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Judith Herman on Complex PTSD, Coercive Control and Justice
818 Plays3 days ago
Trigger Warning: Please be advised, this episode contains dialogue about self-harm, abuse, and other sensitive topics. Please take care while listening and feel free to skip this episode if needed.
In this Wired for Connection episode with Polyvagal Institute, host Travis Goodman, LMFT welcomes psychiatrist and trauma pioneer Dr. Judith Herman. Dr. Herman explains how the modern trauma field emerged and why it still fails many survivors of complex trauma and gender based violence. She traces the history from Vietnam veterans and the women’s movement to the recognition of PTSD and the ongoing fight to recognize complex PTSD and coercive control.
We talk about how repeated child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence and trafficking shape identity, relationships and the nervous system. Dr Herman explains coercive control, the submission and freeze response, and why asking “why didn’t she just leave” misses the reality of danger, dependence and nervous system survival states.
Drawing from her book “Truth and Repair,” she shares what survivors actually want from justice. Acknowledgement, apology and amends. Limits on perpetrators. Communities and systems that stop re blaming and re traumatizing victims. We touch on victim compensation, restorative justice experiments and why current courts often worsen PTSD instead of helping.
The conversation ends with a focus on prevention, early intervention, trauma informed justice, and recognizing complex PTSD in diagnosis and practice. This episode speaks to therapists, advocates, survivors and leaders who want a clear, justice focused view of trauma, power and repair.
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Transcript
U.S. Recognition of Complex PTSD vs. Other Countries
00:00:00
Speaker
I think where we're not, well certainly in this country, we're still behind the rest of the world in terms of recognition of complex PTSD.
00:00:11
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Dr. Judith Herman, pioneering psychiatrist and author of the landmark Trauma and Recovery and the recent Truth and Repair.
00:00:22
Speaker
She taught at Harvard Medical School and led the Victims of Violence program at Cambridge Health Alliance. Her work gave clinicians and survivors a clear map of recovery, centered dignity and accountability, and pushed systems to measure success by restored safety and connection.
00:00:40
Speaker
We will talk about safety and trust, the body's threat response, survivor-defined repair, the legal landscape, and the role of community. Please be advised this episode contains dialogue about self-harm, abuse, and other sensitive topics. Please take care while listening and feel free to skip this episode if needed.
Introduction of Dr. Judith Herman
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to Wired for Connection. I am your host and my name is Travis Goodman. Welcome. they had five So Dr. Herman, first question is when you began, what did the field misunderstand about trauma and what still holds true today from your experience?
Activism and the Emergence of the Trauma Field
00:01:21
Speaker
Well, I would say when I began, there was no trauma field. i I started my residency training in 1970 and PTSD was not recognized in the DSM officially as a real diagnosis.
00:01:41
Speaker
until 1980, and that, then the DSM-3, and that was basically all due to the activism of the Vietnam veterans against the war.
00:01:56
Speaker
They came back, they said, we're home safe, but we're in our minds, we're still in Vietnam. They threw their medals over the White House fence.
00:02:10
Speaker
And they testified before Congress and they also testified before the psychiatric experts about the mental impact of their combat experiences.
00:02:26
Speaker
One of the real pioneers in the field, Robert J. Lifton, psychiatrist who just recently died at age 99,
00:02:39
Speaker
He wrote books about the survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the survivors of what the Chinese call thought reform for political prisoners. And then he wrote a book called Home from the War about his work with from what they called rap groups with Vietnam veterans against the war. And this is where they kind of testified about, you know, they didn't want to go to the VA because the VA didn't even recognize what they had experienced. And so they, they testified in these other forums for us.
00:03:33
Speaker
that eventually resulted in the recognition within the mental health field. Yeah. it seems like a major, like a significant major turning point from something that was not recognized by really the medical psychological association of the day.
00:03:53
Speaker
Right. right To now let's recognize it. Yeah.
