Listen now (32 min) | Dr. Judith Herman’s book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, as The New York Times wrote, is “one of the most important psychiatric works published since Freud.” It is the foundational text, along with The Body Keeps Score, written by Dr. Herman’s close collaborator Bessel van der Kolk, for understanding trauma and how to treat it. Trauma is widespread in American society, not only among veterans that fought in our forever wars, but in millions of homes across the country beset by domestic and sexual violence. One in five Americans was sexually molested as a child. One in four was beaten by a parent to the point of a mark being left on their body. One in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic relatives. One out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit. The consequence of this trauma is personal and social. It impels people, Dr. Herman writes, both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. It results in a profound disruption in basic trust. It induces feelings of shame, guilt and inferiority, as well as the need to avoid reminders of the trauma that occur in daily life. Trauma compromises the capacity for intimacy. Trauma can dramatically reduce focus to extremely limited goals, often a matter of hours or days. It often engenders the survivor triad of insomnia, nightmares and psychosomatic illnesses. Chronic trauma can result in a paralysis of initiative, feelings of apathy, helplessness and depression. And it can see survivors, to blunt the pain of the trauma, engage in a variety of self-destructive behaviors, a retreat into drugs, alcohol and self-harm, including suicide. In short, repeated trauma forms and deforms the personality, especially when this trauma occurs in childhood. Trauma is of epidemic proportions in the U.S. The failure to address our trauma has grave individual, social and political consequences. In the first of two-parts Dr. Herman, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and cofounder of the Victims of Violence Program, discusses her book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Next week we will discuss her new book Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice.
I have books by Dr. Herman, Dr. van der Kolk, and Dr. Gabor Mate'. I also know about trauma through family of origin, the experience of growing up in Indian Country, and being a resident manager of transitional housing for people who'd been homeless. Being homeless is so horrific in itself that even if someone didn't have prior mental issues, they almost certainly will after.
Post-traumatic reactions are often characterized as some fault within the sufferer. Why don't they just get over themselves and get it together? For one, as any mental health worker knows, there are very few resources, especially for poor and marginalized people. Worse yet, the negatives become physically hard wired. And, as Gabor Mate' keeps repeating, the self harm and drug abuse are answers for absolutely unbearable pain.
Right wing types blame poor personal choices. They cite the few who've overcome nearly insurmountable odds as if that should be enough. Why yes! The loser kids should have chosen to be born into families with a good income in a neighborhood with good schools to people who nurtured and encouraged them. Instead of to people who beat, raped, and psychologically abused them.
Misunderstanding doesn't stop there. A few weeks ago, probably on Consortium News, I read a piece on homelessness. A comment insisted that drugs had to be controlled first; the idea being that drugs cause addiction. Obviously not, or every casual user would become an addict. The actual root of the problem is hellish life-long trauma for which there is little relief but heavy self medicating.
The only effective method of dealing with the crisis is to do as much as possible to prevent such devastating trauma from happening. But as long as the dominant econopathy and continuing wars of Empire (and occupation) last, the suffering will continue.
This is very interesting and look forward to the second part. I understand her focus is violence-caused trauma. I have read that neglect is also a form of abuse and leaves serious imprints on those children who were suffered serious neglect in their childhood. I would be interested in hearing if there is any cross-over of the kinds of trauma that these children experience and those who suffered from violent or sexual abuse? I know this is recorded, but just thought perhaps putting the question out might get some thoughtful replies.
Colleges - regardless of place and status - provide places for rape and sexual assault when they maintain male dominated spaces. It doesn't matter if it's a "Final Club" at Harvard or a sleepy, idyllic campus on the Oregon coast with a handful of fraternities or a male soccer team.
Our society needs to restructure and eliminate these spaces and colleges make sense as the place to start.
Thank you Chris Hedges once again. Being a son of a Father whom watched his mother be abused leaves a void of understanding in my past. I also have a close friend and know of many other through my counciling whom suffered abuse. Probably the worst thing Covid did was bring home abusive Parents and Step Parents. The disparity in wages with poor and middle class fuels the fears in lesser Parents whom take out their fear on the vunerable around them. In a culture that fuels War we give to much power to those who think violence is the way. Choosing Civility seems further and further away from Americans grasp as our rent seeking Aligarchs seek the world's destruction.
Chris, sorry to be a bit off topic, but I rote this comment to your alma mater many years ago with respect to the greatest/worst form of looting by the deceitful and disguised method 'Negative Externality Cost' LOOTING OUR WORLD society.
As I noted to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, in my third letter, on Global Climate Destruction and its crony capitalist economic cause of gaming 'negative externality cost' pumping and dumping:
"some of these major market manipulators are also ‘gaming’ or un-seriously using the ’name game’ of simply shifting the terms SRI to ESG to — God knows what — while still not addressing the bad market practices of dumping massive ’Negative Externality Costs” onto unsuspecting smaller market participants and the general American citizenry in order to hide and make excessive false/faux-profits by dumping/LOOTING costs.”
