The
world is an increasingly scary place political assassinations mass shootings at
schools churches and on the street even though some of the violence is close to
home the sense is it won't happen to me but that's what survivors often say and
how are people to make their way in the face of it we asked Sydney Timmer
Maria assistance professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and
psychologists treating trauma and traumatic injury and thanks for being
here thank you so is there such a thing as collective trauma where people
generally feel a sense of foreboding in the current climate yeah absolutely I
think this is really with the frequency that we're seeing violence and such
highly broadcasted event the violence we can absolutely as humans feel the way
of so much profound trauma so watching the the deadly mayhem of the fire and
church shooting in Michigan was so much and then it's an endless loop in social
media how much does that endless loop wear on people yeah we know that the
frequency of how much you see trauma or experience
trauma so that repetition of violence really can impact somebody quite
significantly and it's normal for them to then start to
experience anxiety or fear or a threat to their sense of safety even if it
wasn't you who experienced the violence per se how injurious is this exposure
in people's day-to-day lives perhaps especially children and young adults
things they see on screens yeah so you know everybody is different
we can see different reactions from an understandable spike in your emotion
when you first see that violent event but it can grow and really build a cascade
into mental health concerns or mental health diagnoses and
so an individual you know especially kids and
children and adults when they're trying to make sense of it
it can really start to shape your worldview and
whether or not you feel safe operating in the world so maybe you start to avoid
certain things that used to be normal for you it might be difficult for you to
go to work or go to school and so the the shock of
assassinations and school shootings is is obviously so
deeply disturbing should people not directly involved
sit with that or or move along yeah we would encourage that you know
you can't necessarily always escape the bad things happening in life or
or media and you want to be informed but it's definitely important to take
breaks i would argue that you know taking those social media
breaks and really making sure you're engaged with
your day-to-day life your loved ones and family
can really keep you grounded when navigating so much tension in this
world how does trauma affect people who have
experienced it what we know from the research is that
if you have a history of trauma that puts you at greater risk of developing
psychopathology after any subsequent types of trauma
and so if you let's say even we're in like a motor vehicle collision
and then now you're dealing with new exposures to violence
it does tend to put you at a greater risk or it's something that i would be
looking out for when i'm trying to help uh treat somebody
for let's say post-traumatic stress disorder depression
so in what feels like a violent world and is uh is the practice of trauma
treatment a growing field
absolutely yeah i think um you know a majority of people will experience
at least one trauma in their lifetime but we know that a lot of people
can then are at risk for more than just one
traumatic experience or they live in communities with high rates of
violence and so because of that you know i think
mental health providers really do need to be prepared for
addressing trauma in whatever they're doing with their patients
but we are definitely growing in terms of specializations as well that
um we need these providers to really be able to hone in on
the root of somebody's trauma reactions
and that uh tends to need some pretty specialized treatment to
to be able to do that effectively what makes someone resilient uh to trauma
yeah what a great question you know i think it is important to remember
resilience in the face of trauma and there are so many things that can
contribute to that there can be individual factors
so how you regulate your emotions in the face of fear
and threat to your safety um but i also think social support is such a
profoundly important uh resilience factor really connecting to your
loved ones when you have been exposed to violence
it's so critical for trying to move forward and cope with
the reactions all right well thank you so much
uh for your information for more on this and other issues facing
wisconsin visit our website at pbswisconsin.org and
then click on the news tab that's our program for tonight
i'm frederick afryberg have a good weekend
you
so
Well, thank you because your voice allows other people to say, yeah, okay, I'm not alone.
Yeah.