Women's Movement and Civilian Trauma Knowledge
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah. And then meantime, of course, Just as we had the anti-war movement, we had the women's separation movement and the knowledge base about civilian trauma really came out that movement.
00:04:14
Speaker
And the psychiatric journals of that era had articles like, with titles like, The Wife Beater's Wife, that basically looked at the pathal blame the pathology of the wife for domestic violence.
00:04:31
Speaker
And in consciousness raising groups, which were the sort of basic organizing tool of the women's movement, women started testifying about the realities of their lives.
00:04:46
Speaker
And we went from the testimony in small private groups to speak outs, public speak outs on rape and on domestic violence and on various forms of sexual harassment. We didn't even have these terms then.
00:05:08
Speaker
And then the and women organized crisis services, right? Crisis sandwiched by the women's shelters. and And only then did the knowledge that was generated in this movement begin to find its way into medicine and academic psychiatry.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, and so the 80s, it's not that long ago. It's not that all of sudden trauma was the first time it, ah but PTSD and all these things, that's the first time it happened was in the 80s. It's been going on for quite some time. And so now we have these terms and we have language around it and
Evolution of Trauma Understanding and PTSD
00:05:50
Speaker
what is this? And now we're having testimonies and there's a shift in the kind of the powers that be that are ah recognize recognizing, recognizing this for the first time, even though it's been around.
00:06:01
Speaker
And so this is like this movement of shifting and anding again the DSM finally identifying it, which, you know, is a big deal. but There's this shift that happened, but I'm wondering, you know, from your experience, from your perspective,
00:06:16
Speaker
You know, so the field, I think, sounds like highly mistu it misunderstood trauma at the time. We didn't have terms for it. We didn't recognize it. It wasn't diagnosable. It was just kind of a, let's blame, in your to your point, we'll blame the wife in this family that she's the problem for domestic violence, not the husband. And do we even understand the husband's trauma history too? Probably not. Like, I mean, both histories, right? They both have a history as to what they're doing.
00:06:40
Speaker
And so we finally identified the term, began to see it, But 40 years later, well, we've probably come a long way. I'm curious, is there anything that still holds true today within the realm of trauma that maybe still needs to be updated, that maybe is still maybe stuck in the 80s or before that you see?
00:07:01
Speaker
I mean, I think in many ways we've come a long way, certainly in terms of public awareness of trauma and trauma.
00:07:14
Speaker
public awareness of gender violence. we We haven't, and and we have, of course, much better epidemiology looking at the prevalence of PTSD, the prevalence of sexual assault, prevalence of intimate partner violence.
00:07:36
Speaker
And so, you know, we now know things like that. You know, probably about 20% of women, close or minus, will have a lifetime experience of sexual assault. About 20 to 25% will have a lifetime experience of intimate partner violence.
00:08:00
Speaker
We know that the the lifetime prevalence of PTSD is about 10%. for women and 5% for men in this country.
Complex PTSD Misdiagnosis and Recognition Needs
00:08:16
Speaker
And that the kinds of traumas that are most likely to produce PTSD are things like childhood abuse, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and for and combat.
00:08:35
Speaker
So in that sense, we the terms of understanding the scope of the problem, I think we're ahead of where we were. Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
It makes me think of the ACE study, right? The adverse child experiences. with yeah Yeah. Really, I think also I really made clear, oh, this is, okay, this is trauma, like neglect and all these other things and what happens.
00:09:00
Speaker
Well, and a much more nuanced understanding of both the health and mental health effects and of trauma, childhood trauma. I think where we're not, well, certainly in this country, we're still behind the rest of the world in terms of recognition of complex PTSD.
00:09:22
Speaker
um I think that's a concept that now has been recognized in the by the World Health Organization and the ICD-11. The the American Psychiatric Association still hasn't seen fit to recognize it.
