things before you're ready. It just means you might need someone to understand that things are hard sometimes, and no one should be alone.

Okay.

Lots of factors determine how likely it is that a person will experience lingering negative effects.* 

• Proximity. There's a continuum. The closer you are, the harder it is. 

Personal victimàloved one/friendàWitnessàSaw on televisionàHeard about it

Here's an example: We ALL went through the recent bombings at the Boston Marathon (which is actually why I'm not going to post a picture to remind you of it). Most of us were nowhere near the actual event, but we saw it on TV and on Twitter and pretty much anywhere we looked--it was nearly inescapable. Horrific images, emotional narratives ... but the people who were THERE smelled it, and felt it against their skin, and heard it ringing in their ears. Some of them witnessed it. Some of them saw their friends or family members hurt. Some of them were hurt.

People, and especially children, can develop PTSD symptoms after repeated viewing of traumatic images. That was proven after 9/11, when some children in Europe developed symptoms after watching all the television coverage (KEEP THE CHILDREN AWAY FROM THE TV DURING THESE EVENTS PLEASE I BEG YOU THE MEDIA SHOWS ZERO RESTRAINT THESE DAYS). However, the "distance" from the event means less risk overall.

Other factors that determine severity:

• Interpersonal trauma--like a physical or sexual assault--is more effecting (in general) than trauma caused by something like a natural disaster or a car accident. 
• Trauma at the hands of an intimate partner or family member increases risk for PTSD.
• As mentioned in the last post, chronic trauma is far more complicated to treat than single event trauma, and generally takes longer to recover from because of the pervasive nature of chronic trauma. Again, we'll devote an entire post to chronic trauma, particularly when it occurs in childhood. 
• How invasive the trauma is also affects risk for PTSD. You can experience sexual trauma if someone flashes you, but it's (obviously, I think) harder to recover from a more invasive sexual trauma, such as one that involved penetration.
• If the trauma resulted in lasting injuries, it might increase risk for developing symptoms of PTSD. Lasting injuries can act as reminders, and sometimes triggers, of what the individual has gone through.

If you're writing about a character who's experienced a traumatic event, think about these factors. Identify how close they were, who was responsible (if anyone), how intimately linked the perpetrator was to your character, how long the trauma lasted, how invasive it was, and whether it left lingering physical scars.

Then spend some time thinking about what the character experienced during the event. Here's where you put on your WRITERPANTS. What did your character see, feel, smell, and hear? Be specific. Be detailed. This is what will make your story more authentic and your character's reaction more interesting. It will also help you when we reach the post where we discuss TRIGGERS. 

*When I say something's "better" or "worse" or use qualitative words like that, I'm speaking very narrowly. What I mean is that something is more or less likely to result in long-term PTSD symptoms. I am not in any way dismissing any person's experience of a specific event or series of events.

Should You Send That Query What We Can Learn From The Marshmallow Test

I know many of you are writers who plan to query or are querying, so this one is for you. However, today's topic applies to just about every area of our lives, so ... I guess this is actually for everyone, but we'll use the road to publication as an example.

Let's say you write a novel. You think it's a good novel. You read over it a few times, and you're amazed this riveting combination of drama and suspense and romance and intrigue could have flown from your fingers. Your mom reads it, and she agrees! She thinks you're the next ________________(insert the name her favorite published author here). Your heart beats faster. Your thoughts whirl with possibilities. You could really do this--you could share your work with the world and make it as a writer. With dreams of making the NYT Best Seller List dancing in your head, you do a little research on how to get published.

What you decide to do next and the implications of that decision can be nicely summed up with the following video.

Let me set this up for you.

You = Kid

Experiment = Query Process

Marshmallow = YOU TELL ME AFTER WATCHING THIS:

On Wednesday, I'll talk more about this experiment, what it tells us about impulse control, and what it could mean for querying writers (and everyone else).

Please stop by Laura's blog to check out her ever-intriguing Mental Health Monday post, and go to Lydia's blog to read her always-awesome Medical Monday post.

Now tell me--what does the marshmallow represent?

