Belatedness in trauma

Nowadays, more and more clients come into therapy seeking help to deal with trauma.

We live in an age of trauma, with countless armed conflicts around the globe and general unrest in the world. Although, while working with the present issues, old traumas come up very often in therapy. Why do clients' traumatic pasts still haunt them now? Why do many of them seek help years after the traumatic experience?

Psychoanalysis indicates that trauma has the element of 'belatedness'. However, before reflecting further on this idea, let's discuss what 'trauma' means.

Some people might think that trauma is an extremely stressful or overwhelming event such as, for example, a road traffic accident they have been involved in or a war they have been caught by. However, psychological trauma is not the event itself but rather people's psychological or emotional responses to that event.

As Professor Frosh from Birkbeck College states, trauma is something which is so powerful, overwhelming and disturbing for the psyche in a person's life that it can't be processed; it's impossible to convert it into memory or coherent narrative that means to make it safe (Frosh, 2021).

A traumatic event can be so unexpected and overwhelming that the person experiencing it cannot get a grasp of it as it occurs (Caruth, 1996). This 'unresolved material' is repressed by the psyche and stored in our unconscious mind. This is a defence mechanism of our psyche. However, this 'unclaimed experience' comes back and manifests itself later in life.

This is when the trauma can take the form of 'belatedness' and return later in nightmares, involuntary recalls of the traumatic event, or recurring somatic symptoms that are known as PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms. "Traumatic experience [...] suggests a certain paradox: that the most direct seeing of a violent event may occur as an absolute inability to know it; that immediacy, paradoxically, may take the form of belatedness." (ibid, p. 91). 

The symptoms of PTSD might worsen when the individual has to face further distressing or overwhelming events in their life. New traumas can trigger other unresolved traumas and awaken 'the ghost of the past' that might start haunting its victim with renewed vigour. Such 'trauma upon trauma' might be very powerful and bring a lot of suffering into the person's life. 

It is very important to seek professional help when you are struggling to cope with trauma. There are a lot of different approaches and techniques in therapy that can help deal with involuntary recalls and 'put the ghost of the past to rest' or at least minimise its manifestation at present.

Understandably, it might be difficult to make that first step into therapy as it is scary to confront that ghost. Indeed, the therapeutic process can be not very straightforward and quite challenging as you would have to uncover something that has been 'hidden' deep inside for a very long time. There can be the fear of pain that this might cause too.

However, with the help of an experienced therapist, it is possible to deal with that material gently and safely. Furthermore, there are techniques that might help you to get 'closure of the past' without disclosing all the details about it such as the 'rewind technique' founded by Dr Muss. This can help avoid any risks of re-traumatisation during the therapeutic process.

So, effective therapy can bring positive changes to your life. At least, if you try to put the ghost of the past to rest that has been haunting you for so long, then you will have one ghost less to fight with. This can be your first victory over your trauma. 

References

• Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. JHU Press.
• Frosh, S. (2021). Trauma. [Seminar to MA Psychoanalytic Studies], Birkbeck, University of London, 3 March 2021.
• Muss, D. (1991). A new technique for treating post-traumatic stress disorder. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 30 (1), pp. 91-92.