00:09:42
Speaker
And I think that's unfortunate because I think the diagnosis is still often missed and people, and and because of the syndrome of complex trauma,
00:09:59
Speaker
includes symptoms from so many symptom groups, depression, anxiety, sort of form symptoms, dissociative symptoms, personality disorder or symptoms.
Cultural Embedding of Crimes like Child Abuse
00:10:12
Speaker
People are often, you know, they're, they're treated assault with polypharmacy as, as though they had five, you know, five different kinds of disorder and, you know,
00:10:26
Speaker
or they're treated only for one aspect of the disorder and the connection between the a history of prolonged and repeated trauma and the current symptom picture is not made. And that's a real diagnostic failure.
00:10:47
Speaker
yeah So I think we still have some catching up to do there. and then in terms of accountability, You know, I mean, when you're talking about the kind of prevalence of child abuse, sexual violence, sexual trafficking, domestic violence that that we're talking about, we're talking about crimes that are deeply embedded in the culture and that are not treated, you know, that are nominally
00:11:26
Speaker
on paper, these are felonies. But in reality, there's still an awful lot of, you know, the shame and blame, you know, I mean, there's an awful lot of denial. And um ah and if there is, know, I mean, that's why most survivors do not report to Greece, for example, only about maybe 20, 25% of rape survivors, for example.
00:11:56
Speaker
report to police, and then you see, you know, by the time you get to cases that are result in arrest, result in me a criminal charge, result in a conviction, you're down under 5%. And that's despite the fact that most rapes are committed by people that the victim knows.
00:12:21
Speaker
you know, these are not stranger assaults, right? The victim can identify the perpetrator perfectly well, but you know, if he's a fine young man, you know, a pillar of the community, there's not gonna, you know, it's gonna be well, why were you wearing that dress? Why did you go that party?
00:12:42
Speaker
So we still have a society that re traumatizes victims when they seek and a square of repair or amends.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of layers to this. as you As I'm hearing you talk, I'm thinking, you know, a few things, just processing one, this kind of lagging behindness that we in the States are having with the not identifying complex PTSD and not seeing it. That's one, maybe one systemic piece. It sounds like that is part of this whole, that would then trickle down into the justice centers and complete everything else. And says one thing. So how does that,
00:13:25
Speaker
systemically the role that plays if we don't even see that or identify that, right? That's like the first thing popped in my mind. Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, it comes up with the question that always gets raised, is well, why didn't she just leave?
00:13:42
Speaker
know? And so, you know, in order to understand complex trauma, you have to understand that prolonged and repeated trauma is what you see when you have a relationship established of coercive control.
00:14:04
Speaker
And you need to understand the methods of coercive control. as we so As we say in the battered women's movement, and it's not just the violence. and ah the you know The saying in the battered women's movement men is, good beating is good for a year.
00:14:20
Speaker
you know she'll say things like, I saw that look at his eye and I realized he really could kill me. And after that, he doesn't have to even raise his hand or his voice. He she just he gives her that look.
00:14:36
Speaker
Right. Right. and She has that reaction, right? That automatic.
Coercive Control in Abusive Relationships
00:14:41
Speaker
so Freeze submission reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:47
Speaker
and And with that, how do you see integrating polybagel theory into even just what you just said right there? How does that play a part in what you're seeing, like these trauma responses or survival responses?
00:14:58
Speaker
Well, I think, you know, the a submission response is hardwired in humans and social animals, prey animals.
00:15:10
Speaker
And it is a bagel response. You know, it's, it, in contrast to fight or flight, when you, when neither fight or flight is of any use, and when you're helpless, then the freeze response sets in, the submission response sets in.
00:15:31
Speaker
And, you know, that's recognizable across cultures, the, the bowed head, the broken eye contact, the slumped shoulders, the you know the person tries to be as small as possible and as still as possible you know with the hope that maybe the predator will be appeased. right I think that begins to give understanding though to then, at and and this is where of course there's, I don't think there's a simple one answer. I think there's always multi-layers to when we when we take a human and understand their condition, like why they stuck and why someone might stay in you know I guess the umbrella of an abusive relationship is that to your point, if if appeasement or fawning, if that's my way to survive,
00:16:23
Speaker
Submission. Submission. Like, okay, that's a survival mechanism. And that's why one might stay, quote unquote, stuck or in the relationship when we just say, we'll just leave, right? We have these ideas of leaving, but maybe that's the safest thing in the moment because that's where your body's been stuck. The most dangerous moment for women leaving.
