When Trauma Visits You via TV
Vicarious trauma can be a result of seeing public events, even if your immediate physical safety isn’t threatened.
Trauma via tv
We heard shouts of racial slurs, obscenities, and threats of violence. Footage of Capital police officers being chased through the embodiment of democracy and beaten mercilessly by the assailing mob. And, at least eight individuals have died while hundreds were injured.
These scenes were broadcast live across countless channels domestically and internationally in early January. The footage has been played and replayed countless times in the days and weeks following.
On January 6th, 2021, the entire nation witnessed an armed insurrection comprised of white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and fringe-conservatives descend upon the Capital of the US.
What can happen when terror reaches through the airwaves into our homes?
Trauma.
Understanding trauma
Human beings are amazing.
We astutely notice and respond to what’s normal and what’s irregular in our daily lives. We develop effective ways to navigate our environments. We experience. We adapt. However, this wonderful evolutionary gift — our ability to adapt quickly from our experience — can also be the mechanism for distress.
A simple but useful definition provided by the American Psychological Association for trauma is that it’s an “emotional response to a terrible event…”. While this may seem vague, it allows us to understand a wide range of experiences and common responses to traumatic events.
Our psychological responses to distressing events are what define trauma — not events themselves. Consequently, what is traumatic to one individual may not be to another. The event can be a directly experienced by someone or it can even be experienced by proxy. Vicarious trauma occurs because an individual experiences a distressing event by proxy. Watching live news coverage of violence during the insurrection is just one example.
Vicarious trauma is often discussed in the context of helping professionals (e.g. counselors, social workers, psychologists, etc.) due to the nature of their work. These individuals are constantly engaging with individuals, and their stories, who have directly experienced events that are traumatic. However, vicarious trauma is not limited to those in helping professions. For example, following 9/11, rates of subjective distress related to horrific events of that day increased within the general population. The events of 9/11 really brought the phenomenon of vicarious trauma to the foreground.
After a traumatic event, it’s normal to experience psychological distress. It can also shape how we behave in the future.
What’s typical?
Shortly after the traumatic event, it’s common for individuals to experience:
- shock
- disorientation
- psychological disbelief
- denial
Over time, common responses can include:
- elevations in anxiety
- hypervigilance (e.g. feeling constantly “on guard”)
- other distressing emotions
The psychological responses can be:
- acute and temporary, less-severe effects
- persistent or chronic, painful collections of responses — such as intrusive memories, flashbacks, increased suicidality
It is important to understand that all responses to trauma are natural and normal. We are historical creatures. Our responses to distressing circumstances stem from our incredible evolutionary capacity to adapt. Whatever distress we experience following a traumatic experience — both acute (arising rather quickly after a specific event) and chronic (lingering for years)— is natural and normal.
Many individuals who experience the ongoing effects of trauma also experience a great deal of self-stigma. We think we are going “crazy” and invalidate our own experiences with elevated anxiety and hypervigilance. We tell ourselves that “we’re overreacting”, just need to “move on”. All the toxic, unhelpful myths regarding emotional health and resilience that exist within our culture become directed inwards at ourselves.
Consequently, a critical step toward normalizing our responses to traumatic experiences is to acknowledge we aren’t crazy. We aren’t alone. We acknowledge and name what we experienced — it was traumatic. Even when our distress does not become debilitating, our distressed response may make psychotherapy treatment appropriate and effective.
Sometimes, these normal responses to a traumatic experience can become more persistent, even destabilizing. They might begin to interfere with our daily functioning, our careers, and our relationships with others. In these circumstances, we label these sets of responses Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
Not all traumatic experiences result in PTSD
It’s important to understand that PTSD is not the inevitable result of an individual experiencing trauma. PTSD is just one specific term for one particular set of psychological responses to a traumatic experience. Just as trauma, in general, PTSD does not show up in any particular way. Sometimes it is acute. Sometimes it is chronic and lasts years or decades. Sometimes PTSD results from being exposed to an ongoing series of distressing environmental experiences or systemic violence. That is the case for Racial Trauma and Continuous Traumatic Stress.
Time and treatment
Most individuals who experience a traumatic event recover. In fact, many individuals who experience trauma recover without any formal psychological intervention. Rather, most individuals integrate the experience with time, distance, basic coping skills, emotional hygiene, and leaning in on family and/or social supports. Sometimes, individuals may choose to seek services such as evidence-based psychotherapy or psychotropic medications. The good news is that that: with the awareness, the passing of time, and effective treatment (when needed), individuals can and do recover from traumatic experiences.
The good news
As millions of us stood staring at the images reaching out through our televisions, through time and space, replayed day after day, our body-minds continued learning. Do we think that these images and words just evaporate into the ether with no lasting effect? What happens as our species’ wonderful capacity to adapt comes up against our modern media consumption? What happens when we can see, through our televisions, violence, and terror?
We must start by naming it. For many of us, this was traumatic.
Summary
- Events themselves aren’t traumatic. Rather, trauma refers to our emotional and behavioral reactions.
- We can experience trauma without being physically present at an event.
- It’s common to be distressed as a result of a traumatic experience.
- It’s not necessarily dysfunctional to behave differently in the future because of a traumatic experience.
- Healing and recovery from the distress of a traumatic experience are typical.
- Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is when an individual struggle to recover and heal from a traumatic event, but PTSD is also highly treatable.
Michael C. May, MA, LPCC is a Chief Behavioral Officer of Enriched Couples LLC and a psychotherapist in private practice.
