Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
Trauma DispatchTrauma news you can't get anywhere else. |
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Trauma DispatchTrauma news you can't get anywhere else. |
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CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS Barbara Unell Source: KSHB 41 Kansas City news Read time: 1.5 minutes plus brief video This Happened An art installation was erected inside a popular Kansas City destination for families to raise awareness of toxic stress and how to prevent it. Who Did This? Barbara Unell, president of the Raised With Love and Limits foundation, obtained degrees in journalism and psychology, and built a long career of promoting compassion in the world. She has co-authored 17 books, including half a dozen with a child psychologist on how to discipline children. She has also been a newspaper columnist, radio host, and founder of magazines. The Claim This public health campaign is based on the toxic stress narrative that trauma permanently damages brains and causes a wide range of physical and mental problems. And the main way to prevent these problems is for children to have at least one nurturing parent relationship. The art installation was erected inside Kansas City Union Station, which is a mixed-use railway station that houses museums, traveling exhibits, a live theater, a movie theater, and a planetarium. The 45-second video below was filmed while the installation was being erected, and includes a message from Unell. Note: The arcade activities shown in the video are not part of the art installation. Analysis Unell clearly has compassion for helping others. Passion, however, does not help anybody if the intellectual framework behind it is flawed. The science behind toxic stress has been debunked. And despite many attempts over many years, simplistic public health campaigns have not been able to prevent traumatic events of abuse and violence. Contrary to the many other toxic stress campaigns in the United States, instead of alarming citizens of the dangers of trauma, this one emphasizes that prevention is possible by the presence of a single nurturing adult. This aspect of the toxic stress narrative has been increasingly emphasized by activists in recent years because they realized that their message that trauma damages brains was depressing and unhopeful. The logic of this campaign is fuzzy. It’s not clear if Unell believes a parent can prevent adverse events from happening, or prevent the harmful consequences after events happen, or both. It’s also unclear how this activity center will create supportive parents. It seems unlikely that a brief encounter with educational material in an art installation will create lasting parenting changes. Further, it seems that the parents who are able and willing to bring their children to the center are already loving and responsible parents. The parents who are not able or willing to bring their children are the ones most likely to need intervention. The advice that children need nurturing parents is, of course, common sense. But there is no research study that shows trauma or stressful events can be substantially prevented. And there is no research study that shows harmful effects that might follow trauma events can be prevented by early psychological intervention [1], medication [2], or a relationship. REFERENCES [1] Rose SC, Bisson J, Churchill R, Wessely S. Psychological debriefing for preventing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2002, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD000560. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000560. Accessed 16 June 2024 [2] Bertolini F; Robertson L; Bisson JI; Meader N; Churchill R; Ostuzzi G; Stein DJ; Williams T; Barbui C (2024). Early pharmacological interventions for prevention of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in individuals experiencing acute traumatic stress symptoms. [Review] Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 5:CD013613, 2024 May 20. Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. Comments are closed.
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