00:16:43
Speaker
a domestic violence relationship is they attempt to leave and often the threat is if you do i will I will hunt you down and I will kill you or I'll kill the kids. Right. And so there's the violence and threat of violence.
00:16:59
Speaker
Then that's not the only method coercive control and there's control of body functioning, bodily functioning. You hear this from political prisoners and torture survivors, and you hear this from abused kids, you know, controlling when the person's sleep deprivation, food deprivation, all people's circadian rhythms get a lot of whack, capricious enforcement of petty rules. We, when Bessel van der Kolk and I did our study of
00:17:32
Speaker
childhood trailman borderline personality disorder with Chris Perry, one of the questions we asked was who made the rules in your family? And did you consider the rules to be fair?
00:17:47
Speaker
And interestingly enough, that really distinguished corporal punishment that was not considered abusive. you know i mean, people would on the one hand would say,
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, she we you you knew what the rules were. and if you And you knew what was going to happen if you brought them. You know, you'd get a weapon or, you know, she'd give you a smack with her bony Irish hand.
00:18:16
Speaker
Forgot that phrase. But that was very different from the patient those subjects who said things like, we never even asked if the rules were fair.
Identity Disturbances from Complex Trauma
00:18:29
Speaker
There were just so many of them, and they kept changing. And sometimes you didn't even know what you did wrong, and you'd get a beating. Yeah, yeah. Or you followed the rules and that still.
00:18:40
Speaker
And then intermittent rewards. One thing he'd say, for sure, and we're sure we were going to get a beating this time. And then he was in a good mood, and he took us all out for ice cream.
00:18:52
Speaker
yeah So there's those four methods which break a person's spirit. And then there are the last three, isolation, degradation, and forcing people to violate their own moral principles.
00:19:08
Speaker
And those three break a personality, you know create such profound shame and guilt and the sense of a contaminated identity.
00:19:22
Speaker
and People, and they're not just grateful being for being allowed to live, but they don't feel they deserve to live.
00:19:34
Speaker
So, you know, that's what you see. So the disturbances in identity formation and relationships are what we see most saliently in complex PTSD. And, you know, a lot of that is still misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder.
00:19:54
Speaker
And of course, dissociative disorders are missed, and easily missed as well. You know, I think we're still... not serving our complex trauma patients very well.
00:20:07
Speaker
And hearing that, you know, when think of polyvagal theory too, is that it makes sense why we might have certain reactions for the need to survive and why you can't just flip a switch sometimes because of all the different layers that most most that are stuck, they're facing, right? There's so many different layers of threat from physiological to emotional, just, you know, relational to financial to so spiritual. I mean, every really all aspects of one's life I mean, political prisoners who are aware of these methods.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah. They'll teach each other simple hy hypnotic techniques to withstand torture. And they'll do things like going on hunger strikes to get letters from home.
00:20:55
Speaker
Because they know that if they allow themselves to be totally isolated and their captors will say, your friends and supporters don't care about you anymore.
Addressing Accountability: 'Truth and Repair'
00:21:09
Speaker
They've forgotten you, but they betrayed you.
00:21:12
Speaker
Then you know that's when the despair sets in. And when we think of those that have gone through this in the work you've done and all the work you've maybe seen in research and personal experience, like what, because you mentioned this earlier, kind of hint or hinted at this, is what forms of accountability that either is happening or you think would need to happen that would actually promote healing with like kind of gender-based violence, like whether it's women getting the violence toward or men having violence towards them, like what do you think would be real accountability that would really lead towards true healing here?
