In his novel “The World“, which was inspired by his autobiography; The Spanish writer Juan Jose Meas told about an unjustified state of fear that he had throughout his adolescence and early youth whenever his eyes fell on a certain part of any woman’s body, this part that may be preferred by many men, and gives life and milk to children, but it turned into something terrifying for him.
It was only after dozens of therapy sessions with his psychiatrist that Juan José Meas understood the cause of this mysterious fear; Realizing that there was a pent-up memory in his mind of an incident that occurred with him and his mother at the age of eleven; Juan did not remember this deeply buried event; Psychology calls that memory “hidden trauma.” This report explains to you what “hidden trauma” is and how you know if you suffer from it without your knowledge, and what to do at that time.
How does the brain elude us?
In many situations, you see some feel afraid of a pet petting everyone without anyone knowing the reason, and in other situations, some smells or places provoke distress in some people without anyone being able to explain that as well, modern psychology indicates that these unjustified feelings may be Behind it is what is known as the hidden trauma created by a pent-up memory in your mind.
Your fear of dogs, no matter how cute and friendly, maybe due to an incident that happened to you at a young age in which a fierce dog attacked you, and the incident was cruel to you in your childhood to the extent that your subconscious mind chose to suppress it and hide it from your conscious mind, but this concealment does not erase the effects On that hidden shock.
Pain without a physical cause and the fabrication of a feeling of illness.
What do you know about psychosomatic disorders?
And for many years, this psychological state has been a subject of controversy, especially with regard to cases in which cases are brought against individuals based on facts related to “hidden trauma” in which the owner regained her pent-up memories, and the law continues to date to seek the assistance of psychologists in such cases, in an attempt to reveal About the truth of the accusation, and are the accusations made by the individual about individuals who harassed him when he was young, for example, a truly repressed memory, or a deceptive memory?
There is a possibility of deception in these cases; As those memories may not float to the surface of consciousness until after a long period of more than 20 years has passed, not all people discover the hidden trauma early in their lives and some do not discover it at all, as happened with the Spanish writer Juan Jose during his psychological treatment, and perhaps if he did not pass Juan experienced psychotherapy when he understood the reasons for this justified fear of women’s breasts.
The sensational case of “Nicole Climber”: Was I hurt?
“Sometimes I remember being sexually harassed by my mother, and other times I am not sure”; This is what Nicole Clember, a young American woman who now works as a child psychiatrist, told the Guardian, and Nicole is one of the most interesting cases of modern psychologists in understanding the “hidden trauma” stemming from repressed memories.
The woman, who is now about 40 years old, when she was six years old, told her father that her mother had touched her in areas of her body that made her feel pain. The little girl is her mother.
Nicole’s statements as a child were used by American psychiatrist David Corwin, after obtaining the consent of the father, as a scientific model while teaching students the psychological effects of sexual harassment of children. The video clips in which she recorded what she was exposed to, in his psychological experiences.
The doctor was surprised that Nicole does not remember these facts, and does not remember why her father prevented her from her mother, but Nicole asked to watch these video clips so that she understands what happened to her when she was young, and here the doctor fell into a moral dilemma, does he reveal to Nicole about her hidden shock, or Leave it protected?
But in the end, his scientific curiosity triumphed, and he agreed with Nicole that he would give her the opportunity to watch those clips and that he would film them while she watched herself while she was talking at the age of four about what her mother had done to him, to record in audio and video the moment the hidden shock of Nicole was revealed.
In a research paper published by Corwin in 1997, he asserted that Nicole’s case “is unusual, and its documentation in both phases is unique”. This gave modern psychiatry an important opportunity to study and understand repressed memories and the hidden trauma that results from them, and this experience was also the reason for Nicole’s desire to become a child psychiatrist.
Conditioned learning: How does hidden trauma occur?
Psychology tells us that the hidden trauma of repressed memory arises through a mental process called “mood-dependent learning,” a psychological phenomenon in which the brain creates or blocks memories when a person is under the impact of trauma or psychological stress. For the mind to obscure it without twisting it to its advantage so that it is painless to it, it would be difficult for the conscious mind to access it.
In a 2014 study on mice, doctors at Northwestern University discovered for the first time what happens in the brain nerves responsible for suppressing and masking painful memories through the process of “mood conditioned learning.” This is by exposing mice to strong shocks, some of them decided to forget them and fall into the Same mistake again without remembering the trauma, while the doctors watched the rat’s brain and its neural mechanism at the moment it chose to suppress the painful memory and create the hidden trauma.
The authors of the study indicated that the results they reached may help modern medicine to reach new drug treatments for patients with psychological disorders whose cause is difficult to trace because it is a hidden trauma with repressed memory.
If the psychiatrist can guess that his patient’s disorder stems from a hidden trauma, he does not have to resort to reminding him of that memory. Nicole said after returning to her those memories and said: “At seventeen years old, I remembered what my mother did to me when I was a child. At the time, I was experiencing a real crisis in managing my emotional and sexual relationships.”
How do you know if you suffer from hidden trauma?
How can you prove that something you don’t even remember happened? To answer this question, you must know that the hidden trauma resulting from a repressed memory leaves its mark on yourself, whether you remember it or not. Psychiatrists for a pattern of behaviour among those with hidden trauma who have recovered that memory either through psychotherapy or on their own.
If you notice these signs on yourself or on someone close to you, then you are in hidden shock, and the most important of these signs are the presence of certain places or situations that make you feel very disturbed or frightened without understanding it, and without being able to explain why you are disturbed to others.
Also, one of the most prominent of these signs is that the person with hidden trauma develops a hostile attitude towards a certain group of people or particular sex, such as a man who absolutely hates women without a specific reason, or a woman who hates men without a reason that you can mention; It is difficult for this person to control his emotions, or to stay in one job for a long time because he is emotional and does not accept criticism, or does not have the ability to learn and adapt, and those around him always describe him as behaving like children or impulsive, and in relationships, He may not be psychologically stable and always feel anxious and afraid of abandonment.
These signs tell you that “maybe” your subconscious mind has a hidden trauma that you don’t know anything about or you don’t remember, and you will only be sure of this by resorting to psychological treatment with a specialized therapist.