[Snip]
"moving to seriously change this dangerous market activity to a safe and fully documented posture could involve a candid and accurately disciplined action on the now hidden “Negative Externality Cost’ problem, implementing the acronym of PEP (Positive Externality Profits) for corporations which adhere to a path of making profits through spawning “Positive Externality Profits” on constructive products and services that do not harm our shared economic strength and competitiveness" Seriously employing PEP would help save our shared environment as I wrote yesterday to the "Times”:
GINI Coefficient of Wealth INEQUALITY because of the “The Quiet American” duopoly EMPIRE which is only interested in LOOTING our World.
BTW the GINI Coefficient of Wealth INEQUALITY in America is the Highest/Worst in the World, at 0.915, having just pasted Russia’s 0.879 (after America has looted Russia by ’Sanctions’.
You view her using the Kavanaugh anecdote as being more about him and less about her. When I see it’s a teaching moment about the quality of traumatized consciousness producing a very different kind of memory than the Untraumatized ordinary narrative consciousness. And it is interesting that you’re incensed by what you seem to see as her cluelessness or even intentionality to denigrate Mr Kavanaugh. Contrastingly,
I see the clinician’s mind - an experts mind - assessing the veracity of the woman’s publicly shared traumatic assault experience - asking herself -what do I see in her testimony
that tells me she is telling the truth of being sexually assaulted? Fran - You and I have very different perceptions. Just like that Psych 101 when an actor burst into the room makes a racket then leaves. The students then share their perceptions. All different.
Dr Gabor Maté’s books and YouTube presentations along the sane psychic geography are excellent. So glad Chris through this interview is spreading the word.
Do you think that bringing Kavanaugh, a politically charged case, into this exchange with Hedges who has his own political biases, helped or hindered the cause of dealing with the reality of sexual abuse of women, and children? Was it necessary? I thought it operated to the detriment of this cause. This whole issue is extremely important and could have stood on it's own without introducing political biases, and no doubt it was meant to appeal to a certain audience. However on this issue her audience should have been all inclusive.
Given personal and professional experience with traumas’ impact,hearing truth, experience, knowledge and authenticity draws us -magnetically - like a beacon of light for personal liberation. I doubt the introduction of a political bias is destructive. Just more information.
Look I worked as a therapist, have a degree in clinical counseling and organized a group around this very issue back in the 1980s, so you are not talking to some ignorant know nothing. When ever you politicize a topic like this you do no one any favors, and if your claim of having a background in dealing with this type of trauma is true you would know better especially in today's highly politicized environment. She should have known better as well, and regardless of the accusations no definitive proof was submitted that said he was guilty, and he was nominated to be on the supreme court. Why risk the possibility of alienating any audience for such a reason. Maybe she just thought Hedge's audience would be someone who would give her a thumbs up on her accusations, especially since he was a Trump nominee who was catholic.
Many abused victims are all tangled up in self hate, guilt and shame. And strive to normalize the abnormal and wonder why they can’t.The anecdote about the woman abused by Kavanaugh is most helpful for it authenticates the veracity of the abuse. That the memory of the abused has a specific character. Emotive-Sense based not cognitive narratable story. telling. An input using Kavanaugh anecdote that affirms you are not crazy if you don’t have access to rational data like dates and location. The point was about the distinctive character of memory of a victim. This expert is not foisting a political sword but using discrimination to enlighten us about a characteristic symptommatic of abuse. Excellent point!
You weave a tangled web in presenting the experience of sexual abuse, or more generalized abuse experienced by both children and adults, which doesn't matter since you miss my point. The purpose of her work is not only understanding and working with children and adults of abuse, but to encourage public support and have them understand the consequences of abuse inflicted on those that are, and why turn off a segment of your audience with politics that reflect your own personal political biases. As they say there is a time and place for everything, and this was not the time or place to bring up Kavanaugh. There is no need for you to inform me of the consequences that people suffer as a result of abuse.
You keep worrying this particular point Fran - and though it pains me to ask - is there something in the Kavanaugh story which intersects with your own trauma?
If you read my responses you would know I worked with people traumatized by incest. Nothing personal here. If you want people to empathize with the victimization of these people then you don't introduce politics, especially one-sided politics, and I think that should be obvious to anyone with any degree of sensitivity on this issue. If she want's to elicit an empathetic response and remain focused on the victim then you leave politics out of it.
But I don't see why the names of the Ayatollahs - Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh should not be mentioned - at the very top of the US legal system - two men sit - both pretty reliably accused of sex crimes! It's what Chris and his guest were speaking about. It only seems to be a problem for you if you are in fact a supporter of that situation. I can't figure out any other reason - it's clearly an obsession for you. I hope you can find your way to some peace with these issues.
If Thomas and Kavanaugh were "reliably accused" (whatever that means) of sex crimes, then they'd have both been arrested, convicted, and sentenced. Neither were. In my opinion, both were slandered in hopes of a successful political hit job to keep them off the SC. On both accounts, the orchestrators failed, and that is why slander charges were not pursued.