00:21:50
Speaker
Well, you know, that's the that's the question I really tried to address in my most recent book, Truth and Repair, which I thought of as a sequel to Trauma and Recovery.
00:22:05
Speaker
i mean, the argument, if you know I made the basic argument in Trauma and Recovery is that trauma is a social problem, not just an individual psychological problem.
00:22:17
Speaker
You know, the violence that they... part of trauma is violent crime. and if that is indeed And that's a social justice problem, not just an individual problem. And so I did to explore the question of what would real accountability look like since we don't have it, yes i I interviewed 30 people
00:22:47
Speaker
survivors of gender violence, 26 women and four men. And I asked them, what would if if you could write the script, what would make things right for you or as right as possible? you know I chose gender violence, A, because that's the population I've worked with most of my my my clinical work.
00:23:11
Speaker
And B, because you know it it like the UN estimates it as the most prevalent form of human rights violation in the world.
00:23:22
Speaker
But my argument is that this could apply to any deeply embedded system of dominance and subordination, whether that dominance is based on gender or race or social class or caste or religion.
00:23:44
Speaker
And the the p ah but people I interviewed were a convenient sample. They were not a random sample I just kind of put out the word among my professional network. So I'd like to talk with anybody who ah wants to think out loud about justice.
00:24:05
Speaker
So the 30 people, I think they they ah were a pretty diverse group in terms of a lot of demographics, class background, geographic background, religious background, race. But they were more highly educated, i would say, than the general population, which is kind of what you would expect if you you know you have a highly educated professional network that's you know and you're not interviewing patients.
00:24:36
Speaker
Also, they had a lot more personal experience with the justice system than the general population made. About half of them had experienced either is civil or criminal court.
00:24:53
Speaker
So they had sought justice in some form. The three things they wanted were acknowledgement, apology, and amends.
Community Support and Acknowledgment for Survivors
00:25:06
Speaker
And they wanted them more from the bystanders than from the perpetrators. in terms of of the bystan they They wanted the bystanders to say, to acknowledge the facts, to acknowledge the harm, and to vindicate them, to say that happened, that was harmed you, you know, because always the perpetrator's first defense is always denial. Never happened. The woman's crazy, you know.
00:25:40
Speaker
She made it all up because she's just after money, you know, or whatever. And then if there's DNA evidence or whatever, oh well, so why that was happened years ago? Why, is you know, why is she still whining about this, you know?
00:25:57
Speaker
Let's let bygones be bygones, you So yes, it happened, and yes, it did harm, and it and yes, it was wrong. and and And you did not deserve to be treated that way. So they want the blame and shame lifted from their shoulders and placed on the shoulders of the perpetrator where he walks. And that was unanimous, 30 out of 30.
00:26:27
Speaker
of my informants wanted that. Well, that's interesting. i wonder what that tells you that the all 30 wanted that, not necessarily from the perpetrator, but from, I'm guessing not just bystanders, but my assumption, and maybe I'm reading into this, my assumption is not just a random bystander. Yes, but maybe friends, family, people close.
00:26:44
Speaker
Family, friendship network, you know, whatever their community was. Yeah. um That's fascinating that all of them, that was the one thing. Yeah.
00:26:56
Speaker
And then people were ambivalent about apology. may Again, more of them wanted apologies from the bystanders who let them down or who blamed them or who looked the other way.
00:27:11
Speaker
those i mean there were some wonderful stories of people who not only wanted but got apologies. They were relatively rare.
Victim Compensation and Support Systems
00:27:21
Speaker
and many people said, i don't want an apology because I don't believe that he could ever be sincere, you know, and the, and the insincere apology would just feel like adding insult to injury.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah. So they were mixed on apology. They were mixed on amends in terms of any kind of financial compensation because especially for people who've been trafficked, um,
00:27:53
Speaker
they It felt like they were being bought. It felt like being bought off. but And most people didn't don't know about this, but some of them said, you know, there should be a ah ah fund where, you know, I've spent so much money on doctors and, and um you know, mental health care and There should be like a victim compensation fund.
