We catch our breath as we hear that Virginia Tech has once again faced a shooting and the violent deaths of two people on campus.  In this case seven minutes after police reported the shooting, students were informed and alerted by email, text, twitter and campus broadcast to stay where they were in locked down locations, to remain off campus or to be escorted to safety areas. As the students reported, they waited in fear for four hours uncertain of what would unfold. When told it was safe, they hesitated leaving.

As is the nature of trauma, those who faced this present trauma live in the shadow of the tragic past and those in the past may be re-awakened to the horror and loss they have been carrying. To a large degree many emotionally and physically once again bear witness to a terrifying and unimaginable event.

While a person’s reaction to trauma is a function of the personal meaning of the event to them, their physical and emotional proximity to the traumatic event as well as their personal history, we have come to know that as an initial help, Psychological First Aid (PFA) can mediate the impact of trauma and make possible steps toward healing.

Dealing with trauma across the timeline from acute impact to long term recovery, I have found personally and professionally that there are aspects of Psychological First Aid that are vital in helping and healing at any time.

Here are some suggestions worth knowing and owning in the aftermath of trauma and re-traumatization.

Are you lonely?

Loneliness is defined as a lack of desired social connection and social support. It is often associated with feelings of isolation, worthlessness, and sadness. Loneliness is not necessarily the state of being alone. One can be utterly lonely in a room full of people who don’t seem to notice, in a college dorm with no special friend, in a marriage with no understanding. Loneliness is not the peaceful solitude we cherish. It is the pain of being without meaningful connection, a feeling of emptiness that entraps us in fears, longing and negative perceptions about ourselves and others.

Loneliness is widely prevalent.  In a survey of eighteen countries, the United States was in the top quarter of countries in terms of average levels of loneliness.

On Sunday we commemorate the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, an event of unthinkable proportion in terms of the destruction of civilian lives and life as we knew it. Globally, millions will bear witness to this terrorist assault from the retrospective of ten years. Many will resonate with the commonalities of loss, fear, courage and even growth that have unfolded. At the same time, the personal meaning of the 10th Anniversary and the reactions it evokes will be unique to the men, women and children whose lives have never stopped being touched by that day.

How do we cope with the 10th anniversary of a traumatic event of such proportion? How do we withstand the physical and emotional pain of re-triggered shock, loss, traumatic memory? Now, ten years later, how do we bear witness and re-visit in a way that gives more than it takes?

Ten Coping Strategies

Make Meaning of Anniversary Reactions - The nature of anniversary events is that they often trigger the same reactions of body and mind tied to the original trauma but experienced in the present i.e. hyperarousal (anxiety, sleep problems, startle response, concentration problems); intrusive imaging (memories, flashbacks and dreams); numbing, avoidance and constriction. Such anniversary reactions in addition to feelings of fear, anger, guilt, and grief are common in the weeks before and after an anniversary event.

The news of Bin Laden’s death has erupted on national and international levels in a mix of feelings. Attached to the thrill of justice served and military courage recognized are shadows of fear and the pain of catastrophic loss.

For survivors and the thousands who lost so many loved ones on 9/11 this is not only long awaited news, it is a déjà vu of that September day.

Once again there are ongoing calls of condolence and remembrances, non-stop media reports, and the visceral pain of losing a Dad, a child, a partner, a firefighter, a friend, a community, and the illusion of safety.

What Does this Mean for Emotional Healing?

It Invites Revisiting:

Highly charged events like Bin Laden’s Death are quite likely to trigger traumatic memories that unlike ordinary explicit memory for daily events are encoded under fight/flight conditions in those centers of the brain dealing with sensations and emotion. They can be sequestered for years – untold, intrusive as nightmares and flashbacks, haunting but never integrated into the story of one’s life.  While this event might trigger pain, it may offer an opportunity to bear witness, to share and transform traumatic memories.

Who let the dogs in? Many people from members of Congress to advertising executives have welcomed dogs into the workplace and for good reason.

Historically we know of the value of dogs in firehouses, on police canine teams, on farms, ranches, and certainly as companion dogs to those with physical disabilities.

