790. Is Everything Really Trauma? A Coach's Guide - With George Bonanno

0:00If you're not working with the body in coaching, you're missing out. Welcome to the embodiment coaching podcast on your host Mark Walsh. I've been training in embodiment coaches for over 15 years. I wrote the book in there and we're almost at a thousand podcasts, episodes now. If you're a coach who wants to work on a safely and powerfully with the body, or if a bottom in person who wants to get into coaching, you're in the right place. I interview some of the world's top coaches and relevant specialists in areas such as trauma, psychology, people you're going to find useful if you're a coach. There's a world that's just some chance on embodiment coaching with me and my friend Helen, on with the show. So trauma's getting a bit silly and I think our guest today is going to help clear up some of the silliness that's arisen. As listeners know, I'm a kind of trauma hipster. I was into it before it was cool and it was that nobody used to talk about trauma. Then all of a sudden, everyone was talking about everything being trauma all the time. About five years ago, we did the embodiment conference. The sort of trauma rock stars came into being. I remember thinking this is very strange, you know, these kind of trauma celebrities

1:00and everyone was claiming trauma a couple years after that, a sort of juxtaposition of that hit me. I remember being in a bombshell through in Ukraine. We're working there and getting an email from someone saying they were traumatized by my social media post. Essentially, they were slightly offended from liking gather. And I just remember thinking how silly that was from that position. So our guest today is professor. He's done a lot of research on resilience. He's one of the top, I think, one percent quote to academics, reference academics. He's been this game a long while. I've just read one of his two books, The End of Trauma, which is fantastic. Professor George Bonanna, welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Nice to meet you. Nice to talk with you. Let's start with some myth busting. Everyone who has a difficult experience gets traumatized immediately and forever, right? Of course, that's an absolutely not true myth. Yeah, absolutely. It's not only is it not true, it's an gross exaggeration of what really is.

2:01What kind of percentage of people recover if they have a life threatening event or something, an awful violation, what kind of percentage of people actually have a normal life? There are a couple of things to consider. First one is that those kinds of events, I call them potentially traumatic events. Because they're not inherently traumatic. They're potentially traumatic. Those kinds of events are more common than most people realize. Most people have experienced at least one, and often several in the course of their lives. And a very small, relatively small percentage of people will suffer enduring harm and during trauma type harm. Probably it depends on the event, but the absolute maximum is around the ceiling is around 30%. And usually it's around 10% or less of people who will suffer some lasting PTSD kind of harm. There are other patterns though that's not simply one or the other. Most people show what I call resilience, a resilient trajectory, which is they suffer very little if any lasting harm, they lasting symptoms.

3:04They're not happy, something happened, and they struggle a little bit, but they're okay. Then some other people, maybe 10, 15 depends on the study will dispense on the event, will struggle for a little bit longer and then recover. So these different kinds of patterns. And let's differentiate, I guess this is the cutema response, right? First is like full-blown PTSD, meeting all the criteria months later. So for example, I had put a nasty car accident. I was a bit nervous of cars for a while. I was quite adrenal just for a few days, you know, I was a little hyperaroused basically. But after a week or two, I wasn't in any kind of hyperaroused state. I'm driving normally now, you know, I don't find it weird to drive a car. I'm not scared of driving cars. This is a very particular circumstance I don't like like overtaking other cars. I wouldn't say I have no residue, but it's certainly not impacting my life for my driving, particularly. I'm probably a bit more cautious than I was before on the roads. I mean, that's what you're kind of thing you're talking about, right? Like a feeling no more recovery off to some acute symptoms.

4:07Absolutely. And I would hazard to guess you would be in that resilience objective or functioning in your life just fine after that with some of these. And it's perfectly understandable that we would have lingering what are their PTSD symptoms, but they're actually symptoms are just problems. They're only really serious when you have lots of them and they become some sort of constellation. A sort of self reinforcing constellation, but otherwise it's very common. It's very logical that if you were in a car accident, you'd be lierie of cars for a while. You'd be a little bit at ease. I've had the same experience recently in a car where we were my wife and I had a car and our car was total. And for a little while, and somebody hit us in a way that was completely unnecessary. They just basically ran right into our lane. So for a while, both of us were seeing when we saw cars like pulling out and things we had to slide apprehension. Are they going to stop when they're supposed to? That's hugely adaptive.

5:08And the reason our brain does that is because our brain wants to make sense of that. That's why we have these repeated thoughts. Our brain wants to know, okay, you're driving a car. You're going really fast cars have accidents. Now this thing happened to you. Is it going to happen again? And your brain is going to be kind of on alert for a while, just making sure. And so, you know, a symptom like that in another way as normal, like healthy profile is actually an ideal situation because your brain is going to correct and maybe make you a little bit more careful driver. Yeah, yeah, from my young man driving to my middle aged about to be a dad driving. That's probably no bad thing, George. Probably no bad thing. Okay. So I guess the key issue here is that people tend to think of psychological disorders as real. They tend to think of them as things, things relate to this idea of essentializing. So I know this can work the other way in a way as well. Like someone can have really bad sleep with not tick enough boxes to be diagnosed with PTSD. And it seems like disorders like generalizing anxiety disorder or PTSD.