It seems you are now slandering the women who with nothing to gain told the world of what they had endured and lived with as a result of these two men now sitting on the Supreme Court and ideologically aligned with illiberals passing judgement on things such as the right to abortion. You are making no sense.
I'm not finished listening, and will listen to the end, and I do appreciate the kind of work Dr. Judith Herman’has done in bringing this issue into public awareness. We were doing fine until the unnecessary comment about Kavanaugh as being a sexual predator, and guilty based on Christine Blasey Ford's claims, even though this case from the beginning was politically charged, and he was not held accountable in regard to the charges she brought against him. To deviate from the main issue in this regard and make it political is the height of stupidity.
Fran, you are showing a lot of courage here. I admit to surprise that she brought it up but her larger point was that Christine Blasey Ford's memory of sounds and sensations in her description of the assault was, for Herman, classic for a person recalling a traumatic memory. I believe, editorially, there was a purposeful decision to put the observation in or leave it in. It's pretty plain the Kavanaugh is untouchable and so nothing will happen to Kavanaugh. But for women who may have been assaulted by someone with power over them, it is a fairly powerful anecdote. And maybe that is who Hedges and Herman are most concerned about.
One of the difficulties in assessing victims of ET intervention may be that while diseases have symptoms, what do traumatic experiences have, if there is little in the way of accessible memory of the events which caused the trauma? A disease is to its symptoms as a traumatic event is to.. what? Abduction is not a disease, it is something undergone; but the average family doctor would not likely have a good list of what results in the life of the experiencer. Can they diagnose it if it’s not a disease? The presence of trauma might be clear, it’s source less so. From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk it seems to me that the body might remember events like transfers into and out of artificial gravity, and reproduce such movements in dreams tied to what are known as “screen” memories, where more familiar modes of travel are dreamed of to substitute for the incomprehensible, but with anomalous types of motion for the type of vehicle In the dream. Episodes of existential dread, above and beyond the anomalous physical shaking, and odd snatches of the victim seeing themselves in snapshots of memory where their surroundings cannot be placed, may be involved. Then there are the previously unnoticed skin lesions, which in the medical canon of great knowledge must, if they are not one thing, be another. But the doctors can’t rightly say where they might originate if the patient can’t tell them themself.
As I mentioned in my main comment, I've read the experts on severe trauma and and I know something about it from first hand experience. Because you raised the subject, reluctantly I'm going to out myself as an "abductee." Marks around the word because after studying the subject since the '60s, I'm no closer to finding any convincing answer. Over the decades, I tried out a few, but there were always significant factors remaining unexplained. I cannot ignore that. I probably know as much as anyone who has never been hypnotized, who isn't a rocket scientist, and who is in no way as brave as some people who confront the phenomenon.
I suspect that whatever this may be on its own terms, it serves to shake us out of the tired Aristotelian either/or. The faulty reasoning of with us/against us, good/bad, like in politics. Which physics has been objecting to since the 1920s--EITHER wave OR particle? Well, it depends... The alleged ETs are telepathic; a mind thing. Yes, I've encountered ESP--but refuse to believe it (or "them") as if literal revelation. However, what are supposed to be their UFOs (now called UAPs) show up on radar and have left traces. So is this mental or physical? Real or imaginary? IMHO it's both/and plus neither/or and definitely maybe. Rationalists, empiricists, and especially materialist reductionists may have a fit; too bad. The poetic, the artistic, and the mystical are also part of reality. As is the even stranger.
Look up the books of Dr. Jeff Kripal at Rice and the two conferences 2022 and 2023 "Archives of the Impossible." Records of high weirdness, the truly anomalous, across many fields over many decades. He notes that trauma can also open someone to other realities. I liken it to being so thinned out in places that Light is able to get through. Such as what are loosely called spiritual experiences. Find a copy of "The Trickster and the Paranormal" by George P. Hansen. Diligently researched; title self explanatory. A close look at related subjects that shows how the oddities are so much more than New Age luv 'n' lite, The participants at the Rice conferences are saying that what is happening is mostly about human consciousness. For more on how that connects to brain function (brain hemispheres) read the extensive work of Dr. Iain McGilchrist.
Fine as long as assumptions are explicit and the limits of physical analysis are considered. Looks like this assumes there is some objective point of view to judge "reality and fantasy." Relativity called that into question. Also seems to assume that linear thinking (rationalism and empiricism) are the only valid truths. And the only choices? EITHER it's true OR it's false. Akin to electron must be either wave or particle--and that's been rejected since since the late1920s. Ex: scientifically, a painting is a chunk of cloth with splotches of pigment. It's the poetic, artistic, mystical, and spiritual facets by which we give it meaning.
As for null hypothesis, in practice, that's done for a specific and well-defined study subject. I did one on whether or not twists in trees were caused by hillside sliding. Ho was they're not. Ha (alternative) was they are. Evidence => rejecting a, accepting o because it the form wasn't just on hills. Shermer is sliding by with an entire complex subject rather than posing a specific question like, say, do the tic-tac shapes show up on ground radar?
