Busy week this week and subbing every day.
Was reading Psychology Today and saw this quote, which really struck a cord:
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside us in absence of an empathetic witness.
This is from Peter Levine's book In an Unspoken Voice, which I have not read, but will be on my list for this summer.
The quote grabbed my attention because of an experience I had with a K-5 student last year. The student had a hard time regulating his emotions and behavior in the classroom, and teachers around him had a difficult time connecting with him and implementing behavioral interventions in the classroom that would work for him. After a couple of months of mostly unsuccessful individual work with him, he was moved into a different classroom, and I worked with the new teacher on establishing consistent routines and responses that seemed to work with him. The student craved attention and recognition, but was also very suspicious of females and sometimes became physically violent with female authority figures. Finally, one of his family members reached out to me because they were seeing similar behaviors at home, and shared with me that this student experienced a traumatic event over the summer. He was not physically abused but he witnessed abuse.
The student did not receive any help at the time or consequently. The family did not feel it was necessary. And this quote made me realize how important it would have been for this little kid to have a kind person to listen to him and share with them his experience and feelings after the event. Instead, he internalized it all, made sense of it in his own developmentally appropriate but unhealthy way, and it all finally started coming out while at school and at home months later. The experience and thinking about it afterwards made me realize that my only job with that student should have been to establish a trusting relationship, without attempting to immediately alter his behavior and cognitions. He was missing solid and genuine connections with adult figures in his life, and was pushing all other adults away as well, as the only way he knew how to cope without getting too close.
I'm looking forward to reading Peter Levine's work, and I think sometime after I get a permanent position in a school, I'll take a trauma counseling course as well, something I should have done while doing my graduate work.