6:10They're not like, I don't know, I think a fun example, chlamydia. Okay, they're not like a bacteria that you could do a test for. And then, you know, you could use an antibiotic that would get rid of the chlamydia. I think it's a bacteria. I've never had it, but as far as a bacterial virus. Anyway, let's say it's about some sort of nasty bacteria. And you could make a test for it and you even have it all you don't. Whereas here, it's more sort of like, well, there's a constellation of things that tend to hang out together. But not always talk about that. Yeah, so I think there are so many misconceptions about so called mental disorders because the DSM, the diagnostic and statistical man, and most everybody knows what that is, it has the illusion of being a scientific document. But it's not a scientific document. It's no mental disorder with possibly the exception of of manic depression. Has a biological cause to it. They all, they might have some correlates, but nothing is caused by a biological factors. You said, you know, it's not an invader in your body.

7:13It's not an injury to your body that's causing these symptoms. It's a constellation of things. It's a collection of problems that they said before. And those disorders are argued into existence by committees. It's a hell of a way to, yeah, hell of a quite sort of quite political and career's or at stake in these sort of various tensions online. Like I've been around some of the tensions around the sort of politics that's come into play around trauma. And it's not a neutral scientific playing field. Not at all. There's money involved as well because the disorder is identified. If a person is identified or a lab or a university is identified with a specific disorder as being a pioneer, money flows. So there's money involved too. So people fight a lot. And you'd be surprised how much fighting and how I for lack of a word adolescent this fighting is about the surprise. Yeah. I'd quite a lot of it. And these orders are argued into existence, which makes them very ungainly.

8:17They're very awkward hard to diagnose. They're one of my former students, Isaac Alterlevy, wrote a wonderful paper with Richard Bryant, who's a well-known trauma researcher called 636,136 ways to have PTSD. Right. And all they did was they looked at all the possible symptom combinations because PTSD is a complicated diagnosis. And there are literally over 600,000 different collections of symptoms for the same disorder. And that's just untenable. Right. So it's a mess. And one person's trauma can look very different from another person's trauma. And played devil's advocate a little bit here. Things do cluster in the same way as like, you know, I have an autistic cousin. He's recognizably autistic. He's different from my autistic colleague, but they share a few features. This is sort of Venn diagram of things where I go, okay, there's something that's probably worth a name there. Even if those two people have quite a slightly different cluster of the sort of Venn diagram.

9:18We could say behaviors, symptoms, or even symptoms of very medical words. So we're not saying that it's nothing either, right? Absolutely not. No, no, absolutely not. And I think that the truth is that people have some very, some people have very serious problems. Some people definitely are seriously traumatized. Absolutely. That's the case. Some people are definitely profoundly depressed. And we can see that. That's the low hanging fruit. We know that the issue is really for a lot of other people. The diagnosis is not so clear. And I think the general public has come to believe that if they get a diagnosis from one particular psychologist or psychiatrist, they now have this thing. They have it in them. They have this almost life sentence. And I've seen that people really cling to these diagnosis too. They want these diagnosis because they're explanatory models. They tell you, this is why you're having all these problems. This is why your life is like it is. And I think that's a real problem because it takes away agency from people.

10:20You know, okay, I know I have a problem. I know I get kind of depressed or I know I'm anxious, but I want to make myself better. Or I want to get beat up. And that gets taken out of the picture when when many people take themselves out of the picture when they're told you have general depression. You have major depressive disorder or you have generalized anxiety disorder. You have PTSD. And now people say, I've got it. That's it. I just have this thing. And I think that's become a kind of a societal problem these days. So quick break to tell you about our live events. So as well as doing trainings for coaches, one of the main things we're doing can have for years. In person training. Obviously in body mode, often best done in person where I can see people give them feedback. Touch exercises movement exercises. In person events are fun. Look at our website. I am doing them in cities around the world. We do them in the UK. And then you always we have one in Berlin. Sometimes in Munich. Often in where else Brussels.

11:21Sometimes I think we've got Dublin booked unusually. Often there's one in the Balkans. So it's our grab of the Vienna well worth a visit. Both cities and most holidays. Amsterdam. And then you always an Amsterdam. And we've also got a usually one big one a year. So if you're listening to this at time of recording, the next big one is in blood. Lake Blood is beautiful. It's a very literally one of the most beautiful places in all of Europe. Have a look. I'm getting very there. Then we're doing an event there a month later. It's on the meaning of life. Meaning of life. We look at embodiment. Why you do what you do? A deep inquiry into purpose. Well-being. Super helpful. If you're a coach, you're going to pick up loads of tools for coaches. Have a look at these live events. They're not expensive. If money's an issue, you can always get in touch. Anyway, but we like them. It's not what we really make our most money, but it's so much fun and so much good learning. So have a look at it. embodiment.unlimited.com. embodiment.unlimited.com. under live events. Right. So a few problems happening around trauma. What is the sort of lowering the bar for trauma? So sort of, you know, any old thing not getting your organic oat milk.