00:28:19
Speaker
It isn't just money out of the pocket of the perpetrator. In fact, there is such a thing. The Victims of Crime Act that was passed actually under Ronald Reagan as a law and order you know measure.
00:28:35
Speaker
It set up a federal trust fund and also state trust funds based on fines on criminal offenders. And the money from that trust fund goes to serve victims, which I think of as a very progressive sort of community solution.
00:28:53
Speaker
yeah And it goes for three purposes. It will fund direct victim compensation for victims time lost from work or medical expenses.
00:29:07
Speaker
It pays for victim witness advocates in the courts to make the justice system more victim friendly. And it pays for crisis services for victims like rape crisis centers And survivor representatives serve on the advisory boards that allocate the funds.
00:29:29
Speaker
So at our Victims of Violence program, Cambridge Hospital, for example, we had VOCA money that went to our homicide bereavement service at a service for families who've lost And it was free, completely free. And it included home visiting and group support and stuff like that.
Restorative Justice vs. Adversarial Legal Systems
00:29:53
Speaker
And it also paid for hospital-based victim advocates, which I thought was a terrific idea. yeah Because, you know, bad woman or a rape victim comes into the emergency room.
00:30:07
Speaker
The dogs don't know what to do. Yeah. You know. Oh, yeah, you fell down the stairs, you walked into a door, right. You know, the injuries are not not compatible with the story. right But, you know, we're supposed to ask mad these days about domestic violence, but a lot of the docs are extremely busy. They don't ask because if they get a yes, oh, boy, that's, um you know, they don't know what to do. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:36
Speaker
versus you know if you have an advocate based at the ER, they'd know exactly what to do. right ah Things like that. so i ah so So if there's that kind of restitution, yes, people were all for it.
00:30:53
Speaker
And they were not big on punishment. they They were also not big on forgiveness. What they wanted was was the communities to do whatever was necessary to prevent this from happening again.
00:31:10
Speaker
Was there any ideas on that, like specifically what they, because I think it's an important piece is that not so much. Yeah, I mean, it's not about so the perpetrator. It's more about the, like, how can we be better and do different? Like, it's really not the person doing It's, hey, we got to help each other out here.
00:31:26
Speaker
I mean, there were actually six people out of these 30 who had gone all the way through a criminal trial and testified and been cross-examined and went through this whole adversarial ordeal that resulted in a conviction.
00:31:44
Speaker
So that's a much higher percentage than the average. yeah And they said things like, well, I just, I had to do it because I couldn't live on myself if found out he'd done this to somebody else because I was too chicken too.
00:32:02
Speaker
come forward. yeah but they weren't be you know So if they thought prison was the only way that to prevent this from happening to somebody else, but they didn't think punishment was going to help them.
00:32:17
Speaker
And they wanted more of the justices to be focused on what was going to help them. yeah One of my informants was a woman who had been a victim she was a Protestant minister, and but she was also a survivor of intimate partner violence.
00:32:41
Speaker
And she remembered having, you know, gone to her pastor and being advised, you know, you should turn the other cheek and it's your job to keep the family together and keep the peace.
00:32:57
Speaker
So she founded a an organization called Interfaith Partnership on Domestic Violence to educate clergy and about, you know, and you can't do couples counseling. with You know, she said two things that I've never heard about. One was she quoted another survivor as saying, I turn the other cheek and turn the other cheek, and now I have no face left. Yeah.
00:33:30
Speaker
Yeah. And the other thing she said was, I've yet to hear anyone say, i am setting limits because I am a Christian. Yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
Wow. hello I thought she really nailed it. Yeah, no, I, yeah, when any, again, it's like the misuse of power, right? we Whether it's privilege or, i think all things you named earlier is whether it's so socioeconomic, it's gender, it's religion, it's when we misuse power and we don't actually work with humanity at the core, human to human, right?
