The Other Invisible Hand

“It’s a sick society.”

You’ve probably heard it said. You may have said it yourself. It’s one way of expressing disgust at the worst of human behaviour.

But what if it’s true?

I grew up in circumstances unique in all of Earth’s long existence. The last ten millennia were unusually supportive of human life and after our century of transformation rich countries were lavishly provisioned. I have never personally known war, oppression, deprivation, famine, or plague. And yet, my country is replete with suffering, much of it human-inflicted; and throughout much of my life, I struggled with a powerful urge to kill myself.

To be able, educated, heterosexual, white and male during the Australian post-war boom was to sit at the apex of a global pyramid of unprecedented opportunity and privilege. How could I be so miserable?

Although I didn’t know it until much later, my life was ruled by early developmental trauma.

My parents married when my mother’s fertility was near its end. She’d previously resigned herself to childlessness. Then, with hope rekindled, she endured several miscarriages. My arrival inspired an outpouring of maternal affection like a bath of warm sunlight. But an abrupt change of circumstances darkened our horizons.

We moved to an isolated farm which kept my parents constantly busy. Their partnership began to fracture. I came down with a severe illness and spent long hours alone in a cot. The unanswered cry for comfort and reassurance was gradually encoded in my central nervous system as inconsolable sorrow, rage, bewilderment, and despair, casting a shadow over all subsequent experience.

This was only the beginning of my childhood troubles. Leaving my sick bed, I entered a landscape largely devoid of humans. During a critical phase of early childhood development my main companions were animals and figments of my imagination.

This isn’t a sob story. It’s simply what happened. No one meant to harm me. I didn’t know I’d been harmed and nor did my family. But there were consequences. For an indication of the damage neglect can cause consider the extreme example of the Ceausescu orphans[1].

According to trauma clinician Peter Levine[2], the effects of experiences of this kind can be devastating, changing our habits and outlook on life, leading to poor decision-making, undermining relationships, and triggering real physical pain, symptoms, and disease.

I could have become a casualty. But I did not. In retrospect, my life was repeatedly saved by the love and care of other beings, mostly humans, but not entirely. It wasn’t always soft or soothing; often it was tough or testing; but it got me through. Perhaps this is why I am so alert to how much power we have for good or ill with one another.

But contrary to the old adage, time doesn’t heal all wounds. Unfortunately, not all wounds are created equal.

My life has been a play on the concurrence of extraordinary advantage and thwarted potential. My case is far from unique. In fact, I observe it is common in the modern world. And I’m sure there are lessons in it for how to confront the existential crises of our time. What you feel in response to my story can reveal a lot about your own exposure to trauma.

The Consequences of Trauma

Trauma is widely misunderstood. We tend to underestimate its prevalence; many people suffer its effects without ever knowing; and we also typically underestimate those effects.

It doesn’t help that ‘trauma’ has become a buzzword. Almost any unpleasant experience, no matter how trivial, is liable to be labelled as ‘traumatic’. But the most recent clinical definition of trauma is actually very precise. Once characterised as an ‘emotional’ or ‘psychological’ response, which makes it sound rather ephemeral, we now understand it to include measurable physical changes to the brain, nervous and endocrine systems which alter their function.

We typically think of genuine trauma as a single damaging event like a violent assault or accident. But the most significant aspect of trauma is not what happens but our response.

Life coach Mastin Kipp distinguishes trauma from other painful experiences by the fact it dysregulates healthy function[3]. If an experience doesn’t interfere with essential function, chances are you’ll simply recover. People can thrive and grow after severe illness, physical injury, or other serious setbacks. But the same people may be incapacitated by events or circumstances which seem relatively minor to a casual observer. Trauma is what makes that difference.

It’s potent because it occurs involuntarily, beyond the reach of our analysing and organising mind. As Bessel van der Kolk explains[4], trauma response is stored in the body, reshaping our lives as if the traumatic event was still occurring. We get locked in an adverse pattern. And this can act like an ‘invisible hand’ holding us back.

It isn’t hard to see how trauma might accompany armed conflict or severe economic hardship. And such conditions have been relatively common during the late Holocene. Naturally people may struggle to resume a harmonious existence in their aftermath. But much less dramatic experiences can induce a trauma response, and these can occur at any time. The effect is most pronounced early in life, when our brains, nervous and endocrine systems are forming.