12:23You know, in your hipster cafe in Brooklyn is now trauma, which I find quite bellittling to people who have very severe PTSD. Oh, absolutely. You know, I find quite insulting to those people. And also just a bit ridiculous and kind of a control strategy. It seems to me like some and and is you're also pointing to something which I've been struggling with in that all of psychology really back to Freud has a kind of almost deterministic frame of there's certain conditions that lead to certain behaviors. And yet my experience is one of three well. My faith as a Catholic is one of three world. My so the general politics is one of three world that we have choices that we're. Yes, we live in conditions, but we have a moral responsibility or a respective of that. And I really know how, but equaler wouldn't want to be just sort of unkind and cruel to people and say, hey, you know, I'm not going to see you choose your depression or something like that, right? Or just snap out of it. So what what is this sort of scientifically accurate and sort of morally responsible in a mature way framing for this whole psychological venture,

13:26which could lead to a sort of excuses and determinism or we could you know go the opposite extreme and go to sort of call us. Yeah, you know everything. There is a movement. Absolutely. And so I think first of all when people are struggling say with depression, whether they have the right. They were they meet criteria for depression or not. They're struggling with some kind of depression or dysphoric affect. They're struggling that way. Then the question is really how can how can they be helped? How can we help that person move along? How can they help themselves move along? They're having problems undoubtedly because they're they're feeling like they have problems. So how can they get beyond it? That's where the meat is. And the diagnosis is really just a heuristic that we use for insurance companies and things like that. That's really what it is. Right. So the other thing though, which is really interesting. And there's a whole area of psychology now. Dimensional they call this for other many phrases, but one of them is dimensional models of psychopathology. It's a mouthful, but it's it's the best way I can explain it.

14:28And I think I find people find this interesting and sometimes little shocking. You hear a lot of people talk about being on the spectrum. Yeah. Generally referring to autism. I'm on the spectrum. That person's on the spectrum. All psychological problems. All psychiatric diagnosis. All those things are scientifically on the spectrum. They are all continual. They're all spectrums. Like I have mood fluctuation, but I'm not manic depressive. I have more mood fluctuation than my partner. So there's a movement now to simply identify what are the key components of a healthy person. And you know, one of them might be maintaining your mood. Another one might be being able to be socially with other people. I don't know off the top of my head what these are, but they're because I don't do this research. But they're researchers have identified four or five of these things that are statistically scientifically key components to life. And we all have we all vary on these continue and some we have different profiles.

15:30So I'm struggling, I'm struggling hypothetically say with depression, but I'm very much able to work. And I really love other being around other people. So that would be a profile. And then you know, you can identify. You know, I don't want to be depressed. I want to feel better this way or I want to be able to live in relationships. And I think this is these are much more user friendly models of how we can work with other people. And you know, I've been through a traumatic event and I'm pretty funky right now. That's the problem. Let's let's work on that problem rather than the sick. Well, yes or no, you either have this thing or you don't. Right, sometimes I feel it's helpful to jump between their skills model. Like when I work in business, they like skills models, like emotional intelligence skills. And they're certain skills that if they weren't present would look, would could be in the domain of a sort of psychological disorder. And then another model might be say a virtue model, so over classics or of Aristotelian kind of model.

16:31And I something's funny useful to move between those models without being exclusive about any one of the three. Because sometimes it is useful to say, hey, this guy can't get out of bed. This looks like it's kind of smartest to say that this is a disorder at this point. Whereas someone else might say, hey, maybe you just need to learn to manage your mood better. Someone else might say, yeah, it's more of a personality thing. Right, there's no contradiction between moving between those models without exclusively going into a kind of pathology model, which seems to have become more kind of culturally dominant. Yeah, yeah. And I'm really big, I think that really whatever works, you know, if it works or something helps somebody, let's do that because that's the ultimate goal is to help somebody. And I think that the pathology, the pathological pathological can't say this work, but pathology is in everyday life is not doing helping anybody, I think, because fixing people in place. Right, you are this. There's a sort of, only some of my Buddhist friends say that kind of all ontology is a mistake, like all every time you use the verb to be you've made a mistake.

17:39Because you're never, you never are anything. It's always just process and flow. You're not a thing. That's just a useful simplification for daily life, which I quite like. So it is quite philosophical. I hope you're not tired at the end of the week. I love this. I'll stay with you as best I can. Another one I heard you clear up, which I'd always suspected was stages of grief, which even the simpsons have taken the piss out of, you know, home ago, for all five when he gets diagnosed with cancer. So do you want to say something about that? Cause that's like a classic, just sort of meme that spread around. Yeah, well, I think stages of grief, I think people liked it and people still do, I think, even there's no scientific basis at all. There's no scientific reality to it. No, it's ever been able to actually demonstrate anything like that. And for good reason, because it's not how people behave. Grief is far too idiosyncratic. And also most people are resilient when it comes to grief as well. They struggle, but they're okay relatively quickly. And they're still, we can look at how grief works.