Survivors' Challenges in Legal Systems
00:34:08
Speaker
And all that stuff gets lost. And I mean, even hearing what the what these individuals wanted was the human recognition that this was real, this happened, that we're sorry we didn't see. like And then they wanted limits set on perpetrator so they couldn't abuse their power.
00:34:27
Speaker
Which makes sense. And I'm wondering, is that where the justice, I mean, I guess the legal system or justice system is that, I guess, what's one thing that you see that the current system is doing well for recovery? And like, what's one thing that you see right now where it's, that's kind of harming it still?
00:34:43
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's easier to identify the harmful side. I mean, I once took a course on how to be an expert witness at the American Psychiatric annual meeting.
00:34:58
Speaker
And the the instructor was a very experienced forensic psychiatrist. The first thing he did in the morning, was but he put up a big slide of the Hatfields and the McCoys, mountain men with their big bushy mustaches and their rifles across their near. He's looking very fierce.
00:35:23
Speaker
He said, why don't we have courts of law? You may think we have courts to read out justice or to ascertain the truths.
00:35:36
Speaker
Those are very naive assumptions, he said. The real reason we have courts is to resolve disputes without firearms. But short of physical attack, any sort of hostile attack any any sort of hostile attack is these are adversarial systems. And so you know if you're going to be an expert witness, prepared to have be prepared to have your credibility challenged, your competence challenged.
00:36:11
Speaker
If you have any skeletons in your closet that are going to dig up dirt, just prepare to be slimed and harassed and bullied.
00:36:22
Speaker
with all the professional credentials and protection that you have. So you can imagine what it's like for survivors. Oh, yeah. I sometimes say that if you wanted to create a setting that would be guarantee guaranteed to exacerbate symptoms of PTSD, court of law would be perfect.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah. yeah So I think in terms of any experimentation with making the courts more victim friendly, i think we're just in a very experimental moment. We don't have very successful models as yet. I mean, I think we have some diversion models that have immigrated more restorative justice concepts where the the outcome that the, I mean, what restorative justice promises is not punishment, but repair of harm.
Experimental Justice Models for Harm Repair
00:37:31
Speaker
And it's a much more, it's ah it's a consensus system rather than an adversarial system. um So some courts have diverted some cases to a more restorative I think they're experimenting with that a lot on college campuses for um sexual assault on college campuses. Again, clearly there are some perpetrators who are the victim has to be willing.
00:38:02
Speaker
And there are repeat offenders, offenders who used weapon or premeditated offenders, things like that.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah. ah probably wouldn't qualify, but there are some interesting models being developed experimentally, both in the courts and outside of the courts that address some, can you know, can offer healing in some cases, but I don't think we have a one source fits all.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, as I think about that, you know, so far leading to this point, If you could steer the field, if you could wave a wand, you know get your wand out and you know wave across, if you could steer the field for the next decade, what would you prioritize within this kind of this sphere of justice and trauma and helping survivors? If you could, and you might spell this out in your book, i haven't read it yet, but I might need to. But yeah, if you could, what would that be? If you could steer it, where would you take us?
00:39:05
Speaker
Well, I think I would probably focus most on prevention. and urban intervention. I mean, we have now some very good database prevention models that involve early intervention with high-risk bonds and you know with 20-year prospective thought clubs, and they pay for themselves 20 times over in 20 years.
00:39:34
Speaker
But it's very hard to get political buy-in Women and children are not exactly a powerful lobby. I would also, I mean, there's a lot of school-based prevention stuff that's very interesting too, including self-defense training. There's a model called Impact Model Mugging that has some random, interesting randomized controlled trials of grade school and young teenager based after school programs that either just had health education or had a self-defense component.
00:40:19
Speaker
And guess what? a Self-defense was a very effective. So also because I think it really helps people with the socialized freeze response, appeasement response, freeze response. you know They teach girls how to yell.
