Page 232 - Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience

Fundamentals of Working With (Re)traumatized Populations 201

demand for rapid return to apparent normality, is an important example
of how the societal need to return to normality may interfere with the
needs of its individual members. This conspiracy of silence is detrimental
to the survivors’ familial and sociocultural (re)integration by intensifying
their already profound sense of isolation and mistrust of society. It fur-
ther impedes the possibility of their intrapsychic integration and healing
and makes the task of mourning their losses impossible. Fixity may ren-
der chronic the immediate reactions to trauma (e.g., acute stress disorder)
and, in the extreme, become life-long (Danieli, 1997) post-trauma/vic-
timization adaptational styles (Danieli, 1985). This occurs when survival
strategies generalize to a way of life and become an integral part of one’s
personality, repertoire of defense, or character armor. Fixity may cause
subsequent trauma to be more damaging, increasing the probability of a
maladaptive response to subsequent traumatic events, such as disasters.
As mentioned above, there are both psychological and biological founda-
tions for this increase in vulnerability due to fixity, which are beyond the
scope of this discussion.
The current diagnostic framework, while an improvement over prior
conceptualizations, is still evolving and is as yet incomplete, unfortunately
often to the detriment of those we seek to help. Recognition of the pos-
sible long-term impact of trauma on one’s personality and adaptation and
the intergenerational transmission of victimization-related pathology still
await explicit inclusion in future editions of the diagnostic nomenclature.
Importantly, and often overlooked, conceptualizing disaster work as
repairing the rupture and thereby freeing the flow usually does not mean
“going back to normal.” Clinging to or encouraging the possibility of
“returning to normal” may indicate denial of the survivors’ experiences
and, thereby, intensify fixity and delay the posttraumatic healing process.
Based on extensive international experience (Danieli, Rodley, & Weisacth,
1996) and my “Trauma and the Continuity of Self: A Multi dimensional,
Multidisciplinary, Integrative (TCMI) Framework” (Danieli, 1998; Danieli,
Engdahl, & Schlenger, 2003; Danieli, Brom, & Sills, 2005), immediately fol-
lowing 9/11, I (Danieli, 2001) suggested that, more than ever, issues related
to the time dimension (process, rather than short-term, premature, but
superficially reassuring resolution) emerged as paramount. First was the
imperative to resist the culturally prevalent impulse to do something, any-
thing, to find quick fixes, to focus on outcome rather than process, to all
too swiftly look for closure, and flee “back to normal,” leaving important
psychological, emotional, and spiritual work unfinished. Second, acknowl-
edging that there will be long-term, even multigenerational, effects of the