18:43That's a whole other story. Why we have grief at all and what it does, what it what is function is. And the stages idea doesn't fit in there anywhere at all. But people like it because it purports to give you a roadmap and grief, more than almost an even trauma is a kind of a disturbing thing because it's it becomes existential, which is back to philosophy. We don't think about the fact, unless you're a Buddhist or a practicing avid Buddhist, we don't think about the fact that our life will end, that all life ends, and that we don't really know despite whatever we want to believe. We don't really know what happens. We have no idea really, because you can't find, we can't find out. That's a human condition in a sense. So when somebody dies, we are forced for a little while to think about that. Where'd they go? What happened there? And our brains are trying to make sense of that. Our brains are trying to understand the world now, just like a car coming out of nowhere, our brains are trying to understand the world now where this person is gone.

19:45And so the five stages of grief offered a kind of a map. This is what you'll go through. And so people wanted it. The problem was most people don't go through. In fact, how did anybody go through it? And people were told by their loved ones, you know, you're not showing whatever stage three, maybe you need a therapist, even though they're doing fine. And you know, it's just, it doesn't really get us anywhere. And it makes many people kind of unhappy. So it's kind of time for that to go. I agree. I agree. I just try not to be true. I was really happy. Because your work say there's no evidence of this, because it's just not my experience coaching people through grief. Just on the ground. This is an example of what I tell my students is memetic learning. So another example would be something that rhymes like people say, you know, your own that fire together, wire together. And it may or may not be true, but it's sticky. It's, it sounds good. It's a good one. It works pretty well. And in the embodiment, again, it get mail may not be true, but it's people pass it on very easily.

20:49Yeah. One in the embodiment world for a lot of the modern coaches listening would be something like the body keeps the score. Yeah. So this is better than the cold, I think we're going to have on the podcast in the future. So I could put anything you say to him as well. He had this book, which is so famous. I saw a random, a stormy civilian reading it on the bus the other day in England. It was quite surprised. It's really widespread. It's a best seller. My own publisher said, can you make your book like this? Because this is a best seller. And a lot of it's a fantastic title. Yeah. Fantastic title. I'm not sure if I know exactly what it means. Though. Yeah. Well, the problem with the problem with the body keeps the score is that it's got a lot of scientific. I want to say flatulence. It's got a lot of scientific inaccuracy or ambiguity in it. And it gets it's it's it's it's it's was it's an old school look at things that no longer really quite makes sense.

21:55And it implies some things and it's a little hard to pin down what it actually the book is saying and I've tried to do it a few times, but it implies that we remember trauma in our bodies. And that we can have traumatic events stored in our bodies in a way that we're not even sure we don't even know they're there and then they come out and haunt us many. Many people take that from the book and that's absolutely not scientifically true. Okay, pause pause pause because a lot of practitioners I know for example yoga practitioners will find they'll do a certain stretch and a client will start crying. For example, pigeon poses notorious for this or just Shavasma when people relax at the end of class. And almost every massive so I've ever spoke to. Who said that they will massage a certain part of the body and then maybe like a traumatic memory would come up. Yeah, we get interpret that in different ways. Right. So what would be your if that's not the trauma in the body and inverted commas, because I think I might agree with you.

22:55What is that? If that let's let's let's talk about it. So I like I think it's very important to actually know why things are happening. So completely completely different kind of example is you plug in your most everyone has a computer or a fan or whatever or you know another toaster you plug it into the wall. And electricity comes out and the thing runs you can say you can believe that when you plug into the wall socket there's a thing that sucks out ethereal forces from the universe and that's why it runs. It still runs regardless of what you think. But if you if you don't know what that it's electricity and then something happens you're going to be at a loss to fix it. You can if you know it's electricity you know that somebody that there's a company that runs the electrical. There's an electric company that you can call and or you know you can ask what's going on. If it's ethereal forces you can't actually do anything about it. So there's a there's an importance in knowing how things work.

23:59The body keeps the scores in nice metaphor but actually it's not an accurate metaphor at all. And my friend Lisa Feldman Barrett who's a brilliant psychologist. And some of your readers may know her. And she said we've had this discussion many times and she said which I like her take on it. The body the brain keeps the score the body is the scorecard. So the body registers what's going on in the brain. If somebody's massaging some I'm not person a masseuse is massage someone and they begin to cry. That's because something's going on in their brain not in their body. The body is basically just doing what the brain tells it to do. And there's a little bit of you can you can fuck with this a little bit because we have reflexes and we're wired for reflexes that don't quite make it all the way the brain. The neural the neuron that that involved reflexes are triggered through the spinal cord really. But all other everything else goes through our brain.