Developmental Trauma

We like to think we have control over our circumstances and destinies. The idea that anyone but especially we ourselves might be driven by unaccountable urges is disturbing. We therefore tend to shape our opinions of human behaviour, including our own, around questions of identity or choice: “good and evil”, “right and wrong”. But the evidence tells a different story.

Accumulating data on adverse childhood experiences, beginning with a large American study in the 90s[5], shows conclusively that even relatively minor disruptions to the pattern of early life development, if left unaddressed, can have serious consequences later. Perhaps the most shocking revelation is how predictable it is.

A small set of factors in childhood have an overwhelming impact on later life. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, a family member who is depressed or diagnosed with another mental illness, a family member who is addicted to alcohol or another substance, a family member who is in prison, a mother being abused, and losing a parent to separation, divorce or death are all strongly linked to serious problems in adulthood. These range from unfulfilled potential and failed relationships to violence, incarceration, disease, and premature death.

These predictors are far more significant than circumstances we might otherwise suppose such as wealth, intelligence, and cultural background. Nevertheless, both their prevalence and their effects are magnified by difficulties such as poverty, lack of education and racial vilification. The damage to the child occurs mostly in or near the home but is strongly influenced by the social setting.

Any of these factors will likely alter a person’s destiny. The more to which we are exposed, the bleaker our prospects become. With too many of them, in the absence of remediation, a difficult life is, unfortunately, highly prescriptive.

Not every traumatised person comes to grief; some get the help they need; some make much of their lives; but many remain afflicted in specific ways; and some find life itself a struggle.

Trauma and Addiction

Gabor Mate has identified early life trauma as a principal cause of addiction[6].

If you are, have been or have known an addict, you will be aware that untreated addiction gradually takes over a person’s life, substituting for meaning, purpose and natural enjoyment. But perhaps you’ve met a lot more addicts than you realise.

We’re all familiar with substance addiction. Drugs and alcohol are conspicuously damaging and costly[7]. But problem gambling also destroys lives and families and costs countries like Australia dearly[8]. Vulnerable people can become harmfully addicted to almost anything – food, sex, money, even shopping.

We tend to evaluate compulsion in the same way as trauma, by reference to social norms. Child sexual abuse, for example, is considered unforgiveable, while neglect is often overlooked, and corporal punishment is still endorsed by some. Similarly, a heroin habit is reviled, but a work obsession is often applauded, even if it robs a family of a parent and leads to early death; and the hoarding of great wealth is widely celebrated.

Just as the event which triggers trauma is less significant than the trauma response, the apparent object of addiction may be less damaging than the addictive pattern. Whatever we can’t resist, no matter how useful or ordinary, can end up controlling us, undermining our integrity, diverting our life energy and causing harm to those around us.

What would your expectations be for a society where this is common?

An Addict’s Career

I was seven when I first tried tobacco. My parents had moved to the city but the atmosphere at home had continued to deteriorate. I stayed out as much as I could, roaming the streets, sneaking onto trains and into movies, even escaping through my window at night. This behaviour frequently got me into trouble. I had no idea what motivated it.

With a neighbourhood gang I stole milk money and used it to buy chocolates and cigarettes. Another gang member got caught and confessed, and my career in crime was brought to an abrupt end by a visit from two burly Queensland Police.

Quixotic ventures led my parents around the country. Each move wrenched me from solace among friends to a strange, uncertain world. At each new school I was a target for bullies; small, reticent, and alone, until I found my next tribe.

I took up drinking as a teenager. A friend’s dad had a liquor cabinet which a group of us raided, igniting in me an explosion of trauma-fuelled theatrics. After I was subdued and escorted home, I left a trail of vomit from the front door to the bathroom. The alcohol's poisoning effect was assuaged by its euphoria. But that did little for my standing with friends and family.

By this time my parents were both seriously ill, and my father had retreated into the wound of his own childhood trauma, history which I only discovered many years after his death. The presence of another wounded youngster was too much for him. He pretended I didn’t exist. Any necessary communication between us was mediated by my sick mother.

Alcohol gave me a holiday from life. It was dependable in a way carers sometimes hadn’t been. Not long afterwards I discovered a different kind of respite in the form of marijuana.

Over the years I tried many substances and behaviours, incorporating some of them into the repertoire. My use of these aids waxed and waned in proportion to the other counterbalancing factors of stress and support. Unless the causes of addiction are addressed, a story like mine runs in one direction.