I suspect wanting "definitive proof" of ETs is more like asking for definitive proof of something spiritual than it is about hard science. I'm not saying science should not be primary or that entities from other planets don't exist. Rather that there are aspects of the human mind and of psychology that contribute to the phenomena. It's irrelevant to me personally whether or not they exist. The stuff channelers get is too vague to be useful and IMHO just a space age version of wanting sky gods to come save us when it's only us who can save us.
"Looks like this assumes there is some objective point of view to judge "reality and fantasy." Relativity called that into question. Also seems to assume that linear thinking (rationalism and empiricism) are the only valid truths. And the only choices? EITHER it's true OR it's false."
from my perspective, Einstein's theory of relativity shows that reality is objective though, depending on our point of view, we interpret it in different ways but it is just one objective reality. And sciences doesn't deal only with either "true" or "false" choices but there is also the "unknown" to be discovered in the process of doing sciences. And the wave/particle duality is an objective fact with not relation to subjectivity if we consider conscious observation as another physical phenomenon.
So, I will continue waiting for the positive proof of ETs just as of any possible existence of any spiritual entity, knowing, as Dr. Shermer mentions, that many mysteries remain unexplained by science until further evidence arises.
Thanks for that Rafi, I would like to discuss this further; it’s not that I can help beyond joining a sympathetic note to the orchestra on the Titanic; the work of Dr David Jacobs and the late Budd Hopkins represent my view, so I regard the phenomenon as much maligned by the astronomers, best represented by Seth Shostak of SETI, who until they get their Nobel Prize for deducing something already plainly obvious, but from the correlation of data from multiple myopic visual inputs, will never acknowledge anything that comes through the lens of another man’s mind. As Fred Hoyle pointed out, despite much free education and the presence in society for several centuries of the Panspermia theory, there is still the suspicion that we are the centre of the biological universe. The gatekeepers are asleep, dreaming dreams of the Prize, safe in the knowledge that there is no Nobel Prize for Sociology or Psychology, however many aliens run round the back and start messing with children‘s gametes and their head. I would be pleased to talk more but don’t want to bore those who may think that there are more pressing problems. Can you direct me to another site?
The best by far would be by checking the "Archives of the Impossible" at Rice since that is where so many well-known and reliable people involved with all of this have donated their materials. Everything from ESP research/remote viewing to Fortean phenomena to ETs (whatever they are) like the papers of Jacques Vallee and Whitley Strieber. The two conferences are also on YouTube. The speaker schedules alone are worth reading. There are far more scientists who've admitted to these experiences than is known publicly. Among us peasants this stuff isn't even rare. I don't have a site myself. Yet.
Hi, Rafi, I meant only a Site for you. I have made an attempt to get in touch. As this discussion was all relating to trauma, I won’t go into the arguments concerning the speed of the propagation of gravity and the cosmic speed limit, but by analogy, Ito impossible to cross the Atlantic if you have to swim. Unless you are a fish or a whale. Your discussion with Julio Santos seems predicated on needing to find some psychological model for suspected ET interventions because you both appear to believe that travel is not feasible. Forget lights in the sky. When ET is tearing lumps out of your child, you can feel less embarrassed at postulating that there is a biological motive involved and that this arises because ET has a biological origin. Even if all the visitants were robots. Ergo, ET evolved, and if they didn’t do that here, they must have done it on a physical world somewhere else. For the purpose of security in your child’s bedroom and by extension worldwide, it matters little whether this be in a parallel universe or in the one stretched out in front of us at all azimuths of the sky.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's merely human psyche. There is much evidence of physicality as well. Plus spiritual aspects. I do insist, however, it's not either/or. After all, we aren't. And yes, I know by decades of personal experience about the trauma (including outright terror) involved. Plus a complex experience as a teen in 1965 that started with joy and light. I was carried across the Atlantic (I'm west coast,) past the moon, out of the solar system, past many galaxies to what looked like the end of the universe where everything went dark. No UFOs or angels or any other specific entity involved. I was on rare occasions aware of other sentient life along the way. I currently correspond with several well-known authors--IMHO the best are the ones who've learned to live with the ambiguity and uncertainty. I replied to you because I picked up on the trauma and since the abduction phenomenon is so fraught with misunderstanding and dismissal, made worse by sunshiny types who deny any bad side. For what it's worth, my heart is with you.
First and foremost, the work the doctor is doing is invaluable. However, based on the prevalence of trauma as it relates to the family as well as society, the abuse/abuser is not exclusive to males. It may be predominate of males but listening to the interview I could not help but conclude woman are exempt as abusers. Additionally, the interview took a whiplashing turn into politics which undermined what should have been a narrow focus on topic. In response to the deviation, why stop at the Supreme Court offenders. Why not Tara Reed and her story about Joe Biden?
Trauma & "Getting Over It"
I have books by Dr. Herman, Dr. van der Kolk, and Dr. Gabor Mate'. I also know about trauma through family of origin, the experience of growing up in Indian Country, and being a resident manager of transitional housing for people who'd been homeless. Being homeless is so horrific in itself that even if someone didn't have prior mental issues, they almost certainly will after.