24:59The brain is controlling what our bodies doing our brain is controlling what our digest is doing all of those things. So when we're faced with a traumatic event our brain is telling our sending signals to our body to do all kinds of things. You know cut off the stop wanting food send blood to the legs because you're going to you to the limbs because you're going to need it for some dangerous happening etc. But it's all in the brain. And by the way by brain you mean the whole nervous system you don't just literally mean the things I mean the brain. I mean the brain. You're seeing in your head and do you mean the interiority of that like the subjectivity or do you mean that the sort of gray matter stuff. I mean the stuff in your brain. Yeah the stuff that you're only aware of very little of that most of what goes on in our bodies we're not consciously aware of it because we couldn't function if we were brain is yeah. I'm trying to clarify this for us I agree with you when the rubber hits the road metaphors need to be more accurate Chinese Kung Fu teachers by the way notorious for this they'll say it's like a finger pointing at the moon and you'll say yeah what do you mean.

26:05Right and then they'll give you another metaphor then another metaphor it's tremendously frustrating is learning stars they are fun and poetic and they're beautiful but they're not always helpful. So what about this idea of sort of trauma released from the body is that something you would buy into or not people some releasing trauma with this exercise or that. No I don't think that makes any sense at all the trauma is not in your body the trauma is in your brain if there is a trauma at all I mean it's in your memory it's in the parts of your brain that remember things and that orchestrate so it was as you when you have a PTSD kind of lasting trauma your brain is convinced that there's something still out there. Something operative your brain is is not quite turned off the danger mode these are broad brushboard yeah a dangerous pass living in the presence yeah and so your your brain is you don't release that but you can be you can learn that it you can actually learn that it's that was in the past you can your brain can become finally can it's that happened in the past I'm still afraid of it I still worry it might happen again let it happen in the past and somebody's suffering from a serious trauma is the brain is not a problem.

27:13Is the brains can't quite do that and so maybe somematic things body movement things that they can help that process but we have to understand that's what's happening. So this is a sort of memory processing models of trauma and some EMDR practitioners say they're essentially helping memories to become past memories there's a country in Western song called still inside gone which is a bad if you had an infection. It feels like you still in so I very much have that feeling myself. It's a day is I'm still somewhere I've worked. It's hard to explain to people because I literally I consciously know I'm not in Ukraine or Afghanistan or Sierra Leone but but in another way I feel like I am it's subtle. And it's not you know destroying my life or anything but that makes sense is the memory models what about just a nervous system model and which says hey someone's another way I've heard people say it is they're stuck in a fight or flight response and this. If I for example I occasionally work with addicts and alcoholics they often have a lot of trauma they're pretty hostile defensive guys they're like ready to fight pretty quickly.

28:16Again in our lives it's understandable is that not a nervous system state so we're sort of metaphorically it's in the body as a sort of ease of fighting or fleeing. The nervous system the nervous system activity that that produces what used to be called fight or flight it's still a useful way to talk about it the nervous system activity that produces that state is orchestrated by the brain. There's no ambiguity about that at all so the brain turns that on when the third you know when we are the organs in that their brain structures in the mid brain at the top of the little fist at the spinal cord and then there's the big deal at that and then there's the cortex as well. The cortex kind of oversees the whole thing the the cortical structures the the the gray matter and those say those structures can turn those things off you know they have a they have a somewhat life of their own the big deal for example which is the the tiny little organ that kind of determines if something threatening or not we come with some presets. From you know evolutionary past fighters say loud noise is really close there's a whole bunch of them and then we learn through our life these are dangerous things when somebody is experiencing a trauma that's not going away when they become traumatized in a harmful way they won't go away there that that threat response in the mick-dala and also in the mid brain is sort of on alert all the time and that sends a signal to the hippocampus to not sorry to the type of thalamus and the brain.

29:44The type of thalamus and that type of thalamus orchestrates that at flight or flight response that's where it comes from it doesn't come it doesn't the body doesn't do whatever it wants to because the body doesn't think. I'm enjoying your clarity of it also I'm very much enjoying this the challenge to some of the orthodoxies in the body of it well which I have never never made that much sense to me so I've enjoyed this just to be clear and this is why I've got you on I think we if nothing else need to ask these questions and have some answers and be you know have the discussion and another one then the mindfulness trend so mindfulness cure is everything right. Right so that's that is certainly a myth mindfulness is a technique for the most part for most westerners there are people who and the very serious breweders practitioners you know the heavy duty amongst who who meditate you know there's a wonderful book by Richard that Richard Davidson who's one of the pioneers of the research with with Buddhist practitioners and they're literally you can look at the number of hours the person meditates and it you know when you get up into the realm of 10,000 then you're kind of changing when you get up in the realm of you know some of these these these yogis who spend you know three years in the mountains in a cave then you're talking some major thing this completely changing.

