Defining “Trauma”, Part 3: Covert Trauma and Revisiting Our Narratives
As a therapist in NYC, patients are motivated to come into treatment with me for all sorts of reasons. For some, it is an external issue such as struggles in their relationships, their careers, or their finances. For others, it’s more of an internal problem with their feeling state. Perhaps they feel depressed, unmotivated, or have had a spike in panic or anxiety that they cannot contain on their own. Regardless of what the “presenting problem” is, it is my job as a therapist to do my due diligence and get to the root of the problem.
Welcoming the Unknown
It’s important to not limit the scope of what my patient and I explore to the “presenting problem” because we don’t want to miss anything. It is our job to allow our work to unfold organically and to try and tolerate the reality that, especially in the beginning of treatment, we don’t yet know what we are looking for.
Throughout treatment, it is inevitable that my patient and I will discover new things with each other, which includes seeing old experiences in a new light. For some, we will discover that past incidents have been more impactful and sometimes even more traumatic than previously realized, falling under the category of a “covert trauma”.
What is Covert Trauma?
Some experiences that people label as a “traumatic” are very black and white and “overt”, such as physical or sexual abuse. There are other traumas that are more subtle, contextual, or subjective, which I have come to refer to as “covert traumas”. Covert traumas are usually not so obvious at first glance but my patient and I come to discover that it is an incident that has had a big impact.
One example of this is in regards to children who have been exposed to sexual content (i.e. porn) in their environments growing up or who were even oversexualized themselves. Humans are sexual beings from birth and you can see even babies and toddlers exploring their bodies and finding pleasure in themselves. The role of parents and caregivers is to find a way to teach children about even “adult” topics in an age appropriate way and to give context and guidance in a non-shaming way.
For example, a toddler should be taught what private parts are and, without reprimand, that they can explore their private parts in private. This gives a child so many important messages, including it gives the child the beginning of healthy framework of their sexuality and a container for their feelings so they feel safe and secure. However, when a child is exposed to sexuality in a way that is uncontained and without guidance, it can create tremendous anxiety and confusion in the child.
A Single Memory Is the Tip of the Iceburg
I have known some adults who were not sexually abused in the concrete sense of someone touching them inappropriately but who have some similar symptoms of sexual abuse survivors. This can be because of something overtly sexual and underprotected happening in their environment growing up. Additionally, with a child growing up in an environment where there is something out of control happening, it begs the question of, what else is happening that the child is not being given guidance or boundaries around? For every story, memory, or anecdote that I look at with a patient in our treatment, I am aware that we are looking at just one moment among millions of moments that make up a childhood. It is a snapshot that is likely indicative of similar things happening more broadly in the environment.
Understanding Other Alternatives to “Normal”
We only know what we know and we relate to things in our upbringings and family cultures as normal until we are exposed to alternatives. As a therapist, I am not the holder of what is “normal”, however, it can be tremendously helpful for a therapist to reflect back that there are alternatives to what we relate to as our normal (as I talk about on my Systems Therapy page). Even for patients who do not uncover big traumas, it is useful to know what was distinctive in their homes growing up and how it influenced who they are today.
How Uncovering Helps
How does all of this exploration and identifying actually help someone grow? We all have internalized narratives about ourselves and ideas, or “schemas”, of who we are in the world. When we experience trauma early on, this has a big impact on our self narratives in profoundly negative ways. Children have a propensity to blame themselves for things happening in their environments that have gone awry, especially when it comes to parents and caregivers. As an adult, having an opportunity to learn that the thing you have been feeling about for decades is actually not your fault can be a tough sell but it can be life changing.
Going back to my example of a child who was overexposed to sexual content, that child might feel shame around their arousal or feel like something is wrong with them because of a persistent feeling of anxiety. Learning what the root cause was can help them let go of their self blame and can help them upgrade their narrative to align more with a neutral reality.
As I said in Part One of this Trauma series, we will all experience multiple traumas in our lifetimes. Trauma is an inherent part of the human experience. However, complex and covert traumas make future relationships with others and even with oneself more challenging. Regardless of what hand we were dealt, we are accountable for dealing with it in the best way we can. In the final piece of this series, I will write about our resiliency and accountability in the face of trauma.
