Reflections on the concept of trauma
In recent years, the word “trauma“It has entered our daily language. We use it to describe difficult experiences, toxic relationships, painful events of our childhood. But what does it really mean”trauma“? It is possible that, in an attempt to bring more awareness of psychological pain, we are ending up seeing trauma everywhere?
To these questions he tries to answer Joel Parispsychiatrist and professor at McGill University, in his book Trauma myths (Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2024). With a lucid tone, respectful but also decidedly critical, Paris faces one of the great narratives of contemporary psychology: the one that binds almost any form of mental suffering to a trauma infantile.
ATTENTION: Paris does not deny the existence of the trauma. On the contrary, it recognizes the devastating weight that events such as abuse, violence or serious neglect may have on psychological development. But he warns against too extensive, almost “inflated” use of the concept of trauma. Not everything that makes us feel bad, supports, can or must be explained how the result of a trauma unsolved.
The myths of the trauma
From the beginning of the book Trauma mythsthe author clarifies that one of the fundamental problems is precisely the definition of “trauma“, Now used in an increasingly vague and inaccurate way. In the first chapters, Paris focuses on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), showing how the diagnostic criteria have gradually expanded, until they include experiences that, although painful, do not fall within the original clinical definition of the trauma. This, he claims, led to one overdiagnosis of the disorder, with the risk of seeing trauma where there is no clinically founded.
One of the most interesting aspects is reflection on human resilience: Most people exposed to traumatic events, Paris underlines, do not develop ptsd. Suffering is not automatic or universal. There are psychological resources, social supports and individual differences that protect us and that should be recognized as much as the damage.
During the book Trauma mythsParis goes beyond the clinic, also facing the implications social and political of the “Culture of trauma“. Il traumawrites, has become a lens through which we re -read not only personal stories, but also collective ones, with ambivalent effects: on the one hand, pain legitimate, on the other it risks fossilizing it in victim identity.
An entire section is dedicated to the controversial theme of Refronti Refronti – Memoirs of childhood abuse that suddenly emerge in adulthood, often in therapeutic contexts. Paris invites caution: these memories can be reconstructions influenced by the context, by suggestion or implicit expectations, and do not always correspond to events that really happened.
The second half of the book Trauma myths focuses on comoribility of the PTSD and on the proposal, which emerged in recent years, of a “complex” PTSD, designed to explain more widespread and lasting symptoms linked to trauma chronic. Paris remains skeptical: many of the symptoms attributed to the complex PTSD, such as emotional instability or relational difficulties, are – according to him – better framed in terms of Personality disordersrather than in a single new clinical label.
Towards the end of the book Trauma mythsthe author proposes a return to a perspective biopsicosociale Of the psychological distress: any mental suffering is the result of a complex interaction between biological vulnerability, environmental experiences and personal responses. The therapy, therefore, should not limit itself to “finding” the trauma Hidden, but work with what the person is today, in the present.
Beyond the trauma: an invitation to the complexity of suffering
The book Trauma myths It is written with a light, dry style, without unnecessary technicalities. Paris does not seek sensationalism, nor does the right to say the last word. Rather, it invites a more critical and responsible approach: It is not enough to say “you are traumatized”, you have to understand how and why that person suffers today, and above all how it can come out.
Trauma myths It is a useful reading not only for psychologists and therapists, but also for those interested in reflecting on the ways in which we tell the suffering. In an era in which the trauma risks becoming a “total” explanation, this book reminds us that the human psyche is more nuanced, and that sometimes the therapeutic work starts right from there: From recognizing that pain does not always have a unique cause, and that healing does not necessarily mean digging in the past in search of a culprit.
