I recently received this anonymous inquiry:
I'm very curious about emotional abuse. I'm concerned about a community member who has a history of trauma and is also a trauma therapist who is twisting the words of others to cause them to feel bad about themselves. It feels like emotional abuse. We're working toward mediation process but I'm wondering how a conflict resolution team would work with this type of pattern.
While I know no more details about this situation than what's contained in the paragraph above, I think it's a good topic.
At the outset, it's important to understand that I have no training in trauma response, per se, and do not consider myself an expert in that arena. That said, I do consider myself an expert on conflict in cooperative groups, and hold the view that it's imperative for cooperative groups to be able to work constructively with feelings (which are invariably in the room whether you have agreements about them or not, and undoubtedly are a central feature of trauma).
While it's up to each community to establish what protocols will serve the group best with respect to the emergence of conflict and non-trivial distress, here's how I would engage with the dynamic described by the inquirer:
Let's make this as messy as possible, and assume that there are at least three different perspectives on what was happening (where the same event was experienced first-hand by three different people, all of whom may be having a different response).
Let's say Pat is the trauma therapist, Chris is the person who has been made to feel bad about themselves, and Dale is someone upset observing this.
If I were facilitating when this dynamic emerged, I would step in to interrupt the dynamic as soon as I was conscious of someone being in noticeable distress (most likely cuing in to Chris or Dale, based on the scenario presented). Note that I would interrupt the exchanges as soon as I recognized distress or reactivity—I would not wait until I determined that abuse had occurred, which can be a more complex assessment.
When stepping in, I would try to engage the person I sensed was most in distress and then work my way around the room, until everyone in reaction had had a chance to say what was going on for them. In this instance, the fulminating tension may be between Chris and Pat, or it may be between Dale & Pat.
(For that matter, there could be tension between Dale & Chris: I recall how irritated my mother was when I would would criticize my father for going into a rant and belittling her—she told me in n o uncertain terms to butt out; she didn't want me defending her.)
I would engage with each person long enough to establish what they are feeling, their version of what happened, and its impact on them. I would steer them away from labeling others, assigning motivation to others, or from analyzing the situation. I would simply be asking them to report what they've experienced and its meaning to them. After listening to their responses, I would reflect back the essence of what I heard, doing my best to match both their words and their energy. I would be trying to walk in their shoes.
Essential to this being effective is staying with it until the speaker reports feeling heard. Caution: It is often insufficient to simply assert, "I hear you" or to nod sympathetically. You have to be able to demonstrate to the upset person's satisfaction, that you get what they've told you.
My thinking here is that people in distress often feel isolated and are not confident that others will be open to hearing about their experience, or to understand it even if they get to tell their story. With that in mind, the very first order of business is to establish connection, so that information can flow.
How It Might Look to Pat
This can have a very wide range, including the following possibilities:
• Pat may have been abusive yet have no consciousness of it.
• Pat may own that they were purposefully trying to hurt Chris (I don't run into this often, but it's a possibility).
• Pat may believe they engaged with Chris in ways that they felt were ethical and constructive.
• Pat may be oblivious to what they had done, or its impact on Chris.
• Pat may recognize that they had gone overboard (in some sense) and are in remorse about it.
Even if you stipulate that Pat is skilled as a trauma therapist, that doesn't preclude their having a blind spot about the ways in which they can trigger trauma in others, nor does it guarantee that they are always aware of when they have been triggered. Finally, therapists are likely to have a preferred method for working trauma, and there is no single approach that's 100% effective.
Thus, while it's reasonable to expect a trauma therapist to be sensitive to what will be triggering in others, and to be deft in picking up on cues that what they're doing is landing poorly, there are no certainties.
Pat might be completely at ease with what they did; they might be embarrassed; they might be curious (that Dale thinks they were abusive); they might also be in reaction themselves (to who knows what).
How It Might Look to Chris
Just because Dale believes Pat was abusing Chris, does not necessarily mean that Chris experienced Pat as abusive. It's important, I think, to not jump ahead, and to listen carefully to each player's story. There could well be three very disparate realities in play without anyone being "wrong."
While it seems unlikely that Chris enjoyed their interaction with Pat, discomfort or confusion is not necessarily abuse. Was the exchange embarrassing? Overwhelming? Unrelenting? Accusatory? Trauma-triggering (in ways that Pat might reasonably be expected to know or be sensitive to)? There is a wealth of possibilities here.
I can imagine that Chris might be in tears, shaking, or completely shut down. Or they might be outwardly calm, or even untouched by what Dale found intolerable.
By describing Pat's interactions with Chris as "abusive," it suggests that Pat—at least in Dale's eyes—placed Chris in an awkward (excruciating?) spot, without license to do so.
How It Might Look to Dale
It seems certain from the description that Dale had a definite negative reaction to what Pat was doing with Chris.
This could stem from any or all of the following:
—Outrage on behalf of the group (that Chris could be treated this way).
—Upset over the perception that Pat is acting out of integrity as a trauma therapist (misusing their license).
—Frustration with the group that Pat's behavior has been tolerated.
—Personal irritation with Pat that has its roots in prior unresolved issues.
How to Proceed
With all these moving parts, I'd need to make an in-the-moment assessment of where the major axis of tension ran and begin there. In condensed form, here is the sequence I'd follow:
• Interrupt the damaging or upsetting exchanges (stop the merry-go-round)
• Acknowledge the protagonists' experiences (noting where they are similar and where they diverge)
• Decide (interactively with the players and the group) whether to take it further in the moment, or set something up afterwards in another setting. If the former, I would work in dyads, starting with those most triggered or most in distress, attempting to repair relationship damage and to reopen channels of communication. Problem solving would follow that (commitments the two might make to each other about how to proceed differently in the future).
If the latter, I'd stay with it long enough to get a commitment from each party about a time and place to reconvene.
If the Facilitator Is Overwhelmed or Ineffective
This is where the Conflict Resolution Team might come into play, being on call to step in at need if the facilitator cannot answer the bell. While I strongly advocate that groups have such a team, there are three essential things that need to be in place for that hope to be realized:
1. A general agreement to engage with strong feelings when they surface (permission).
2. Clarity about how those feelings will be worked with (while there are a number of modalities for working with conflict, the group needs to bless at least one of the them, so members know what they've signed up for).
3. Sufficient skill in the community to be able to facilitate this work using the chosen modality.
It does no good to have a general agreement to work with conflict if there is no agreement about how to go about it, or no confidence in the group's ability to navigate it successfully.
del.icio.us