00:40:44
Speaker
And interestingly, I mean, the girls who seem to be most successful as rape avoiders are those who've been involved in contact sports or who had brothers and did lots of you know, wrestling aren't afraid of, yeah don't just go into the submission response. But fighting back and maybe having clear boundaries too within those healthy families, I'm assuming, because you have that rough and tough play, like like rough and tumble play, but then you play you can still say, no, okay, that's too much. Now let's engage and have and be able to say something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah
00:41:24
Speaker
That's interesting, the research of that, of that that these create strengths and barriers to like becoming a victim. um Yeah, and I think the main thing I heard too, as I think about just our talk today, is the major piece is not so much the perpetrator, but the community and relationships at large. The recognition one of, as a whole system of a country, like CPTSD is number one, which then trickles down into the layman, every the everyday person of recognizing, oh, that's oh that's trauma. Oh, okay. So instead of looking at the lens of like a loved one or someone who's like, just get out, Well, there might be some truth of, yeah, we want to get you out, but we've got to look at the reality of why someone might be stuck and how do we understand that from an integrative, humanistic, like human-centered model, nervous system awareness model of it makes sense.
Community's Role in Trauma Recovery and Justice
00:42:12
Speaker
And we need to recognize this as the community around this person. Yeah. Yeah. to help to do things differently, to bring awareness and prevention and make amends and heal and grow, which is vitally important because it's all about relationships in the end. And we've got to really see the humanity in this.
00:42:29
Speaker
and but You know, when when people grieve, yeah and the trauma, you know, a greatest grief is about body change. And the survivors who say, where was my mom?
00:42:43
Speaker
yeah well Yeah. Why didn't you say so? I've actually anecdotally have heard that comment in many different ways in my office working with survivors of trauma and assault. And many times I've heard that. Where was dad or where was mom or where was...
00:42:59
Speaker
i Holocaust survivors saying, where was the world? You know, where people, hello, we need people. It's it's people, right? We need we need people to to see us and to to say, yes, my experiences was real.
00:43:12
Speaker
And I think about as we pivot to kind of close today, you recently released a new book. Could you show us that book and where can we get this book to kind of read up on this? Right.
00:43:24
Speaker
Truth and Repair by Dr. Judith Herman. And when did this come out? 2023. 2023, yeah. and where Where's the best place to get it, Dr. Herman? Oh, gosh. you could I mean, you can get it anywhere. Just Google it. I mean, the the publisher is Basic Books Hachette, but that means, you know, you can just Google it online. and yeah And you can get it, you know, as an audio or an e-book or a paperback.
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And what's the, if you could say one thing from the heart that you would leave our audience with say today, what would you leave us with as we close out?
00:44:02
Speaker
Well, I like to channel my mother who was a a psychologist, researcher, and a psychoanalyst. lafullo Did a lot of the early work on shame and guilt and moral emotions.
00:44:18
Speaker
Hmm. And she used to say, pick your battles, but stay engaged. Activism is the antidote to despair.
00:44:30
Speaker
Right now, I think that's especially true. I love that. Pick your battles. Activism is the antidote to despair. Thank you for sharing those words from your your mother and passing this down to all of us here today. And Dr. Herman, I appreciate your contribution and impact on the world of psychology and psychiatry and trauma and justice. And and my hope is that just like your hope is that we continue to grow and and catch up and and not just catch up, but move beyond catching up and actually maybe be the do some forerunning here and and make some waves that are for the better of humanity here for the victims and really I would say for the perpetrator as well.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's for all of us. It's it's everybody. It's not just if we do the healing for all then really We can get rid of some of these things. We don't need them because actually we're we're treating humanity with justice and respect and equity and all these things. So I'm so grateful for your time today to bless us with your your wisdom and your words and your contribution. So thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes, and have a wonderful day.
00:45:36
Speaker
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00:45:51
Speaker
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00:46:03
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:46:27
Speaker
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