"You can't learn from experiences you aren't having."
— Walt Disney
As the anti-aircraft shells pierced the wings of my father's B-17 on his last mission over Germany in 1945, he knew his ship was doomed. With fuel gushing from the wing tanks, my father — age 23 at the time — gave the order for his eight-person crew to bail out. Lucky for them, and me, they all survived to tell the story.
But as psychologists know, not everyone who experiences a potentially traumatic event will tell his or her story. Was dad scarred by the extended and repeated wartime exposures to death and destruction? Did he resume his life fully when the war ended? Our family thought he did. Dad often talked about his frightening wartime experiences. But some veterans, particularly those who served in World War II and the Korean conflict, don't talk about their experiences.
Trauma is, unfortunately, an all-too-common experience. Accidents, illnesses, divorce and death are everyday experiences. Natural disasters, terrorism and physical and sexual abuse upend people's lives. In the United States, conservative estimates indicate that up to 60 percent of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes (Kessler et al., 2005). According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans is 6.8 percent. Some surveys suggest that women (10.4 percent) are more than twice as likely as men (5 percent) to have PTSD at some point in their lives. Among children and adolescents, a recent study found that up to 71 percent of 12 to 17-year-olds had been exposed to one or more victimization incidents in the past year.
Surveys of Vietnam veterans show a much higher trauma prevalence of 30 percent; Gulf War and Iraq War veterans are closer to 12 percent or 13 percent.
The consequences of trauma can be severe. Trauma is associated with physical health problems (such as heart, chronic lung and liver diseases), negative health behaviors (smoking, sexually transmitted disease and severe obesity), poor social and occupational functioning, and overall decreased quality of life. Traumatic exposure is also implicated as a risk factor for major mental disorders, including depression, substance abuse/dependence and PTSD. Most researchers agree that the common symptoms of PTSD are reliving the event in intrusive thoughts, avoiding situations that may remind a person of the event, negative changes in feelings and beliefs, and hyper-arousal. While my father often spoke of his wartime experiences, he didn't express any symptoms, as many of his veteran colleagues did.
Fortunately, most people who experience a single potentially traumatic event do not have long-term negative consequences. However, a substantial minority develop health difficulties. As psychologists know, it is how we respond to these challenges — our resilience — that defines who we are.
Last year, I saw resilience up close and personal at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma. I was a panelist discussing the aftermath of gun violence. Another panelist was Nicole Hockley, whose 6-year-old son, Dylan, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Nicole was making connections, taking decisive action and working through her trauma and her grief, one day at a time.
Psychologists are skilled at helping people build such resilience and mend psychological wounds with such evidenced-based interventions as cognitive behavioral therapy. APA is also dedicated to preventing and helping to heal trauma. Two groups spearhead APA's work on trauma. APA's Div. 56 (Trauma Psychology) is just one of APA's focal points for research, practice, policy development and education on trauma. In addition, APA's Disaster Response Network is a network of licensed and specially trained psychologist volunteers who help individuals and communities prepare, respond and recover from disasters.
In an uncertain world, you never know when you might get shot down. As psychologists and APA know, the challenge is to seek the support you need to pick yourself up.
