The only problem is that this is blatantly false. Having suffered trauma a couple of years ago, I can attest that the actual, physical functioning of your brain is changed. For months I'd feel weirdly alert when walking alone at night. I'd be afraid of the specific place the truma occurred. It's like there's a built-in circuit in my brain I never knew about that would start screaming "don't go there or you'll die!". It's all hardcoded in there. The effects persisted for about a year, maybe longer, with a linear-feeling falloff.

The experience didn't impact my life negatively in the long term, but it definitely changed the way I think about trauma. If a single experience can fuck up my brain semi-permanently, I have utmost respect for people who suffered repeated trauma, sometimes even during early development. I cannot imagine such experiences not leaving debilitating scars of physical nature.

Well, I don’t think this article did a good job of representing Adler’s real views. I’ve read a little bit of his work and he’s definitely a reasonable person who would agree that your trauma is real.

I think his perspective/emphasis just differs a bit from Freud for example. Like rather than saying this event caused my current state of mind (which is of course true from one perspective), he’d focus on the perspective that my mind reacted in this way for a particular purpose (e.g. to protect itself so that I can keep surviving/functioning in the future, even if it comes at a severe cost). That perspective is also true, just different.

I guess it’s important to have both—-empathy for your experience and the real trauma it caused (so that you still feel connected and supported by people) but also reflecting on what may be the purpose of some behaviors/mentalities that came out of the trauma, so that at least in the longer term they can be improved or substituted (e.g. if something exists for a purpose, we can’t just remove it because it’s “not normal”; we need to understand the root of it). All to keep moving forward to your best self. I mean, there’s no magic pill for trauma so every therapeutic approach is going to have limitations but it’s good to seek useful, self-empowering approaches which I think is what Adler was going for.

Just my interpretation. I’m not an Adler expert but I do like his work (as well as Freud’s).

"this is blatantly false. Having suffered trauma"

The title is stupid, as is responding only to it.

This article is about the ideas from a psychologist who died in 1937.

In modern psychology, there is plenty of research into trauma based on way more than just Freud's theories, with actual measurable evidence.

> This article is about the ideas from a psychologist who died in 1937.

Criticizing the developments of the theories of Breuer, who died in 1925, although the calendar has never been an argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Breuer

Yup and the theory is wrong. People and even animals who experience “trauma” (beat up, socially humiliated, tricked by fraudsters, etc) over and over actually have physiological changes in the brain.

One can train oneself to ignore trauma which is especially useful in sharp changes in life circumstances, or if what traumatized you is incredibly unlikely to ever happen again, but things like traumatized people being less confident and more anxious is actually useful and protective if you are repeatedly traumatized since the world is actually probably a dangerous place for such people and they should tread conservatively.

> things like traumatized people being less confident and more anxious is actually useful and protective

The core mechanism might be useful, but then there's a question of over-reaction. Consider, for instance, how the immune system is useful, but allergy might be life-threatening.

A little thin on substance, but apropo, IMO. I often ponder how society would have benefited with more Adler & less Freud psychology. If only the father of propaganda had been Adler's nephew...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

A lot of people these days are quick to self diagnosis their own “trauma”, to the point that any negative or scary thing that occurred to them in the past could be a candidate for “trauma”. I’m sure this has the effect of minimizing people with actual trauma.

I find the concept of gatekeeping who has been traumatized or not to be incredibly scientifically dubious and the only reason we have such a notion as some people facing real trauma and some people being drama queens is that it’s socially useful for the efficient allocation of societal resources.

All people suffer some degree of trauma, even if it’s something as pedestrian as a loved one dying.

I'm sure claiming that people's trauma is fake minimises people's trauma way more than any "fake trauma" that might actually exist in society.

EMDR - for everyone hear saying "yes, trauma is real". Its worth trying and I've seen it do wonders for some people. Not so much for me, but the ideas fit with how my own shit eventually resolved.

This is hilarious! Clearly this dude never had a home invasion turned into attempted murder by strangulation!

Cool that the dude from the 30s was big into Positive Mindsets or whatever though

Wait, isn't our response to trauma also determined by past experiences?

Almost everything relating to psychology and psychiatry is opinion and hogwash.

Psychology is not science.

Psychiatry has just debunked it's most important modern thesis (serotonin theory).

The reason? All the smart scientists tend to go into physics and chemistry.

> The reason? All the smart scientists tend to go into physics and chemistry.

Really? This honestly sounds plausible to you?

Yes. And then they tend to go into finance and business where they help Big Pharma sell fake drugs to the stupid psych scientists.