Stress & Resilience

In last week’s article I wrote about the short-term effects of dealing with violence e.g., experiencing the parasympathetic nervous system as it brings the body back to stasis etc. In this article I want to look at the longer-term effects of dealing with a violent encounter, including PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Many people first became aware of PTSD, from the news coverage, concerning the mental health issues that veterans returned from Afghanistan and the Gulf Wars with. Whilst it has always been understood that there is a psychological toll from combat e.g., the “shell shock” that many soldiers experienced in the first world war etc., these “ongoing” (the Afghanistan conflict lasted over two decades – 1999 – 2021) conflicts in the Middle East, that involved occupation and a degree of ambiguity concerning the goals, what was trying to be accomplished, and who the enemy actually was etc., brought attention to the long-term effects of the stresses that those involved in violence experienced. In this article I want to look at and examine the longer-term effects that may be experienced when dealing with a past violent event, and how we can possibly limit the effects that such events have on us by improving our psychological and emotional resilience.

From a personal perspective violence is depressing. Every time I have had to act violently against someone (in a professional capacity), I have been left with a sense of futility; that this was the only way this situation could have been solved/ended; that there was no other choice/option available. It may be that I have a tendency to over-think and analyze these things, however from having had conversations with others who work within the security industry I know I’m not alone in having these thoughts and feelings. It is not that I have doubts concerning the justification(s), or the legalities, of the times I’ve had to use violence, but rather the fact that it was necessary. I would also add that I’m not dealing with any long-term mental health issues, nor comparing/equating my experiences to those who served in Afghanistan etc., or that my overall life has been affected by these experiences but rather to add a personal note that there is little to celebrate when you have to act physically against another person(s). If you are someone who is looking to “welcome” the experience of violence, in order to “test” and “show” what you know and are capable of etc., what you take away from a violent confrontation may be something very different to what you are expecting.

There are several definitions of what “trauma” is but one that I have found useful is that offered by psychologist Dr. Lenore Terr, who undertook a longitudinal study into the trauma experienced by twenty-six children who were kidnapped from their school bus, and buried alive in a purpose-built container, before eventually escaping – the motive behind this abduction is still unknown. Terr, defines trauma as being the result of two things: the first component is the experience of something that causes an extreme stress response (such as being abducted and buried alive), the second part being that the individual(s) when experiencing said stress have the sense that they are helpless to influence and control it (the abducted children were not physically capable of resisting their adult abductors’ actions – they had to comply with them). We may not always be able to avoid stressful situations but if we can exert some degree of control when we do, we may not suffer as much trauma afterwards. This might be as simple an act as “actively” handing a wallet to a mugger; having made the decision to do so before finding yourself targeted for a street robbery. Resiliency, the ability to dynamically adapt in the face of a threat/adversity, is also something that can be trained and developed e.g., exposure to manageable, stressful events, which an individual has some degree of control over, can help develop resiliency. That is, we can learn how to manage and cope with future potentially traumatizing events, through a “mild” exposure to less traumatic incidents. This is where scenario-based training can be extremely effective, as long as it has an emotional component to it. Another way to train such resiliency is through visualization where you “expose” yourself to a threat/danger, whilst managing and staying in control of the outcome. Just as with scenario-based training there needs to be an emotional element/component to the visualization. This could mean, that if you have a fear of heights, you visualize yourself, standing on the edge of a tall building looking down i.e., the visualization doesn’t have to be one where you experience yourself dealing with an assailant etc., but rather one that creates a degree of emotional stress. This type of visualization, is one where you learn to manage the “resulting” trauma, experienced during the process, whilst remaining in control.

Another way of helping manage and prevent trauma from developing as a response to a highly stressful incident is that of cognitive reappraisal (CRA). Cognitive reappraisal is a conscious, emotion-regulation strategy/process, wherein an individual when they recognize that they are having a negative thought, replaces that thought, with a positive one. Such positive reappraisal has been linked to lower levels of anxiety in trauma-exposed individuals. However, it should be noted that studies have shown that this strategy is only successful when being applied to stresses, over which an individual has no control. In contexts/situations where the individual has control over their stressors, it instead leads to an increase in depression and anxiety, rather than the reverse. It is believed that this result occurs because of a reduction in an individual’s overall ability to solve problems e.g., not changing a negative situation that is in a person’s control, leads to greater levels of anxiety etc.

Dealing with violence is stressful and can lead to both short and long-term mental health issues. If we are looking to be individuals who can physically deal with a violent incident, we should also look to be those individuals who can recover from it fully. This means that resiliency training in some form should become part of our overall personal safety and self-defense training.