I was gifted academically and artistically; my life always showed great promise; but somehow this never materialised. Before I knew what it was, I described childhood trauma as a “black hand behind my back”, undermining effort, confiscating talent, diluting joy, and poisoning experience. A doctor friend, whose own father had committed suicide, warned me that this risk was likely to increase with age. She was right.

It took many years and professional help to overcome my exogenous chemical addictions; and more to wean myself off the prescription medication which had replaced them as a barrier to suicide; while other behavioural compulsions, with palliative effects on my endogenous chemistry, persisted.

Healing addiction in its various forms would take enormous strain off our health, emergency, and other social services, not to mention our poor planet groaning under the weight of unsustainable consumption. And this is only one of many damaging consequences of trauma. But because trauma has changed us physically, it cannot be relieved simply through superficial measures like education or policing. And when you look further for a solution, the first thing you bump up against is likely to be an obstructive myth.

The Success Fallacy

This far into my story, you might be surprised to learn that for a part of my history of addiction I was riding the escalator of worldly success. This is not uncommon. Trauma isn't confined to marginalised people.

Sometimes, in a business precinct, hotel lobby or airport terminal somewhere in the world, as I searched for a salubrious bar, my eyes would lock briefly with another’s. For a moment, visible underneath fashionable business attire, were two foraging primates in an artificial forest of consolations and distractions.

We weren’t necessarily seeking the same fix; theirs might have been sex, stimulants, or something more exotic; it was the hunger I recognised. The apogee of my corporate career was also the nadir of my addictive pattern. And I was far from alone.

Many satisfy their cravings with fancy cars, designer clothes, exclusive resorts, or exciting challenges. I tried all that. These are popular choices for corporations to reward their high achievers. It’s my experience, and if you know any therapists they may confirm, that much of the motivation and raw energy of what often looks like accomplishment comes from hyperactive people evading the effects of trauma.

Trauma-related pathologies including addiction, depression and domestic violence are statistically common even among the rich and powerful. Success, wealth and power can themselves become addictions which mask underlying trauma. This is one reason we frequently find politicians, businesspeople and celebrities behaving badly.

The myth of individual culpability is equally unhelpful.

The Self-help Fallacy

How can small children be responsible for what happens to them? They are, by definition, irresponsible, until healthy maturation instils the capability to care for self, others, and the commonweal.

What happens, then, if trauma intervenes and disrupts maturation? How will that person become a responsible adult? And what risks does that impose on their children?

The idea that traumatised people can simply ‘get over it’ by ‘putting it behind them’ is misguided. That’s a way for the rest of us to absolve ourselves of any duty of care. In fact, in the context of human evolution, such an attitude evinces another kind of disability, often with its own roots in trauma.

But it’s also a mistake to professionalise victimhood. When our wounds become part of our identity they don’t heal properly. And public rituals of retribution, even against those who are indisputably at fault, can distract us from other factors in need of attention. Outrage at a perpetrator can provide cover for institutional negligence.

As survivors like Grace Tame demonstrate[9], healing is partly a process of empowerment, whereby authority over one’s actions, feelings and wellbeing is wrested back from an historical incident or perpetrator. We typically need help to do that. Almost no condition is insurmountable; people can recover from horrific childhood abuse, but not usually without acknowledgement and support.

Personal and collective recognition of the source of trauma and the reasons it persists illuminates and encourages both the healing process and the reshaping of social conditions to mitigate its future risk. And this requires a collaborative effort.

The big challenge with developmental trauma is that a pattern was laid down before personal responsibility had been enabled. And because it resides mostly in our central nervous system it eludes intervention by what we think of as our mind and will.

This is one reason the ‘war on drugs’ has been an expensive disaster[10], whereas treating drug use as a public health matter, as Portugal has done, has shown more positive results[11].

When the time came, I was fortunate to have a supportive partner and friends, and access to treatment through the public health system. But it would have been best if my parents had been able to find help when they needed it and misadventure hadn’t become trauma in the first place.

This is where another myth holds us back.

The Psychiatric Fallacy

Our medical establishment, and its mental health programs, have been designed to detect ailments and respond with treatments. If we replaced the ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ with careful intervention at the top, we might be able to avoid a lot of suffering and subsequent effort.