Post-traumatic reactions are often characterized as some fault within the sufferer. Why don't they just get over themselves and get it together? For one, as any mental health worker knows, there are very few resources, especially for poor and marginalized people. Worse yet, the negatives become physically hard wired. And, as Gabor Mate' keeps repeating, the self harm and drug abuse are answers for absolutely unbearable pain.
Right wing types blame poor personal choices. They cite the few who've overcome nearly insurmountable odds as if that should be enough. Why yes! The loser kids should have chosen to be born into families with a good income in a neighborhood with good schools to people who nurtured and encouraged them. Instead of to people who beat, raped, and psychologically abused them.
Misunderstanding doesn't stop there. A few weeks ago, probably on Consortium News, I read a piece on homelessness. A comment insisted that drugs had to be controlled first; the idea being that drugs cause addiction. Obviously not, or every casual user would become an addict. The actual root of the problem is hellish life-long trauma for which there is little relief but heavy self medicating.
The only effective method of dealing with the crisis is to do as much as possible to prevent such devastating trauma from happening. But as long as the dominant econopathy and continuing wars of Empire (and occupation) last, the suffering will continue.
What an absolutely jaw dropping and astute assessment. Appreciate this comment so very much. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
This is very interesting and look forward to the second part. I understand her focus is violence-caused trauma. I have read that neglect is also a form of abuse and leaves serious imprints on those children who were suffered serious neglect in their childhood. I would be interested in hearing if there is any cross-over of the kinds of trauma that these children experience and those who suffered from violent or sexual abuse? I know this is recorded, but just thought perhaps putting the question out might get some thoughtful replies.
Colleges - regardless of place and status - provide places for rape and sexual assault when they maintain male dominated spaces. It doesn't matter if it's a "Final Club" at Harvard or a sleepy, idyllic campus on the Oregon coast with a handful of fraternities or a male soccer team.
Our society needs to restructure and eliminate these spaces and colleges make sense as the place to start.
Thank you Chris Hedges once again. Being a son of a Father whom watched his mother be abused leaves a void of understanding in my past. I also have a close friend and know of many other through my counciling whom suffered abuse. Probably the worst thing Covid did was bring home abusive Parents and Step Parents. The disparity in wages with poor and middle class fuels the fears in lesser Parents whom take out their fear on the vunerable around them. In a culture that fuels War we give to much power to those who think violence is the way. Choosing Civility seems further and further away from Americans grasp as our rent seeking Aligarchs seek the world's destruction.
Chris, sorry to be a bit off topic, but I rote this comment to your alma mater many years ago with respect to the greatest/worst form of looting by the deceitful and disguised method 'Negative Externality Cost' LOOTING OUR WORLD society.
As I noted to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, in my third letter, on Global Climate Destruction and its crony capitalist economic cause of gaming 'negative externality cost' pumping and dumping:
"some of these major market manipulators are also ‘gaming’ or un-seriously using the ’name game’ of simply shifting the terms SRI to ESG to — God knows what — while still not addressing the bad market practices of dumping massive ’Negative Externality Costs” onto unsuspecting smaller market participants and the general American citizenry in order to hide and make excessive false/faux-profits by dumping/LOOTING costs.”
[Snip]
"moving to seriously change this dangerous market activity to a safe and fully documented posture could involve a candid and accurately disciplined action on the now hidden “Negative Externality Cost’ problem, implementing the acronym of PEP (Positive Externality Profits) for corporations which adhere to a path of making profits through spawning “Positive Externality Profits” on constructive products and services that do not harm our shared economic strength and competitiveness" Seriously employing PEP would help save our shared environment as I wrote yesterday to the "Times”:
GINI Coefficient of Wealth INEQUALITY because of the “The Quiet American” duopoly EMPIRE which is only interested in LOOTING our World.
BTW the GINI Coefficient of Wealth INEQUALITY in America is the Highest/Worst in the World, at 0.915, having just pasted Russia’s 0.879 (after America has looted Russia by ’Sanctions’.
You view her using the Kavanaugh anecdote as being more about him and less about her. When I see it’s a teaching moment about the quality of traumatized consciousness producing a very different kind of memory than the Untraumatized ordinary narrative consciousness. And it is interesting that you’re incensed by what you seem to see as her cluelessness or even intentionality to denigrate Mr Kavanaugh. Contrastingly,
I see the clinician’s mind - an experts mind - assessing the veracity of the woman’s publicly shared traumatic assault experience - asking herself -what do I see in her testimony
that tells me she is telling the truth of being sexually assaulted? Fran - You and I have very different perceptions. Just like that Psych 101 when an actor burst into the room makes a racket then leaves. The students then share their perceptions. All different.
Dr Gabor Maté’s books and YouTube presentations along the sane psychic geography are excellent. So glad Chris through this interview is spreading the word.
Do you think that bringing Kavanaugh, a politically charged case, into this exchange with Hedges who has his own political biases, helped or hindered the cause of dealing with the reality of sexual abuse of women, and children? Was it necessary? I thought it operated to the detriment of this cause. This whole issue is extremely important and could have stood on it's own without introducing political biases, and no doubt it was meant to appeal to a certain audience. However on this issue her audience should have been all inclusive.