Words That Work

It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear

I coach my psychotherapy patients about techniques for empathically confronting close family-of-origin members about traumatizing repetitive, dysfunctional interactions. The goal is to devise a strategy to put a stop to them.  I use role playing as a technique. It is useful in accomplishing two goals: learning more about how the targeted Other is likely to react, and trying out various strategies for my patients to use that are likely to be effective in keeping the task (metacommunication) on track.  

I start with something called role reversal. The patient plays their significant other - the target of the metacommunication - and I try out various approaches to see what they are up against and to see what might work.  

After I find something that seems promising, we then trade places, and the patients play themselves (direct role play).  The patient practices the strategies we devised earlier, while I play the significant other.  I usually play the Other as a sort of worst case scenario, consistent with the prior behavior and sensitivities of that person.  

To get in character to play the targeted other, I can usually predict how they might behave from my patient’s description of them during the process of therapy, as well as from how they have been portrayed in the initial role reversal stage. Usually I am more difficult in the role play than the Other eventually turns out to be (although sometimes the Other does turn out to act as badly as I had), so that the patient finds it easier than they thought it would be to succeed at our goals (or, alternatively, is prepared for the worst). 

Almost invariably during the direct role play, when the patient first tries out the strategy we came up with, they immediately forget what I have shown them and revert to some of their usual ways of trying to solve their family problem – you know, the ones that have not worked because the Other becomes angry, abusive, defensive, or silent in response.  I then stop the role play and try to educate the patient about how what they have just said will torpedo metacommunication because of how it is likely to be heard by the other.

Often, the patient will at some point become somewhat exasperated and ask, “Do I have to be careful of every single word I say???”

Well, yes, unfortunately you do.

In a book by Dr. Frank Luntz called Words That Work, the author goes into a great deal of detail as to how words with different connotations can lead to very different reactions from people.  He discusses mostly advertising and political speech.  

He repeatedly makes the point, “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”  The world of advertising and political speech may seem to be a world away from the world of intimate family conversations, but the principles of effective opinion shaping are often the same.

Frank Luntz is a frequently-employed master political consultant. He was the one who turned the estate tax into the death tax and drilling for oil into exploring for energy. No matter how you feel about the author’s political beliefs, the book is a fascinating introduction to the power of using different words and phrases to get people to come over to your point of view.

He learned his trade by using focus groups as a research tool, in a way that most “evidenced-based psychology/psychiatry” advocates would label “unscientific.”  But the proof is in the pudding.

For example, take the issue of medical care for illegal immigrants. Luntz found that potential voters responded quite differently to whether a politician spoke about not giving them care versus denying them care, even though both phrases mean essentially the same thing. While only 38% of Americans would deny emergency care to these immigrants, fully 55% would not give it! 

The reason is that giving care conjures up images in people’s minds of freeloaders sponging off of the rest of us, while denying care conjures up images of unfortunate souls being coldly turned away like the character in Oliver Twistwho dares to ask for more soup.

Likewise, inheritance tax conjures up images of Paris Hilton squandering away her famous family’s money on frivolous pursuits while death tax…well, you get the picture.

Luntz lists ten basic principles of word usage for maximum effect, some of which apply very much to making talks to recalcitrant relatives about sensitive topics more effective:  

1. Use small words. 

2. Be brief - the shorter what you say is, the better. 

3. Be credible.  If you sound defensive, repeat things you've said a million times already as if the person never heard you before, or ignore important aspects of whatever problem you are bringing up that the Other may feel to be important, you will not be believed.

4. Be consistent.  Stick to your point and do not go off on tangents. 

5. Offer a new way of looking at things. 

6. Sound and texture matter.

7.  Speak aspirationally. Say things in a way that elevates the person listening to you, not in a way that puts them down.  People will forget what you say, but remember how you made them feel.

8. Paint a vivid picture that people can visualize. 

9.  Ask rhetorical questions when possible rather than make statements. This allows the Other to interact with both you and your message. 

10. Provide a context and explain the relevance of your point of view.

Verrrrrry interesting. I recommend reading this fascinating book.