31:10But for most of us it's a tool it's a tool that we use to reduce stress that's basically what it is maybe think a little bit more clearly see ourselves a little bit less encumbered by forces that we used to blame for things all that's wonderful stuff but it's not a cure by any stretch and when you're facing a serious potential trauma your brains just throws it all out the window you're not going to sit down and meditate you know you're going to have to your brain have to your brains in emergency mode and when your brain is in emergency mode it's saying cut off everything that's not this is right now because you are in big trouble and that's you know that's that's kind of what happened. It seems luxury yeah I'm glad you made that distinction between the sort of hardcore I've got a few hardcore practitioners friends of the monasteries and you know they have had like a very serious transformation in their whole being it's a very different. Yes and this for more fish for me doing my 20 minutes in the morning well there's a joke there's a joke there's a joke that the Dalai Lama tells actually we're a guy is up in the in the mountains somewhere meditating and he's been up there for three years and he's meditating silently and he's meditating on patients and a tracker comes by the mountain climber whatever and sees him and comes comes upon him and the monks sits there in silence and he says what are you doing and he said the monks says I'm meditating.

32:31I'm meditating on patients and then the tracker says go to hell and then the monks says no you go to hell and he tells this joke because it makes it makes the point that you can meditate up in the mountains for three years on patients but if you're actually not patient you're wasting your time you know it's in the world how it manifests. For sure and there's usually relationships where things really come out all right let's talk history so I've been very I've been deep in your stuff for the last week you know lots of interviews lots of things I think the only thing kind of disagreed with you on is your take on history and I want to make sure I don't rep miss represent this first actually. So as I've kind of heard you say that really most trauma symptoms really only present in modernity I think you mentioned the great fire of London and a count of this and obviously well well one mobile too you know those kind of classic accounts. That doesn't seem to be the case though like most self-respecting middle-aged men I'm into history as a hobby and there is a lot of history showing for example crusader nights having what looks to me like.

33:40Absolutely classic trauma symptoms of reliving events hyper arousal anger issues lack of faith I mean fairly widespread apparently amongst crusaders who returned from combat I've seen documentation. I mean the medieval kind of crusader knows exactly exactly not not the future crusades the either past ones yeah so and there's a lot of documentation on this and I sort of checked it through chat GPT because I did what a challenge you without looking at the pro resources and there's quite a lot of them it's not. Not just the odd case and it's up from the Roman areas the battle of tata for example so I thought I might mix representing your view or like I want to make sure like I yeah seems to me there's plenty of trauma in antiquity well here's how what I would say to that I mean I don't think that trauma didn't exist even in antiquity I don't think trauma didn't exist 2000 years ago maybe 4000 years ago maybe 8000 years ago. But we don't have any record of it and I think that's because people didn't really understand it didn't know how to refer to it didn't maybe even have the societal structures in place to notice it and it only really began to appear I mentioned you mentioned the fire of London that's from Samuel peeps.

34:57But George I saw it to be said blood but you're wrong there is a record of it there's lots of writings about evil bugs there's Roman historians and I think you'll take on the early hours incorrect but that that's a bit more argue argue to me this the medieval I mean just Google like primary sources of medieval trauma you'll have come up with a dozen different documents. Okay I may I haven't seen it and if it's there if there is evidence that I don't know about that doesn't bother me at all because I'd love to see that but I haven't seen it because I think probably a lot of that so-called evidence is not actually evidence of of trauma maybe it's evidence of the consequences of trauma that people are you said people are lost interesting things or they're they're not functioning well it don't care about this anymore that's not a trauma something that's a symptom that could be from depression it could be from all kinds of things what about relieving battles I mean the monks are very specific they say the night's foot battles and then they relive them constantly as if they were still in the battle they would wake up at night thinking about the battles I mean this is like absolutely different that you create ends though.

36:04Yeah that's I don't mean to say that'd be great but that would be sure that would be kind of a PTSD like symptom I just haven't seen that very credible evidence and I'm not alone and other people have made the same conclusion there's a I think Robert Shae I'm sorry Dr. Shae if I'm misforemembering your name who's written a number of books like this making the same conclusion and many other historians have as well so if there is and so there may be a lot of sloppy thinking that's leading people to say no these these were traumatized people when it's actually not the same thing as PTSD like symptom but if there are again if there are PTSD like symptoms in the past that I would love to see that because I think it was there just we didn't name it yet and the naming part is the curious part why didn't we get around to it until now that's until 19th century really I mean the context of sort of the mind and you know the religious context and the other Greeks had that very different meaning making certainly yes very different yeah I think there's not much ancient literature has a lot of internal psychology in generally actually so there's this things that could be missed.