These insights led the authors of the influential Power Threat Meaning Framework[12] to look beyond the conventional medical paradigm of diagnosis and treatment. They argue that mental health and general wellbeing are best understood not as ‘normal’ states but as consequences of specific developmental factors: stable, peaceful societies with high social equity which ensure the optimal maturation of children. Many people don’t live under such conditions.

As the authors note in their one-year review, the framework attracted some hostile responses, even from fellow psychologists[13]. The idea that people are naturally healthy when conditions are right might be understandably threatening to people who make a living from circumstances being otherwise. But what about other negative responses?

Reactive hostility to a social prescription for human flourishing seems to me indicative of the steady infusion into our culture of survivalism, or ‘every man for himself’. And there is clinical support for the idea that this radical disposition, not common until the modern era, could itself be symptomatic of trauma.

The Psychology of Disruption

Dr Laurence Heller identified five developmental needs which produce healthy humans. If we learn connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and emotional-sexual health we are able to self-regulate, feel safe, and participate in ways which benefit us and our communities. But if these basic needs are not met, we develop survival styles[14] to compensate; we learn instead to live with trauma.

If we don’t learn connection at the right developmental stage, we’ll have trouble forming and maintaining healthy relationships. Without autonomy, we’ll struggle to set boundaries and articulate our needs. And the reason we miss these or other developmental markers is most often that our carers are unable to provide the right environment, support, or guidance.

In that situation, we adapt to our adverse circumstances in order to survive. These adaptations then shape our attitudes and behaviours. We equip ourselves for life in a dysfunctional setting but apply the same equipment to any circumstances we encounter. And because we are innately social beings who live in families, communities and nation states, the effects extend far beyond ourselves.

There will be examples in your own experience of how survival styles affect personal relationships. If you know any proud loners, chances are they’re hard on the people around them, while shame-based survivors will often gravitate to people who don’t treat them well. And these styles will be projected onto the larger world of politics and public life, informing our expectations.

The tendency to look for heroes and villains among us, and who we identify as one or the other will be determined in part by how we adapted to adversity.

Each survival style had a logic in its time. They became problematic when they persisted beyond their use-by-date, and especially if they interacted, reinforcing one another. We probably all know people who stay in abusive relationships. Many of us are their children.

Tragically, this makes the family an incubator for trauma.

The Family Conundrum

The obvious fact of our utter vulnerability in early life has embedded attachment to family deep in our brains and bodies. But this has also meant that when families fail for some reason, they can become a locus of damage.

The family is the most common setting for the adverse childhood experiences collected in the research data, including domestic violence and sexual abuse[15]; it’s also the place where antisocial behaviours and corrosive prejudices most commonly form. What can and should be the primary domain of love and care is also, regrettably, a site for the transmission of trauma. And our understanding of how this occurs is becoming more detailed.

The science of epigenetics has revealed that an individual genotype is no more an absolute blueprint for a life trajectory than divine predestination. DNA methylation, histone modification and repressor proteins regulate for better or worse which genes are expressed and how strongly[16]. And these agents are mobilised by lived experience.

Like the sedimentary layers which create landscape over bedrock, our experiences are ‘recorded’ in physical changes which can persist without altering the DNA sequence. A growing body of evidence now suggests these changes can also be passed on to offspring.

Rather than the genetic recombination which occurs with sexual reproduction, epigenetic changes appear to be transmitted through agents such as extracellular vesicles which pass from parents to offspring. And the risk of these being harmful is elevated in conditions which are chemically adverse, associated with factors like stress, poverty, poor nutrition, and addiction[17].

As with socialisation, the influence of environment on biological processes is most pronounced early in life when we are developing rapidly. This includes our time inside the womb. Family circumstances, especially for mothers, are therefore powerful determinants of life prospects for unborn and infant offspring. Trauma can be experienced directly by the child but also indirectly through its effects on adult wellbeing, behaviour and parenting practice.

Life is fraught with perils. But whether or not these become traumatic to individuals depends largely on the people closest to them, principally family. And whether or not the family ameliorates or amplifies the trauma response is heavily influenced by the culture and circumstances in which that family lives and any incidence of trauma in the parents.

Not only are the precepts which determine what we expect for ourselves and our fellow humans often physically encoded in traumatised bodies, but these effects are likely to be transmitted involuntarily to our children. They too may become proponents of attitudes and behaviours which feel like primal truths but are actually symptoms of disrupted development. Trauma then becomes intergenerational.

