Behind Closed Doors: Relational Trauma is a Global Health Crisis by Kizzie
/Out of the Storm is a global community of relational trauma survivors with over 9500 registrations from 50 countries since August 2014.
The number of countries represented at OOTS and registration numbers speak to the fact that “behind closed doors” relational trauma (one-on-one abuse/neglect) is an unacknowledged global health crisis. We need to ask why there is an enduring silence surrounding relational trauma. Why is it governments, justice and health systems, societies and individuals don’t acknowledge the scale and impact of what is taking place behind closed doors worldwide?
Relational trauma, that is, neglect or abuse of a child or adult at the hands of another is an unacknowledged global health crisis.
It’s complicated, but at least part part of the answer is offered by Dr. Judith Herman in her seminal book “Trauma and Recovery” (2015):
It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.
Not acknowledging the extent of relational trauma means no-one, no organization or agency has to take real action because it is messy, painful and most of all, costly. Mental health globally is chronically underfunded as a rule, but relational trauma particularly so because it’s easy to ignore trauma that takes place behind closed doors.
As we know all too well here at OOTS though, the cost of doing little or nothing is high; from the money spent on treating comorbid illness and disease caused by ongoing relational trauma (Barber, 2016; Lanius et al, 2010), to the lasting and debilitating psychological symptoms that impact survivors, their families, friends and communities, and their educational studies and workplace.
Much more needs to be done to deal with this "behind closed doors" public health crisis. Together we must open those doors and acknowledge what is occurring in far greater numbers than any of us want to admit. More importantly, we need to act. It is not a leap to suggest that the cost of preventing, intervening, and providing treatment and services will be much lower than what is currently being spent on medical treatment, lost work time, disruption to families, and perpetuation of the generational transfer of relational trauma.
It’s time to break the enduring silence surrounding relational trauma.
References:
Barber, J. (2016). The Hidden Epidemic. University of Toronto Magazine. https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/health/the-hidden-epidemic-esme-fuller-thomson-child-abuse-research-links-to-physical-health-john-barber/
Herman, J. (2015, 1997, 1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books
Lanius, R., Vermetten, E. & Pain, C. (Eds) (2010). The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic. Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press