Given personal and professional experience with traumas’ impact,hearing truth, experience, knowledge and authenticity draws us -magnetically - like a beacon of light for personal liberation. I doubt the introduction of a political bias is destructive. Just more information.
Look I worked as a therapist, have a degree in clinical counseling and organized a group around this very issue back in the 1980s, so you are not talking to some ignorant know nothing. When ever you politicize a topic like this you do no one any favors, and if your claim of having a background in dealing with this type of trauma is true you would know better especially in today's highly politicized environment. She should have known better as well, and regardless of the accusations no definitive proof was submitted that said he was guilty, and he was nominated to be on the supreme court. Why risk the possibility of alienating any audience for such a reason. Maybe she just thought Hedge's audience would be someone who would give her a thumbs up on her accusations, especially since he was a Trump nominee who was catholic.
Many abused victims are all tangled up in self hate, guilt and shame. And strive to normalize the abnormal and wonder why they can’t.The anecdote about the woman abused by Kavanaugh is most helpful for it authenticates the veracity of the abuse. That the memory of the abused has a specific character. Emotive-Sense based not cognitive narratable story. telling. An input using Kavanaugh anecdote that affirms you are not crazy if you don’t have access to rational data like dates and location. The point was about the distinctive character of memory of a victim. This expert is not foisting a political sword but using discrimination to enlighten us about a characteristic symptommatic of abuse. Excellent point!
You weave a tangled web in presenting the experience of sexual abuse, or more generalized abuse experienced by both children and adults, which doesn't matter since you miss my point. The purpose of her work is not only understanding and working with children and adults of abuse, but to encourage public support and have them understand the consequences of abuse inflicted on those that are, and why turn off a segment of your audience with politics that reflect your own personal political biases. As they say there is a time and place for everything, and this was not the time or place to bring up Kavanaugh. There is no need for you to inform me of the consequences that people suffer as a result of abuse.
And here you are - a third time worrying this point.
You keep worrying this particular point Fran - and though it pains me to ask - is there something in the Kavanaugh story which intersects with your own trauma?
If you read my responses you would know I worked with people traumatized by incest. Nothing personal here. If you want people to empathize with the victimization of these people then you don't introduce politics, especially one-sided politics, and I think that should be obvious to anyone with any degree of sensitivity on this issue. If she want's to elicit an empathetic response and remain focused on the victim then you leave politics out of it.
But I don't see why the names of the Ayatollahs - Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh should not be mentioned - at the very top of the US legal system - two men sit - both pretty reliably accused of sex crimes! It's what Chris and his guest were speaking about. It only seems to be a problem for you if you are in fact a supporter of that situation. I can't figure out any other reason - it's clearly an obsession for you. I hope you can find your way to some peace with these issues.
If Thomas and Kavanaugh were "reliably accused" (whatever that means) of sex crimes, then they'd have both been arrested, convicted, and sentenced. Neither were. In my opinion, both were slandered in hopes of a successful political hit job to keep them off the SC. On both accounts, the orchestrators failed, and that is why slander charges were not pursued.
It seems you are now slandering the women who with nothing to gain told the world of what they had endured and lived with as a result of these two men now sitting on the Supreme Court and ideologically aligned with illiberals passing judgement on things such as the right to abortion. You are making no sense.
I have not seen Trump arrested for his sex crimes yet.
Look at your own comments then perhaps you'll understand my perspective. I have enough of you.
I'd hate to think I was hitting close to the mark...but...
Clearly, your view fiercely held. I happen to disagree with what you see as the dire and only result.
I'm not finished listening, and will listen to the end, and I do appreciate the kind of work Dr. Judith Herman’has done in bringing this issue into public awareness. We were doing fine until the unnecessary comment about Kavanaugh as being a sexual predator, and guilty based on Christine Blasey Ford's claims, even though this case from the beginning was politically charged, and he was not held accountable in regard to the charges she brought against him. To deviate from the main issue in this regard and make it political is the height of stupidity.
Fran, you are showing a lot of courage here. I admit to surprise that she brought it up but her larger point was that Christine Blasey Ford's memory of sounds and sensations in her description of the assault was, for Herman, classic for a person recalling a traumatic memory. I believe, editorially, there was a purposeful decision to put the observation in or leave it in. It's pretty plain the Kavanaugh is untouchable and so nothing will happen to Kavanaugh. But for women who may have been assaulted by someone with power over them, it is a fairly powerful anecdote. And maybe that is who Hedges and Herman are most concerned about.
Fran: Wow! You think Kavanaugh an innocent? Did you not listen to the earlier section?