In forthcoming essays, I will look further into the spread of trauma and how this ultimately robs us of the benefits of peace and prosperity.

The Tyranny of the Damaged Child

How then should we understand a person such as Alexander III of Macedon, a figure so revered he is honoured by custom as “the Great”? Was he a paragon of masculine virtue? Or was he more complex than that? Did he in fact cause great harm? And if so, why? Could he have been afflicted with trauma?

What we know[18] points to a lonely misfit from a powerful but dysfunctional family in a society already disfigured by centuries of war. Through a twist of fate, Alexander seems to have inherited, along with autocracy and a powerful army, paranoia, alcoholism, uncontrollable rage, and astonishingly gratuitous cruelty. While it’s unrealistic to psychoanalyse a historical figure at such remove, it’s equally difficult to see him as a healthy adult.

Alexander is like someone afforded incomparable destructive agency while stuck in a preadult developmental stage. In fact, his likeness appears in many ordinary households, albeit with much less means at their disposal. But if they’re functioning well, he’s given no license to kill, maim and enslave, nor even to vandalise a playground. He isn’t valorised as Jack or Lucas “the Great”. Instead, he’s given the guidance and support he needs until he grows up.

Many will find this speculative re-evaluation of Alexander fanciful. But is it any more so than the familiar story of the bold warrior king spreading civilisation?

Some may even interpret such musing as a threat to legitimate authority, the authenticity of 'our way of life', or the very foundations of ‘Western’ civilisation. In consequence they may feel like lashing out, perhaps with the kind of rage that even now is expressing itself in a rampage of vicious language, including threats to rape and kill, across the world of social media. That too may be evidence of trauma.

[1] Fay Greene, M. (2020), “30 Years Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Human Babies of Human Contact; Here’s what’s become of them”, The Atlantic, Jul / Aug 2020.

[2] Levine, P. A. (2011), Waking the Tiger, US, Random House.

[3] Kipp, M. (2017), Claim Your Power: A 40-Day Journey to Dissolve the Hidden Blocks That keep you Stuck and Finally Thrive in Your Life's Unique Purpose, US, Hay House Inc.

[4] Van Der Kolk, B. (2015), The Body Keeps The Score, UK, Penguin.

[5] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Permanente. The ACE Study Survey Data [Unpublished Data]. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016.

[6] Mate, G. (2018), In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, UK, Random House.

[7] ANMJ Staff (2021), “Alcohol use harming Australians and costing the community billions each year”, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Journal, Dec 16.

[8] AIHW Staff (2021), “Gambling in Australia”, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Sep 16.

[9] Tame, G. (2021), “'Share your truth, it is your power': Grace Tame’s address to the National Press Club”, The Guardian, Mar 4.

[10] Werb, D., Marshall, B. D. L., Montaner, J. S. G. and Kerr, T. (2009), “The war on drugs: a devastating public-policy disaster”, The Lancet, VOLUME 373, ISSUE 9668, P989-990, MARCH 21, 2009.

[11] Ferreira S., (2017), “Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?”, The Guardian, Dec 5.

[12] Johnstone, L. & Boyle, M. with Cromby, J., Dillon, J., Harper, D., Kinderman, P., Longden, E., Pilgrim, D., & Read, J. (2018). The power threat meaning framework: Overview. British Psychological Society.

[13] Johnstone, Lucy & Boyle, Mary & Cromby, John & Dillon, Jacqui & Harper, David & Kinderman, Peter & Longden, Eleanor & Pilgrim, David & Read, John. (2019). “Reflections on responses to the Power Threat Meaning Framework one year on”. Clinical Psychology Forum. 2019. 47-54. 10.53841/bpscpf.2019.1.313.47.

[14] Heller, L., (2010), “Introduction to the NeuroAffective Relational Model”, drlaurenceheller.com.

[15] YWCA Staff (2017), “Child Sexual Abuse Factsheet”, ywca.org.

[16] Suter, C., Whitelaw, E., Coupland, K. and Clark, S. (2023), “It’s not ALL in the genes—the role of epigenetics”, science.org.au.

[17] Center on the Developing Child (2023), Epigenetics and Child Development:How Children’s Experiences Affect Their Genes, Harvard University.

[18] Gabriel, R. (2017), “Was Alexander the Great One of History’s Worst Monsters?”, historynet.com, Jul 14.