37:07Yeah okay let's get practical then what helps so what helps us be resilient let's say I don't know I plan another trip to Ukraine in a couple of years I decide okay I want to get as traumatized as as as I'm traumatized as possible I want to recover from any trouble I pick you know happens to be there what should be my practical plan of being resilient before during after well resilient is not a state resilient is an outcome so you're resilient to something if you if you were you were exposed to something and it didn't lead any lasting harm so you're resilient to it but the tool there are tools that I think can help people first of all there are no magic bullets and that did there this is another myth since we're talking about myths there are lots of kind of go to things that that people talk about oh you you need to develop supportive relationships where you need to be optimistic or you need to be to be able to reframe something in a positive way and all these things are good healthy behaviors but none of them are actually the magic bullet that always works and this is something I'd say I spent 10 years or so pondering this question and looking at the science and delving into it and the empirical reality that the actual just I think truth in general is that

38:30not nothing works all the time so when we're confronted with a major challenge an emergency situation a life threatening event an event that challenges our sense of what reality is because of the danger we have to work we have to solve that particular challenge as it happens in the moment we have to that's the challenge and for that challenge we have to we we go through a number of steps and in my lab we've you know identified what these steps are but the gist of it is is that we have to work and what is it exactly that the challenges that's happening to me what does my mind think is happening what tools do I have at my disposal to deal with it and did it work did should I try something else I tried this did it work let me try something else those three simple steps are pretty much what people go through talk about is it coping ugly I love this phrase of yours I'm coping up coping ugly it was a phrase I came over the number of years ago that kind of is an offshoot of this idea the idea coping ugly is whatever works in a situation is is just fine whatever gets you through it because you're not trying to when you're coping with a serious adversity you're not trying to be a better person in that moment you're not trying to change your life you're just trying to survive this thing that happened to you know there was an explosion nearby and you're kind of freaking out

39:51you're a car accident now you're really uneasy in cars that's the problem that's the challenge and you're just trying to survive that right coping ugly essentially means whatever gets you through that whatever helps even if it's not pretty even if it doesn't seem healthy but it's working for that particular problem and there are a lot of coping ugly behaviors like getting drunk like impulsively spending a bunch of money like doing something that maybe you regret later but if it gets you through that moment as long as I'm farming anybody or yourself it's coping ugly and getting drunk wouldn't be a good idea for an alcoholic it wouldn't be a good idea to do all the time right for the average person like it might you know get you know if they got smashed once every few months yeah and you may not even think it's a good idea the next morning but that night when you were drunk you got a little bit of sense of you know I'm doing what I need to do and I'll get through this and I'm doing this because I want to the next day you're you have a hangover and you regret it but something happened in that time sometimes I'm deployment of eight a bunch of junk food and I knew I was sort of binging but I was like yeah if I put on a pillow weight it doesn't really matter I'm going to just do this once I'm not hurting anyone it's not hard drug use it's like okay this could be a lot worse if it gets me through the evening kind of thing yeah um do you believe in group trauma like this is become quite fashionable to talk about intergenerational trauma or collective trauma often it's quite sort of politicized through quite kind of a sort of you know quite almost a

41:19Marxist lens it's often politicized through something about the Marx yeah I don't know about the Marxist part I have two things to say about that one is that when people behave very differently in mass traumas like disasters and there's a lot of contagion that goes around and I call I call part of this to resilience blind spot that when people when something really bad happens a great example was COVID you know a lot of people struggling with COVID it wasn't actually quite the traumatizing event that many people think it was it was more a matter of chronic stress but um you know a 9-11 was a really great example and I was in New York City during 9-11 and this was a massive potential trauma that the entire city was facing and people were all you could easily kind of reinforce the anxiety the stress the worry the the the nightmares what one was having because it's in the news constantly and news reports showed in fact that having people showing people endless photos of how horrible things

42:24had horrible things that had happened was not helping anybody it was making some people much worse so there's that piece of it this sort of contagion that goes runs through everybody and we don't believe that we're ever going to get over it when that happens and that's that's the downside of it we have to kind of you know get through it but the other side though is um intergenerational trauma um there's no evidence for it so what we do see is that you do you can transmit dysfunction intergenerational so say a person is uh gone through you know a serious civil war for you know three years under fire I'm thinking of the snipers in Sarajevo which was a number of years ago people were living through that trying to get water to survive while snipers were firing somebody goes through that and they become very neurotic um very um uh convinced the world is we're all doomed and the world is horrible if you can't trust anybody and they transmit that to their children

43:26and their culture right the culture yeah and and they're they're they're if they're not coping well that means they're gonna they're they're also not modeling how coping works and so you can transmit those things culturally but a lot of people believe in the genetic transmission of trauma right there is no evidence doesn't seem there's no epigenetics people are obsessed with and epigenetics don't transmit trauma epigenetics don't transmit very many things they don't transmit psychological things but they don't transmit stress for example they transmit a bit of a red flag for me when I hear it when I hear it I think pseudoscience usually not always but usually yes and I always tell my students because my students are endlessly interested in this and when I review the science with them and tell them that that here none of these studies show this they're always yes but yes but and I sometimes tell them what you do for the next week is ask yourself why are you so invested in this right nobody is yet yes nobody