One of the difficulties in assessing victims of ET intervention may be that while diseases have symptoms, what do traumatic experiences have, if there is little in the way of accessible memory of the events which caused the trauma? A disease is to its symptoms as a traumatic event is to.. what? Abduction is not a disease, it is something undergone; but the average family doctor would not likely have a good list of what results in the life of the experiencer. Can they diagnose it if it’s not a disease? The presence of trauma might be clear, it’s source less so. From The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk it seems to me that the body might remember events like transfers into and out of artificial gravity, and reproduce such movements in dreams tied to what are known as “screen” memories, where more familiar modes of travel are dreamed of to substitute for the incomprehensible, but with anomalous types of motion for the type of vehicle In the dream. Episodes of existential dread, above and beyond the anomalous physical shaking, and odd snatches of the victim seeing themselves in snapshots of memory where their surroundings cannot be placed, may be involved. Then there are the previously unnoticed skin lesions, which in the medical canon of great knowledge must, if they are not one thing, be another. But the doctors can’t rightly say where they might originate if the patient can’t tell them themself.
Trauma & Weird Anomalies
As I mentioned in my main comment, I've read the experts on severe trauma and and I know something about it from first hand experience. Because you raised the subject, reluctantly I'm going to out myself as an "abductee." Marks around the word because after studying the subject since the '60s, I'm no closer to finding any convincing answer. Over the decades, I tried out a few, but there were always significant factors remaining unexplained. I cannot ignore that. I probably know as much as anyone who has never been hypnotized, who isn't a rocket scientist, and who is in no way as brave as some people who confront the phenomenon.
I suspect that whatever this may be on its own terms, it serves to shake us out of the tired Aristotelian either/or. The faulty reasoning of with us/against us, good/bad, like in politics. Which physics has been objecting to since the 1920s--EITHER wave OR particle? Well, it depends... The alleged ETs are telepathic; a mind thing. Yes, I've encountered ESP--but refuse to believe it (or "them") as if literal revelation. However, what are supposed to be their UFOs (now called UAPs) show up on radar and have left traces. So is this mental or physical? Real or imaginary? IMHO it's both/and plus neither/or and definitely maybe. Rationalists, empiricists, and especially materialist reductionists may have a fit; too bad. The poetic, the artistic, and the mystical are also part of reality. As is the even stranger.
Look up the books of Dr. Jeff Kripal at Rice and the two conferences 2022 and 2023 "Archives of the Impossible." Records of high weirdness, the truly anomalous, across many fields over many decades. He notes that trauma can also open someone to other realities. I liken it to being so thinned out in places that Light is able to get through. Such as what are loosely called spiritual experiences. Find a copy of "The Trickster and the Paranormal" by George P. Hansen. Diligently researched; title self explanatory. A close look at related subjects that shows how the oddities are so much more than New Age luv 'n' lite, The participants at the Rice conferences are saying that what is happening is mostly about human consciousness. For more on how that connects to brain function (brain hemispheres) read the extensive work of Dr. Iain McGilchrist.
I'm agnostic not only in religion but in everything else, so I keep skeptic in maters of aliens.
I believe that professor Michael Shermer in his series of lectures "Skepticism 101" gives good information on the Science and the Burden of Proof:
"Even with controls in place, certainty still eludes science. The
scientific method is the best tool ever devised to distinguish between
reality and fantasy, but we must always remember that we could be
wrong. Rejecting the null hypothesis is not a warranty on truth, yet
failure to reject the null hypothesis does not make the claim false.
-The null hypothesis is another example of the burden-of-proof
argument ; that is, the burden of proof is on the person asserting a positive claim
(that a hypothesis is true), not on scientists and skeptics to prove the
null hypothesis.
-On the subject of UFO sightings, the null hypothesis states that
UFOs are not extraterrestrial spaceships. The burden is on the
UFO believer to provide evidence to reject the null hypothesis.
Ufologists may claim that they have such evidence, but scientists
cannot accept as definitive proof of alien visitation such evidence
as blurry photographs, grainy videos, and anecdotes about spooky
lights in the sky.
-Many claims of this nature are based on negative evidence. Again,
if science cannot explain X, then another explanation for X is
necessarily true. But in science, many mysteries remain unexplained
until further evidence arises. In contrast, the principle of positive
evidence states that a claimant must have positive evidence in favor
of a theory, not just negative evidence against rival theories. This
principle applies to all claims"
So I will wait for a definitive proof of ET's and wish they are true. Our human intelligence is killing our planet and hopefully they can rescue us.
Fine as long as assumptions are explicit and the limits of physical analysis are considered. Looks like this assumes there is some objective point of view to judge "reality and fantasy." Relativity called that into question. Also seems to assume that linear thinking (rationalism and empiricism) are the only valid truths. And the only choices? EITHER it's true OR it's false. Akin to electron must be either wave or particle--and that's been rejected since since the late1920s. Ex: scientifically, a painting is a chunk of cloth with splotches of pigment. It's the poetic, artistic, mystical, and spiritual facets by which we give it meaning.
As for null hypothesis, in practice, that's done for a specific and well-defined study subject. I did one on whether or not twists in trees were caused by hillside sliding. Ho was they're not. Ha (alternative) was they are. Evidence => rejecting a, accepting o because it the form wasn't just on hills. Shermer is sliding by with an entire complex subject rather than posing a specific question like, say, do the tic-tac shapes show up on ground radar?