Recently the diversity of workplaces that benefit from pets have expanded and while cats, and some birds have an important place next to the many professionals and business owners working from home, dogs seem to have found their way into the office.

In the last blog (Part 1) we began our interview with Laurie Abraham, author of The Husband and Wives Club: A Year in the Life of a Couples Therapy Group. Here we continue and ask Laurie about the group leader, what really happens in the group, gender differences, and whether couples therapy can actually make things worse.

Can you tell me a little bit about Dr. Coche and how the group felt about her?

She was a very experienced and active leader. I think the couples respected her. They did not always agree with her. She came across as a tough maternal figure. I think what mattered most was that they felt she was the expert.

Was there actually a process between the couples themselves or mainly between the leader and each of the couples?

Well, she would set the stage by asking something like “What do you want to take away today?”  In the course of the group, she would often work with a certain couple and ask for input from other members.  In addition, over the course of the year, the couples did jump in on their own to point out each other’s patterns.  Someone might say “That sounds so harsh” or disclose a feeling they were having. Someone might begin crying while observing the painful reactions of another couple or share a similar crisis or loss that they had experienced.

If you are human, you know about worry.  Worry is the state of negative thinking we engage in when we are faced with a real or anticipated threat. It’s the ”thinking” component of the physical heart racing and sweaty palms that make up anxiety:  “What if I get laid off?”, “Why did he say he was just too tired to make love?”, “How will I tell my wife I want the transfer?”, “ What if I miss my plane?”

Whereas a certain degree of worry can cause us to problem solve, ask for help, change behavior patterns, even enhance our attention to partners, excessive worry burdens us personally and interpersonally. In his book, Worry , psychiatrist Edward Hallowell, suggests that as compared to  “good worry” that leads to constructive action, “ toxic worry” can paralyze us.

In the past few blog posts, we have considered disagreements and value conflicts between partners, envying your partner, understanding jealousy and identifying similar and opposite personality traits. Now we ask:

Can you promote your partner’s ideal self? Can you help facilitate the dreams, traits, skills and resources your partner yearns to have as part of self? Understanding these questions involves recognizing the power each partner has in enhancing  growth in the other and accepting the belief that the individual growth of each partner will benefit the couple .

“ Did you want to play music your whole life?”

“If you could do it again, would you study law?”

“ I bet you always dreamed of owning a restaurant.”

So in your relationship is it a matter of “opposites attract” or “birds of a feather”? The question of whether similar or dissimilar personality traits are a source of romantic attraction and marital satisfaction has been debated for years. There are those who propose a complementarity hypothesis claiming that partners may be more satisfied with those who differ with them on certain personality traits because these partners complement them or offer what they don’t have: she is a thinker; he is a doer.

Reflecting this sentiment, Tim Lahaye  in his book Opposites Attract maintains that people with similar temperaments never marry because like temperaments repel — they don’t attract. Similarly, Harville Hendrix, author of Getting the Love You Want, proposes that “There’s a polarity in the universe physically that is also reflected in relationships, especially when it comes to personality traits. So a high-energy person will be attracted to a low-energy person … Incompatibility makes for a dynamic, powerful, growing, exciting relationship.”

Disagreeing with this, authors Scott Lililenfeld, Steven Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry Beyerstein describe “Opposites Attract: We Are Romantically Attracted to People Who Differ From Us” as one of the 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology in their 2010 book by that title. These authors contend that most studies demonstrate that people with similar personality traits are more likely to be attracted to each other. This similarity-attraction hypothesis seems to hold up across characteristics as physical attractiveness, attachment style, political and religious attitudes, socio-economic background, and level of education, according to Pieternal Dijkstra in his 2008 article “Do People Know what they Want: A Similar or Complementary Partner?”

So do opposites or similarities cause attraction and satisfaction? Maybe both.

On Tuesday, I blogged about different types of guilt and the impact that guilt can have on relationships. Today, we’re going to look at apologies and why they can be reparative:

Apology — The Expression of Guilt

In the interaction between partners there is a difference between feeling guilt and expressing guilt. In those cases where guilt is both a product of self-judgment (You really feel guilty) and judgment by your partner (he/she is clearly hurt by your actions or inactions), the expression of guilt is reparative.