44:28is yet just demonstrating then I'm picking up at worst the frustration and you know some of this from you and I can imagine these people who get really upset with you busting these myths I know I'm gonna get emails right people saying but Mark you didn't push him hard enough on this and it seems like people are pretty invested in some of these like personally for me I just want to know the truth what's true yeah it seems like that's your interest as well which is I enjoyed that it's the work so here's another way to think about this I think that particularly younger people know I want to say say Gen Z but I don't really want to criticize Gen Z because I like Gen Z a lot the ten z's are broad millennials are the worst millennials are the worst well Gen Z is a huge swatch of the population there are a lot of Gen Z and they're also doing pretty remarkable things but Gen Z as a kind of generic statement is kind of invested in trauma and I think you can think of it a little bit as an excuse I see this a lot in the in the university

45:31system people they tell you you know people hold on to the idea that they're traumatizing it is an excuse for why they can't do things and somebody in Gen Z world told me this when I ask them about what they thought about intergenerational trauma and that person said I don't want to tell you I know the person well but I don't want to out them if maybe they don't want to do it but they said if if holding on to trauma is an excuse intergenerational trauma is the perfect excuse because it didn't even have to happen to you someone in your family two generations ago was traumatized and that explains why you can't keep making relationships and so you know that's it's just important you know that's not necessarily always the case but it's important to ask ourselves these questions is this why I like this so much is this why I'm clinging to this because I'm not facing what the things I need to do in my life to be a healthier happier person it's a get out of bullshit free card that's for sure and when people to Jonathan Hites work I

46:31think's local to you as well and you know when you get cancelled their Georgian New York you can always come to sort of Balkan trauma university here in in the Balkans and people don't so sensitive here they won't get so upset maybe maybe last question then so my Slavic and Balkan friends say it's better to be pessimistic because that way you're never disappointed if something good happens you're pleasantly surprised you always prepare for the work now all the American researchers of course they like optimism yes I'm not sure if this is cultural uh what's the fair what's the fair assessment is it just the cultural American thing are the my my cynical Slavic friends right or is it a bit about what do you think well I don't that's a good question I don't really know the answer that is very much an American thing for sure Americans are very optimistic people but Americans are also I think I hope nobody minds if I say this Americans that remark will be good copers right now for example many many people myself included are very unhappy with the way

47:32the government is running these days I don't go into details um but um we'll get through that and that's it and many Americans also struggle with the you know fighting off the idea that we're doomed we'll get through this and it'll be another day and the thing about optimism though optimism so I don't know if this is only for people who are optimistic or Westerners I don't know but optimism is very important in dealing with trauma because it it when as I said before when when something seriously dangerous happens to us we have to dig in and say what is actually happening what does my brain think is happening and how do I get past this and to do that you have to be a little bit of optimistic that it'll work you don't have to think the world is a better a great place it'll never be they're never being promised again but I can do this and I think that's the part of optimism that is really adaptive the idea that I can do this I'll get through this even though

48:33I don't know how right now I'll get through it the my lip my roof is leaking it's pouring water in I don't know how to fix the roof but I'll figure it out somehow I'll find a solution to hire some on or I'll learn about roofs you know whatever the problem is that sounds me almost like faithful sort of hope you know the last some people say it was the last curse in Pandora's book some people say it was this sort of the the the bomb in Pandora's Box the hope was given to people after all the curses at the world it's actually site you can you can almost prove it yourself if you want be or anybody wants to be doesn't think this is possible because you can ask yourself what bad things what difficult things have happened to me in the past did I get through them and most of the time the answer is yes right so it's okay well I do get through things somehow so that's what I really need to remind myself because it's very easy to say I'm totally screwed now this time yeah yeah yeah no I got through all the other things so I'm enjoying about being

49:34middle-aged George is there's enough sort of things I've survived at this point that anything bad happens ago is a bit like that I remember you were 16 and you fell in love for the first time it never happened before and your heart got broken you had no reference experiences of time yeah that doesn't happen so I'm gonna go well yeah doesn't happen so often off the 40 so thanks for helping people not eat the yellow snow of trauma to use a Frank's app a reference so I've I've heard you're a fan of where do people find you on I didn't call you George banana once which was like a mental block I've had in my head all week so where do people find you online where do people go to find your stuff well mine if you know my name George banana George banana there is there aren't too many people with that name and I'm on the I'm a fairly active presence on the web so putting my name my name should bring it right to my email my email is very much a public email it's my university email and it's there my website is there there talks that given it's all on the web and yeah that's that's it's pretty easy to find me

50:37from the really recommend the end of trauma very readable very digestible and that's bananas spelled B.O.N. for November A double N for November O so people can look out George thank you so much for joining us my pleasure my pleasure to talk with you this podcast was brought to you by bodyman unlimited on the bodyman unlimited website there's all kinds of resources for coaches for all of that head to embodimentunlimited.com