A brief history of psychological inquiry and findings into trauma — women’s experiences concerning sexual abuse and war trauma
3 Times over the past century, a particular form of trauma surfaced into the public consciousness
- Hysteria
- Last two decades in the 19th century — a disorder called “hysteria” became a major focus of inquiry believed to be a female disease originating in the uterus
- Patriarch of the study — Jean-Martin Charcot illustrated his study of hysteria in live theatrical lectures in his famous asylum, Salpetriere. Authors, doctors, leading actors, and actresses attended his famous Tuesday lectures, where Charcot put on display young women whose lives were previously plagued by rape, violence, and exploitation. The young women earned something similar to fame
- Charcot called hysteria “the Great Neurosis”; he approached the subject through observation of the symptoms such as motor paralyses, sensory loses, convulsions, amnesia. He demonstrated those symptoms to be psychological since they cannot be relieved through hypnosis
- Rivalry transpired between Charcot’s followers — Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud; each wanted to make a great discovery, observing the patients, was not enough, each need to speak with them and document their experience, for a brief decade, men of science listened to women with devotion and respect holding daily meetings sometimes lasting for hours
- Janet and Freud came to similar findings — unbearable emotional reactions to traumatic events produced an altered state of consciousness, which in turn induced psychological symptoms
- By 1986 Freud believed that he found the source — in a report on 18 case studies entitled “An aetiology of Hysteria” he made a claim —
“I therefore put forward the thesis that at the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experience, occurrences which belong to the earliest years of childhood, but which can be reproduced through the work of psychoanalysis in spite of the intervening decades” (Freud, 1896, cited in Masson, 1984, p. 263).
- The Aetiology of Hysteria marked the end of this line of inquiry — it was clear from Freud’s correspondences that he was troubled by the radical social implications of this hypothesis. What would it mean if people find out how common it is for young girls and women to experience sexual abuse? That perverted acts against children were endemic and widespread, not only relegated to the proletariat but also extends to the bourgeois families. Freud could not fathom that this is the conclusion to be drawn from the studies and retreated
- Last of case study was Freud’s famous patient Dora, whose father passed her on to his friend as a sexual toy. Freud tried to showcase that she derived excitement from the act. Freud concluded that hysterical patient’s accounts about sexual abuse were not true; he quit listening to his female patients, and instead focused on the fantasy world removed from real sexual interaction. Freud’s rival, Janet, did not abandon his studies and conclusions of linking sexual trauma with symptoms of hysteria; however, his findings did not gain much popularity in influential circles.
- Joseph Breuer, Freud’s colleague, was troubled by the repeated findings of sexual experiences at the source of hysterical symptoms. He treated a woman, Anna O, meeting her daily for almost two years, however terminated treatment with her, most likely due to his wife’s complaints of spending too much time with the fascinating woman. The sudden termination caused a major crisis for both the patient. Anna remained sick for several years, and then, Anna, the mute hysteric recovered and found her voice in the Women’s liberation movement. Under a pseudoname, Paul Berthhold — she translated into German the classic treatise by Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women and authored a play, Women’s Rights. Under her own name, Bertha Pappenheim, she became a prominent Social Worker, intellectual, and organizer. Pappenheim directed an orphanage for girls, founded a feminist organization for Jewish women, and traveled through the Middle East and Europe to campaign against the sexual exploitation of girls and women.
- The early findings that underlying hysteria is a history of sexual abuse were repressed and forgotten
2. Shell Shock
- Studies of trauma resurfaced during WWI when men began to break down, exhibiting uncontrollable screaming and weeping, freezing, becoming mute and unresponsive, losing memory, losing the capacity to feel.
- According to one estimate, mental breakdowns caused 40% of British battle casualties; authorities attempted to suppress the numbers fearing the demoralizing effect on the public
- Initially, the symptoms were attributed to the physical concussive effects of the exploding shells, hence the name; however, it was later found that the symptoms still prevailed in men who did not suffer any physical trauma; gradually, military psychologists concluded that prolonged exposure to death and atrocious scenes produced symptoms similar to those in hysteric women
- When the psychological effect of war trauma could no longer be opposed, the attention shifted to moral character, attributing the symptoms to “weak men” as men of stable character should tolerate the act of war without any severe symptoms. Men that suffer intense psychological symptoms were relegated to inferior human beings, perhaps cowards or malingerers. Medical writers categorized those men as “moral invalids.”
- Progressive medical doctors argued on the contrary and suggested that the war vets should be treated with respect, care, and humane treatment following psychoanalytic principles
- WWII brought back interest — psychiatrists J.W. Appel and G.W. Beebe concluded that 200–240 days in combat would produce a psychological break down in even the strongest of men and that there is no “getting used to combat.”
- Psychiatrists focused on looking at protective factors. They found that the strongest protection for soldiers is the degree of relatedness between the platoon; the stronger the relationship was between the fighting soldiers, the more psychologically protected they were. Treatment practices included maintaining the group together, ensuring not to separate the soldiers from one another, re-enacting the trauma, hypnosis, and sodium amytal (barbiturate — CNS depressant).
- Around the Vietnam era, men formed rap groups, where they came together to talk about their symptoms, sympathetic psychiatrists would join to offer help, groups sprung up all over the country offering psychological support and raising awareness
- Veterans administration commissioned systematic studies resulting in ina five-volume study demonstrating that the effects of war trauma lead to prolonged psychological symptoms
3. Sexual and domestic violence
- Around 1970s, it was recognized that the most common PTSD was not of men in war but women in ordinary civilian life
- Women’s private lives’ real horrors were not being revealed, and women were silenced through shame, blame, and horror. The learned men of science did not believe them, and the women were suffering problems without a name
- Women formed consciousness groups where they spoke about the truth, their experiences, their fears
- 1971 — first public speak out against rape organized by New York radical feminists
- 1976- first international tribunal on crimes against women held in Brussels
- 1975 due to the pressure created by feminists, the center for research on rape was created, for the first time, women serving as agents rather than objects of inquiry, most’ principal investigators’ were women. Women were listened to again as in the early days of inquiry into hysteria. The results of the investigations confirmed what Freud discarded a century before, that sexual assaults of women and children are pervasive and endemic on our culture
- A 1980 survey showed that 1 woman in 4 had been raped, 1 woman in 3 had been sexually abused in childhood.
- The feminist movement helped create rape centers that quickly sprung up all over the country
- 1972 — Ann Burgess studied the effects of rate and established that women experience rape as a life-threatening event fearing mutilation and death, further exhibiting symptoms of insomnia, startle responses, nightmares, dissociative symptoms similar to those of war vets
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Source:
Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence — from domestic abuse to political terror.
Freud, S. (1896). The aetiology of hysteria. April, 21, 251–282
