“Trauma” is an event or events that puts us through physical or mental hell. The list is endless: child abuse, physical and/or sexual, loss of someone we loved, life threatening occurrences to name just a few. There are many therapies applied to help  people recover from traumatic times. One more recent (and still strongly debated) therapy is the relatively new “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing” therapy (EMDR). The VA is running with it for the time being to see if it is helpful for returning soldiers with PTSD. With numerous therapies available to help folks suffering from traumatic issues, it is with a little reservation that I offer information that is somewhat generic. However, if I had not found it helpful in the past, it would not be worth noting.
 
The most commonly occurring trauma I have dealt with in my 32 years of private practice is physical and sexual abuse. A teen comes in and shares that he had been molested by a neighborhood boy for a number of years. A grown man is barely in control as he shares that he recently discovered that his son had been molested by his grandmother. Another man told of his step father “beating the shit out of me” for years, while his mother made excuses for her husband’s behavior. A woman was virtually held captive by her cruel husband in the most remote area of Utah for years. The list goes on and on and on. Although the steps to take to help the healing process differ from person to person, there is a couple of common threads.
 
Abuse is the hurt that just keeps on hurtin’. The father with the abused daughter may find himself running grotesque mental videos through his head. He will most certainly feel like he didn’t protect his daughter well enough. So how does one begin to heal from something they cannot control? As an overly simplistic image, we can look at our lives as a big see-saw. All this horrible crap is placed on one side, throwing off the balance in favor of the trauma. Most people seek relief from therapy by hoping they can reduce the weight of all the negativity. Logically though, other than amnesia, these are your memories. So the way of counter-balancing the trauma is to begin to add “weight” onto the other side. As we strive to improve our lives, we add weight to the “good” side of the see-saw. What is it that a person needs to improve their lives? Work diligently at making our marriage a powerful one? Vigorously seeking ideas to become not a good, but a remarkable parent? Consistently working at improving one’s health through new found nutrition and/or physical improvements? Seeking a new and enlightening spiritual or religious awakening? Dedicating ourselves to be in the service of others?
 
In other words, we break the bondage of mental of physical negativity by concentrating on improving ourselves. It is not so difficult to begin, but the effort to stay focused on the long term effort to improve our existence is demanding. However, what is more exhausting: working diligently and consistently to improve ourselves, or to quietly rage at the stupidity or cruelty of some massively screwed up person who impacted our lives? Hey, they did bad stuff before, I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow them to continue their shitty behavior year after year in my head.

          I sure wish I was a fast learner, but sadly, plenty of important lessons are processed long after the event has passed.

          My wife’s terrific parents were in from Austin for a weekend visit.  Late Saturday night there was a strong knock on the door.  11:30 at night?  Uh oh.  To my surprise it was my Korean lady neighbor, a single parent, “Sam”.  She was in a panic. “John Sommer, please help me!  The neighbor boys are trying to get my 13 year old son to leave with them.  I want them to leave, and they are ignoring me.  Please help.”  I knew these little knuckleheads.  They were likely the ones who, a few months back, had written “rape” on Sam’s back door.  They weren’t gang bangers, but a group of three bullies.  So, mad as a rabid dog, I tucked my “doggie knocker” (bicycling protection stick) into the back of my belt and started to head out the door.  Before I got out the door, my kindly professor-ish father in law told me he wanted to come with me.  As I was intending to perform a major intimidation to these teenage bullies, I really didn’t want a kindly gentleman to nurture these boys.  Regardless, I couldn’t tell Claude he couldn’t come with me.  So, we charged across the street and stomped into Sam’s kitchen where the three little tough guys were hovered over Sam’s son, still insisting he leave with them.  I immediately had the upper hand as I angrily burst into the room confronting them, scaring the hell out of them.  I threateningly ordered them out of the house with the dire warning to them that Sam had better never have to come get me again.  Tails between their legs, they slinked out the back door where Claude was stationed.  As they crept out the back door, Claude advised them individually, “Be kind”.  Be Kind?!  Oh man.  I had a vision of the Terminator (me) generously allowing three kids to depart after deciding to not dismember them.  As they leave, Mother Theresa (Claude) gives them a blessing. I was displeased that Claude’s “kind” advice was watering down my imminent threat.  “Be kind”.  *sigh*  I never told anyone, but I was unenthusiastic about the interference. 

It was many months later that I realized the depth of Claude’s advice.  What he was telling the boys was exactly correct:  be kind.  If that principle was applied in this bully-boy example, they, in being kind, would immediately leave at Sam’s request.  In being kind they would not have written “rape” on her door. 

I have since taken Claude’s simple advice into the realm of my counseling.  It applies to a majority of circumstances.  Recently I began working with a very troubled married couple.  In their many angry moments, they were being extremely verbally critical of each other.  Can they resolve their numerous issues?  We shall see.  Still, even in angry moments, what if they applied the principle:  be kind.  Being kind in our anger means we temper what we say, we are not cruel, and are not inappropriate.  An endless barrage of criticism is not kind. 
         
A teenage senior was in trouble for vandalizing someone’s car.  His rationalization was that the other kid “was a smart ass”.  We applied the principle here.  What would you do if you were being kind?  We used this principle in his treatment.  With his consent, we agreed on his rather simple treatment plan:  be kind.  He went out of his way at talking to lonely-looking kids, offered rides to some students in need, sat in the cafeteria with the nerdy kids, etc.  As he graduated, he said he was liberated from his misplaced anger.
        
It seems that the advice offered by my father in law is almost too simple, but nothing could be further than the truth.  At times, being kind is tremendously difficult.  Nevertheless, should we not hold ourselves to a high standard of conduct regardless of anyone else?  Perhaps we can be a positive model for others by our proper behavior of being kind.