Might I rephrase the question slightly to ask `how could a Phd in Politics not be interested in the ACE Study?!' Since learning of this extraordinary ongoing work, it has informed not only my own work but my perception of the world. A colleague once remarked that there are courses of study which have the effect of putting on 3-D glasses. I am one of countless numbers of people for whom, on encountering the ACE Study, the world does not look the same.
On leaving my lectureship in Politics over a decade ago to (re)train as a counsellor, I naively thought I was moving away from political concerns. In fact clinical practice underlined the importance of `macro' processes to the `individual' distress with which health professionals engage. Two enduring legacies of the western political tradition are the privileging of individualism, and stark counterposing of dimensions that are deeply intertwined (mind/body; intellect/emotion; public/private). The ACE Study shows the untenability of both these assumptions. In establishing the trajectory of `individual' childhood coping mechanisms to `public' adult health problems (and the devastating effects on mind and body) it dissolves the dichotomies on which so much of our social organization is still based.
The (re)formulations of `problem as solution' and `listening is doing' themselves have implications which go far beyond the immediate context to which they are so revealingly applied. Indeed, they question the bases on which we classify per se. To actualize the paradigm shift it represents, Vincent suggests that impediments to implementation of the ACE Study need to be identified. This will entail political dimensions at a range of levels, both overt and invisible. As Judith Herman highlighted in her own landmark study, trauma has only ever reached wider public consciousness in the context of a political movement.
I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting Vincent when visiting the US late last month. The ACE Study comprised a key component of the research base for the Complex Trauma Guidelines I presented to the Annual Conference of the ISSTD in Long Beach the day before our meeting (see previous post and Q & A with Dr Cathy Kezelman). We in Australia look forward to contributing to operationalization of the ACE Study in as many contexts as possible and in whatever ways we can.
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