Emotional inteligence
ex-lover. The man brought them to a motel room, wherehe ordered the boy to hide under a blanket while he beatthe mother to death. The boy was, understandably, reluctantto talk with Eth about the mayhem he had heardand seen while underneath the blanket. So Eth askedhim to draw a picture—any picture.The drawing was of a race-car driver who had a strikinglylarge pair of eyes, Eth recalls. The huge eyes Ethtook to refer to the boy's own daring in peeking at thekiller. Such hidden references to the traumatic scene almostalways appear in the artwork of traumatized children;Eth has made having such children draw a picturethe opening gambit in therapy. The potent memoriesthat preoccupy them intrude in their art just as in theirthoughts. Beyond that, the act of drawing is itself therapeutic,beginning the process of mastering the trauma.EMOTIONAL RELEARNING ANDRECOVERY FROM TRAUMA402/661Irene had gone on a date that ended in attemptedrape. Though she had fought off the attacker, hecontinued to plague her: harassing her with obscenephone calls, making threats of violence, callingin the middle of the night, stalking her andwatching her every move. Once, when she tried toget the police to help, they dismissed her problem
403/661as trivial, since "nothing had really happened." Bythe time she came for therapy Irene had symptomsof PTSD, had given up socializing at all, and felt aprisoner in her own house.Irene's case is cited by Dr. Judith Lewis Herman, aHarvard psychiatrist whose groundbreaking work outlinesthe steps to recovery from trauma. Herman seesthree stages: attaining a sense of safety, rememberingthe details of the trauma and mourning the loss it hasbrought, and finally reestablishing a normal life. Thereis a biological logic to the ordering of these steps, as weshall see: this sequence seems to reflect how the emotionalbrain learns once again that life need not be regardedas an emergency about to happen.The first step, regaining a sense of safety, presumablytranslates to finding ways to calm the too-fearful, tooeasily triggered emotional circuits enough to allow relearning.18 Often this begins with helping patients understandthat their jumpiness and nightmares, hypervigilanceand panics, are part of the symptoms of PTSD.This understanding makes the symptoms themselvesless frightening.Another early step is to help patients regain somesense of control over what is happening to them, a directunlearning of the lesson of helplessness that the traumaitself imparted. Irene, for example, mobilized her
- Page 352 and 353: 352/661Perhaps the most powerful de
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- Page 368 and 369: physiological indicators of emotion
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- Page 372 and 373: 4. Self-control. The ability to mod
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- Page 376 and 377: opportunity at all, let alone equal
- Page 378 and 379: learned, and how grim the costs for
- Page 380 and 381: 380/661distress of a child nearby w
- Page 382 and 383: 382/661of the brain's limbic center
- Page 384 and 385: 384/661In ensuing months, the Purdy
- Page 386 and 387: 386/661disorder, or PTSD. At the co
- Page 388 and 389: endured semistarvation, the slaught
- Page 390 and 391: 390/661overwhelming terror. 4 While
- Page 392 and 393: and dying—or for a teacher there,
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- Page 396 and 397: All these neural changes offer shor
- Page 398 and 399: of calm—the amygdala never relear
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- Page 404 and 405: 404/661friends and family to form a
- Page 406 and 407: 406/661The therapist encourages the
- Page 408 and 409: 408/661Aftereffects or occasional r
- Page 410 and 411: 410/661cannot keep it from reacting
- Page 412 and 413: 412/661habits of the heart learned
- Page 414 and 415: 414/661different pattern of brain a
- Page 416 and 417: 416/661monsters. Though he has felt
- Page 418 and 419: 418/661five infants falls into the
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- Page 422 and 423: 422/661to help her up, and as I did
- Page 424 and 425: 424/661or the other type, says Davi
- Page 426 and 427: 426/661parents, and so how they lea
- Page 428 and 429: 428/661When the encounter takes pla
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- Page 432 and 433: 432/661was reopened, the animal was
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- Page 442 and 443: example, heroin and cocaine use amo
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ex-lover. The man brought them to a motel room, where
he ordered the boy to hide under a blanket while he beat
the mother to death. The boy was, understandably, reluctant
to talk with Eth about the mayhem he had heard
and seen while underneath the blanket. So Eth asked
him to draw a picture—any picture.
The drawing was of a race-car driver who had a strikingly
large pair of eyes, Eth recalls. The huge eyes Eth
took to refer to the boy's own daring in peeking at the
killer. Such hidden references to the traumatic scene almost
always appear in the artwork of traumatized children;
Eth has made having such children draw a picture
the opening gambit in therapy. The potent memories
that preoccupy them intrude in their art just as in their
thoughts. Beyond that, the act of drawing is itself therapeutic,
beginning the process of mastering the trauma.
EMOTIONAL RELEARNING AND
RECOVERY FROM TRAUMA
402/661
Irene had gone on a date that ended in attempted
rape. Though she had fought off the attacker, he
continued to plague her: harassing her with obscene
phone calls, making threats of violence, calling
in the middle of the night, stalking her and
watching her every move. Once, when she tried to
get the police to help, they dismissed her problem