Yes, there are states/communities that claim to be trauma-informed but are not practicing it. They have documents up on their websites touting how trauma-informed they are and then when it comes down to a consumer’s experience they just retraumatize sufferers over and over again. There are no words for this great disappointment. And then people wonder why people with mental health challenges don’t seek treatment. The challenge with the trauma-informed movement is to change people’s hearts, a difficult thing to do when our culture is driven so much by the intellect.
It’s horrible to hear about the use of S/R. I’ve heard they use it in my community, too, and the practitioners dismiss information about TIC and claim they “need” to use S/R. It only makes a person worse.
I have, also, heard the mayor of San Francisco address his interest in a version of using involuntary legal commitments and forced treatment orders, too. I was stunned. In California, it’s called
Laura’s Law. Psych survivors do not support it.
Those in power can be very averse to acknowledging the realities of trauma. That was my intention in sharing the information about the military’s quiet agenda on dismissing it. I know professionals who have worked at the VA and there is definitely a system in place to deny the real effects of trauma, as I said for monetary reasons. Humans weren’t biologically designed for war (or rape, or to live in constant fear, etc.). But this is the last thing the military-industrial complex wants to acknowledge. As you know much of the research on PTSD has been and is being done by the military. And from what I understand they have a lot of power over how the DSM is written.
If you or others are interested there’s a great interview with Dr. Bryant Welch (first Executive Director for Professional Practice of the American Psychological Association, clinical psychologist, & attorney) that talks about how the system does not want to acknowledge these truths. He was, also, cited in that PBS link I provided.
Sorry for not being clearer in my previous post. I was in a rush when I wrote it. My point was, and is, to illustrate the bigger context, the outside-of-the-box context, of how mental health/illness is, and really is not, addressed from the societal power structure that is in place. With the DSM-5 debut last week, the time is ripe for understanding how our psychiatric system/mentality is flawed. Mad Matters and Saving Normal are two books that, I’m sure, will add richly to the conversation.
Hopefully the trauma-informed movement will be able to change social norms around how people parent, communicate with, and treat one another. And the amount of money our society spends on the fallout from ACEs will hopefully have an effect on policymaking.
Like the Dalai Lama said “if we look at our problems with a focus on the oneness of humanity, it will eliminate many of the man-made problems like war and wealth inequality.”