In the course of discussing my blog on second-hand trauma exposure through the media, one of my readers told me that they are working on 3D television. We wondered together how much more traumatic viewing the news would be in 3D. Watching the twin tower attacks in 3D? The thought gives me chills. One question that comes to mind because of the reports of psychological after effects of the 3D movie Avatar, is whether the human mind is wired to really handle 3D media without confusing what is observed with reality. If what is being observed is the news and is therefore reality, would it be even more difficult to handle? Would the impact of second-hand trauma be even greater? I am afraid we will find out soon enough, the hard way.
Archive for the ‘Trauma’ Category
Second-Hand Trauma in the Media in 3D?
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010Haiti and Media Coverage of Traumatic Events
Friday, January 22nd, 2010Seeing the media coverage of the devastation and misery caused by the earthquakes in Haiti has gotten me thinking about the media and the impact of second-hand trauma. I remember after the 911 attacks that many of us had the tendency to sit glued to the repetitive images of the jets crashing into the twin towers on our televisions. The stations replayed the tape so many times that I imagined that every human on the planet had seen it dozens of times. As technology advances, worldwide communications are more connected and lightning fast. A video of a traumatic event halfway around the world is on the evening news here in Cleveland, along with all the coverage of local traumatic events. This is so different from what our ancestors experienced. Certainly they had plenty of traumatic events to deal with; life is just like that. But they were not bombarded with images of traumatic events from all the other villages around the world. After 911, I started advising patients to monitor and limit their exposure to trauma coverage in the media, especially video coverage. There is something very neurologically compelling about visual images of trauma. It is important to know what is going on but compulsively taking in these images can be very disturbing. We do not have power over the enormous events in our world, but we have power over how we handle them. For physical health we should watch what we eat and drink, attending to what we put in our bodies. For mental health we have to attend to what we put in our minds, making healthy thought choices like we would make healthy menu choices. It is not the mission of the media to present us with a balanced diet of positive and negative images. We have to take control of how much of what news we allow in.
Long-Term Physical Effects of Sexual Abuse
Thursday, September 24th, 2009In Psychiatry, it has long been believed that traumatic life events can produce physical symptoms for many years afterwards. I imagine this as a way that emotions are expressed physically and not just verbally or intra-psychically. Everyday experiences like getting a stomach ache before a test or a headache after an argument remind us of powerful mind-body connections. What has been a matter of speculation is to what degree trauma causes chronic conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pelvic pain, fibromyalgia, chronic general pain syndromes etc. It is important to understand that these so-called “functional” disorders are those disorders for which no clear organic cause has been found.
Results of a large analysis of published literature have shown that people with histories of sexual abuse are at higher risk to develop GI disorders and pain disorders but not fibromyalgia, obesity or headache. When the researchers narrowed their definition to people with histories of rape, then there was elevated risk for fibromyalgia, pain disorders and GI disorders. In thinking about these results, keep in mind that a higher statistical risk does not prove causality. Nor does it mean that everyone with similar trauma will experience these sequelae. Take it all with a grain of salt.
One of the most heart-wrenching aspects of working with traumatized people is seeing the long-lasting effects of the trauma. It is awful enough to imagine someone hurting a child, but to see the daily pain caused by this 20 or 40 or 60 years later is even more difficult.
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