‘I really want to offer hope… none of us are broken’

What inspired you to write this book? 

Over the last few years, on more than one occasion, I have been stopped in my tracks by discussions of trauma on the TV or on radio. Popular conceptualisations of trauma are very different and sometimes even at odds with what we know from state-of-the-art research. I have spent a career studying the psychological impact of stressful and traumatic experiences, and an inordinate amount of time writing research articles. But these standard peer-reviewed contributions academics love just do not reach or inform popular debates. Very few people have the time or inclination to keep up with the deluge of scientific papers in the field. So, I guess what inspired me to write this book was an ambition to make this sociopolitical perspective on trauma accessible to a wider audience.

And you haven't taken the usual academic approach with this book. Can you tell me a bit about that?

I wanted to write a book that could be useful to victims, survivors, their families, those supporting them as well as practitioners, students and academics. As I started to write the book, I thought a lot about how I could communicate some of the conceptual material to people without a background in psychology or social psychology. 

Social psychology, and the social identity approach to health in particular, is an approach that de-emphasises personal causes of mental ill health. A clinical psychologists might look to depressive attributional styles as an explanation of depression. As a social psychologist I am much more attuned to contexts. So for example people, mostly women, that experience coercive control, might be correct in developing global, stable negative thinking about the nature of their lives. The context in which they live gives rise to this thinking. CBT in this context is not necessarily the solution. 

Over the years when I have presented on this topic to students or at conferences, I have most success when I have used worked examples. So, as I began to write the book, I really struggled with a format that illustrated the weightier conceptual issues I wanted to make. Following chats and advice, I concluded that the examples needed to find examples that were somehow linked to ensure consistency across the book. Using case examples from my research threw up far too many ethical issues. Eventually I hit on the idea of using my own life and some of my own ups and downs to illustrate my point.

In the past I have often used examples from my own life as illustrations in talks or seminars, but I'm keenly aware this is not at all usual in our discipline or in academic life. It goes against the impartiality of the scientific approach so beloved of our discipline and research psychologists. And I remain nervous that I went this road. I would say for the most part my life is a very privileged one. I am certainly not looking for sympathy. Rather, I hope using myself and elements of my own personal life illustrate the more difficult conceptual points in the book. I also hope my personal disclosures help readers to see that trauma is an archetypal example of how the personal and political are connected. 

You start most every chapter with a poem. That is an odd touch. Can you explain why you did this?

There are lots of people out there, well beyond psychology, thinking and talking about trauma. And they have been thinking and talking about it for many years. In my earlier years as a researcher, I can remember being proprietorial in my thinking about certain topics and research areas which I felt rightfully belonged to psychology – almost as though we in Psychology had a monopoly on insights into topics like psychological trauma. Over the years, as a product of good mentoring, the generosity of people from other disciplines and as I embraced different methods, it became abundantly clear to me that many disciplines including those in the creative arts have much to offer me as a psychologist.

If we think about poems, and in particular poetry that is popular and that endures, these verses must resonate with people. People would not return to loved poems unless these poems spoke to them… maybe even helped them to understand the adversity and difficulties they face in their own lives. So, I guess I am using the poems for two reasons. To illuminate the ideas and research presented in the book, but also to corroborate them. A kind of convergent evidence, if you like – just in more palatable poetic form than we as psychologists are perhaps used to hearing.

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For those negotiating trauma or supporting those who are affected by trauma, what do you think the book offers?

In one word – hope. I really want my book to offer hope. I want those affected by trauma to see how their experiences and the difficulties they have in negotiating trauma are driven by social forces. Managing difficult events is difficult. Extreme reactions to extreme events shouldn't be surprising. If we struggle it isn't because we are broken.  

However, there are risks inherent in life and they tend to go along with the status of groups to which we belong, such as age, gender, class, ethnic, sexuality and ability groups. All of these groups matter in whether we experience trauma and are pivotal to our capacity to manage the trauma. 

So, the book encourages you to think about how your own personal experiences, and how responses to trauma could be linked to the social landscape of your life at the time. So rather any of us being broken or unwell as a result of our experience, we can think about as how the dysfunction in social systems and wider society are driving risk of trauma and also our psychological vulnerability as members of particular age, class, gender and ethnic groups. On the upside and alternatively stated, functional social systems, where they can be established, can promote resilience. 

For people negotiating trauma today what is your advice?

You are not alone. Traumatic experiences are remarkably common. They also tend to be incredibly stigmatising and isolating. Trauma can make people think they are the only one. But you are not. You are not broken and in time you will regroup, find your tribe and start a new chapter. Find others with whom you feel an affinity can help. This might be on the basis of your experience, but it might also be on the basis of a common interest or hobby, a sporting or political or social interest. Meet your people regularly. Reject the blame and stigma of your trauma. Stay connected. Be part of something bigger than yourself. 

In terms of theory, does the book offer any theoretical advance? Or is it an outline of state of play rather than new thinking? 

I guess I would argue that it is a both. There is a lot there that is a roundup of the research that is out there. It is always nice to have the work all in one place. And I am hoping that the book is accessible enough that those without a background in social psychology can still see the value of this perspective. I am hoping that is useful for those interested to clinical approach and as well as social approaches to trauma.

I do think that there is some entirely new thinking there too as well. So, whilst I and others have been writing about the social psychological foundation of trauma and the social identity model of traumatic identity change for a few years now, the work on post-traumatic growth and collective post-traumatic growth in particular is an entirely new area. I am excited about it. 

What next for the field do you think? What has changed / what needs to change?

A central argument of the book is that trauma can define groups. It can create new groups such as 'refugees', 'orphans' and 'widows'. And it can also reinforce existing groups. Trauma can consolidate gender and race groups, for example. In this the era of #metoo and #Blacklivesmatter we can see how this has happened very clearly. These groups give rise to social identities that are central to not only our risk of trauma but also how we understand, and process trauma that we personally experience. So, the model offered here really is one that integrates social and clinical psychology – it connects personal experience of trauma with positive and negative personal and social outcomes. 

This approach reveals how everyday personal experiences and politics are connected. Life isn't fair. It is fixed against those with the least power in society, it delivers adversity very unevenly. As we face into the challenge of climate change – a challenge that will affect the haves and the have nots very differently – we need to pay attention to the very real political implications of differential experience of devastating loss. The pandemic has shown us how interdependent our lives are. A collective approach to tackling these challenges of our times is the change we need to make, and I really hope this book is a small contribution to understanding such processes. Trauma has important implications for personal health as well as wider social cohesion and positive peace. 

What next for you?

We are pursuing a new line of research in the lab, connecting the work on the physiological markers of stress to people's response to trauma. And of course, our hypothesis is that the social group membership and social identities are crucial in explaining the link between these two factors. So, this is exciting as is the work on collective post-traumatic growth.

A very dear friend once told me that there was a lot to be said for a bit of prevaricating and reflecting. And I think that is where I am right now. I have enjoyed getting the book to this stage: it was a challenge. And this point of publication feels like an important milestone. So, I am thinking about where to next, but I'll give myself another month or two to figure that out.