Over the last couple of decades there has been a steady increase in the number of young people who are harming themselves.
This seems to be a worldwide phenomenon, at least in westernised countries.
The act of self harm, which usually involves deliberately cutting, burning or otherwise harming the body, is not a diagnosis in itself, but is a symptom of psychological distress.
“The traumatic stress field has adopted the term “Complex Trauma” to describe the experience of multiple and/or chronic and prolonged, developmentally adverse traumatic events, most often of an interpersonal nature (e.g., sexual or physical abuse, war, community violence) and early-life onset. These exposures often occur within the child’s caregiving system and include physical, emotional, and educational neglect and child maltreatment beginning in early childhood.”
– Developmental Trauma Disorder”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk
People who have survived significant developmental trauma often show behaviours that seem to be counterproductive. They act in ways that can make their situation worse, and the degree of behavioural response seems, at times, to be unrelated to the the size of any triggering stimulus.
This is a direct result of the impact that developmental trauma can have on the developing brain, people who have such Trauma Organised Brains, may behave in ways that appear to make little sense to a rational observer. However, with the greater understanding that modern neuroscience is providing about brain functioning, such apparently irrational actions and damaging responses can be more clearly understood. Continue reading
Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.
St Francis Xavier paraphrasing Aristotle (with a certain sinister undertone).
Amongst all the great apes, Homo sapiens has an unusual gift. The ability to hear a sound and then to copy it. This skill arises from an innate drive to learn language, and to communicate. This is a hard wired aid to social living that has developed over millions of years of evolution.
This drive to learn is seen in the “babbling” phase that we all pass through as infants. We make repetitive sounds, as if practicing, before we start to speak words. This stage occurs in children of all language groups, all of whom make similar sounds; it is also present in those children who are born deaf.
Continue reading
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.
The fourteenth Dalai Lama.
In the media we seem to hear almost as much about compassion as we do about mindfulness.
Every time there is a natural disaster the newspapers express concern about compassion fatigue.
The Dalai Lama is held up as a great example of what it is to be truly compassionate.
So what exactly is compassion?
“On the parable of the Good Samaritan: “I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
Martin Luther King.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a teaching from the Christian faith about kindness. More importantly, it is about everyone being a part of the same world, and how, as social creatures, we cannot afford to be indifferent to our fellow human beings. Status, rules, or any other artificial barriers that we place between ourselves and others, are often the excuses that we give to ourselves for not getting involved.
It is their choice, someone else will stop to help, I don’t know what to do, I am going to be late. Similar justifications may come to us as reasons to explain our choice not to become involved.
When the immediate risk of suicide is high, getting involved saves lives.
Compassion is not just an emotion one might feel after reading something sad or heartbreaking. Our compassion is a source of energy and strength. It is the basis for our actions in the world.
From Zooburbia: Meditations on the Wild Animals Among Us, by Tai Moses
As a young child, I flew the Atlantic several times to spend school holidays with my parents in Quebec.
It always seemed odd to me that the air stewardesses (as they were called in those days) gave this instruction.
A diet of British films, featuring the incomparable British stiff upper lip, had always given me the idea that it should be “Women and children first”, not everyone look out for themselves. so it took a while to work it out.
I suspect that many of us feel uncomfortable putting ourselves first, thinking that this makes us selfish, bad people.
But this is not the case.
Vajra Blue 
You must be logged in to post a comment.