I suspect wanting "definitive proof" of ETs is more like asking for definitive proof of something spiritual than it is about hard science. I'm not saying science should not be primary or that entities from other planets don't exist. Rather that there are aspects of the human mind and of psychology that contribute to the phenomena. It's irrelevant to me personally whether or not they exist. The stuff channelers get is too vague to be useful and IMHO just a space age version of wanting sky gods to come save us when it's only us who can save us.
"Looks like this assumes there is some objective point of view to judge "reality and fantasy." Relativity called that into question. Also seems to assume that linear thinking (rationalism and empiricism) are the only valid truths. And the only choices? EITHER it's true OR it's false."
from my perspective, Einstein's theory of relativity shows that reality is objective though, depending on our point of view, we interpret it in different ways but it is just one objective reality. And sciences doesn't deal only with either "true" or "false" choices but there is also the "unknown" to be discovered in the process of doing sciences. And the wave/particle duality is an objective fact with not relation to subjectivity if we consider conscious observation as another physical phenomenon.
So, I will continue waiting for the positive proof of ETs just as of any possible existence of any spiritual entity, knowing, as Dr. Shermer mentions, that many mysteries remain unexplained by science until further evidence arises.
Thanks for that Rafi, I would like to discuss this further; it’s not that I can help beyond joining a sympathetic note to the orchestra on the Titanic; the work of Dr David Jacobs and the late Budd Hopkins represent my view, so I regard the phenomenon as much maligned by the astronomers, best represented by Seth Shostak of SETI, who until they get their Nobel Prize for deducing something already plainly obvious, but from the correlation of data from multiple myopic visual inputs, will never acknowledge anything that comes through the lens of another man’s mind. As Fred Hoyle pointed out, despite much free education and the presence in society for several centuries of the Panspermia theory, there is still the suspicion that we are the centre of the biological universe. The gatekeepers are asleep, dreaming dreams of the Prize, safe in the knowledge that there is no Nobel Prize for Sociology or Psychology, however many aliens run round the back and start messing with children‘s gametes and their head. I would be pleased to talk more but don’t want to bore those who may think that there are more pressing problems. Can you direct me to another site?
The best by far would be by checking the "Archives of the Impossible" at Rice since that is where so many well-known and reliable people involved with all of this have donated their materials. Everything from ESP research/remote viewing to Fortean phenomena to ETs (whatever they are) like the papers of Jacques Vallee and Whitley Strieber. The two conferences are also on YouTube. The speaker schedules alone are worth reading. There are far more scientists who've admitted to these experiences than is known publicly. Among us peasants this stuff isn't even rare. I don't have a site myself. Yet.
Hi, Rafi, I meant only a Site for you. I have made an attempt to get in touch. As this discussion was all relating to trauma, I won’t go into the arguments concerning the speed of the propagation of gravity and the cosmic speed limit, but by analogy, Ito impossible to cross the Atlantic if you have to swim. Unless you are a fish or a whale. Your discussion with Julio Santos seems predicated on needing to find some psychological model for suspected ET interventions because you both appear to believe that travel is not feasible. Forget lights in the sky. When ET is tearing lumps out of your child, you can feel less embarrassed at postulating that there is a biological motive involved and that this arises because ET has a biological origin. Even if all the visitants were robots. Ergo, ET evolved, and if they didn’t do that here, they must have done it on a physical world somewhere else. For the purpose of security in your child’s bedroom and by extension worldwide, it matters little whether this be in a parallel universe or in the one stretched out in front of us at all azimuths of the sky.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's merely human psyche. There is much evidence of physicality as well. Plus spiritual aspects. I do insist, however, it's not either/or. After all, we aren't. And yes, I know by decades of personal experience about the trauma (including outright terror) involved. Plus a complex experience as a teen in 1965 that started with joy and light. I was carried across the Atlantic (I'm west coast,) past the moon, out of the solar system, past many galaxies to what looked like the end of the universe where everything went dark. No UFOs or angels or any other specific entity involved. I was on rare occasions aware of other sentient life along the way. I currently correspond with several well-known authors--IMHO the best are the ones who've learned to live with the ambiguity and uncertainty. I replied to you because I picked up on the trauma and since the abduction phenomenon is so fraught with misunderstanding and dismissal, made worse by sunshiny types who deny any bad side. For what it's worth, my heart is with you.
Thank you !!
James O’Keefe interview with Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Jul 27
https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1684648594144403457?s=20
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Is COVID A Bioweapon That Targets Specific Races? -- Jul 25
https://rumble.com/v32alf0-robert-f.-kennedy-jr.-is-covid-a-bioweapon-that-targets-specific-races.html
First and foremost, the work the doctor is doing is invaluable. However, based on the prevalence of trauma as it relates to the family as well as society, the abuse/abuser is not exclusive to males. It may be predominate of males but listening to the interview I could not help but conclude woman are exempt as abusers. Additionally, the interview took a whiplashing turn into politics which undermined what should have been a narrow focus on topic. In response to the deviation, why stop at the Supreme Court offenders. Why not Tara Reed and her story about Joe Biden?