(” He” in this text – to indicate “He” or “She”).
We respond to severe incidents, life changing obstacles, catastrophes, abuse, and death by going through the stages of grieving. Injuries are the complex results of biochemical and psychodynamic procedures. The details of injuries depend greatly on the interaction in between the victim and his social scene.
It would appear that while the victim advances from rejection to vulnerability, rage, anxiety and thence to approval of the traumatizing occasions – society shows a diametrically opposed development. This incompatibility, this inequality of mental stages is what results in the development and condensation of injury.
STAGE I.
Victim stage I – DENIAL.
The magnitude of such regrettable occasions is frequently so frustrating, their nature so alien, and their message so enormous – that rejection sets in as a defense mechanism targeted at self conservation. The victim rejects that the occasion happened, that she or he is being abused, that a liked one died.
Society stage I – ACCEPTANCE, MOVING ON.
The victim’s closest (” Society”) – his associates, his staff members, his customers, even his partner, kids, and good friends – hardly ever experience the occasions with the exact same shattering strength. Even at their most compassionate and thoughtful, they are most likely to lose persistence with the victim’s state of mind.
Summary Phase I
The inequality in between the victim’s psychological requirements and reactive patterns and society’s matter-of-fact mindset prevents development and recovery. The victim needs society’s aid in preventing a head-on conflict with a truth he can not absorb. Rather, society works as a psychologically destabilizing and continuous pointer of the root of the victim’s excruciating pain (the Job syndrome).
STAGE II.
Victim stage II – HELPLESSNESS.
Rejection slowly offers method to a sense of embarrassing and all-pervasive vulnerability, frequently accompanied by incapacitating tiredness and psychological disintegration. These are the bitter outcomes of the internalization and combination of the severe awareness that there is absolutely nothing one can do to change the results of a natural, or manufactured, disaster.
Society stage II – DEPRESSION.
The more the members of society come to grips with the magnitude of the loss, or evil, or risk represented by the sorrow causing occasions – the sadder they end up being. Anxiety is frequently little more than reduced or self-directed anger.
Summary Phase II.
Hence, when the victim is most in requirement, horrified by his vulnerability and adrift – society is immersed in anxiety and not able to supply a holding and supporting environment. Development and recovery is once again slowed down by social interaction. The victim’s inherent sense of annulment is improved by the self-addressed anger (= anxiety) of those around him.
STAGE III.
Both the victim and society respond with RAGE to their circumstances. In an effort to narcissistically reassert himself, the victim establishes a grand sense of anger directed at paranoidally picked, unbelievable, scattered, and abstract targets (= aggravation sources). By revealing aggressiveness, the victim re-acquires proficiency of the world and of himself.
Members of society usage rage to re-direct the root cause of their anxiety (which is, as we stated, self directed anger) and to transport it securely. In this regard, “social rage” varies from the victim’s.
To put it simply, society, by itself remaining in a state of rage, favorably implements the egotistical rage responses of the mourning victim. This, in the long run, is counter-productive, hinders individual development, and avoids recovery. It likewise deteriorates the truth test of the victim and motivates self-delusions, paranoidal ideation, and concepts of referral.
STAGE IV.
Victim Phase IV – DEPRESSION.
The victim’s anxiety is a method of adhering to social standards. It is likewise critical in ridding the victim of the unhealthy residues of conceited regression. It is when the victim acknowledges the malignancy of his rage (and its anti-social nature) that he embraces a depressive position.
Society Phase IV – HELPLESSNESS.
Individuals around the victim (” society”) likewise emerge from their stage of rage changed. As they recognize the futility of their rage, they feel more and more devoid and defenseless of alternatives.
Summary Phase IV.
Once again, the members of society are not able to assist the victim to emerge from a self-destructive stage. Their introversion and inefficacy cause in the victim a sensation of horrible seclusion and alienation.
STAGE V.
Victim Phase V – ACCEPTANCE AND MOVING ON.
More frequently, it enables the victim to procedure possibly hazardous and psychologically upsetting product and paves the method to approval. The sincere encounter in between the victim and his own (possible) death typically ends up being a self-empowering and cathartic inner dynamic. The victim emerges prepared to move on.
Society Phase V – DENIAL
Society, on the other hand, having actually tired its reactive toolbox – turn to rejection. As memories fade and as the victim recuperates and deserts his obsessive-compulsive home on his discomfort – society feels ethically warranted to forgive and forget. This state of mind of historic revisionism, of ethical leniency, of gushing forgiveness, of re-interpretation, and of a rejection to keep in mind in information – results in a repression and rejection of the agonizing occasions by society.
Summary Phase V.
Society’s rejection is truly a rejection of the victim. Having ridden himself of more primitive conceited defences – the victim can do without society’s appearance, approval, or approval.
Therefore, when the victim is most in requirement, horrified by his vulnerability and adrift – society is immersed in anxiety and not able to offer a holding and supporting environment. Both the victim and society respond with RAGE to their dilemmas. In other words, society, by itself being in a state of rage, favorably imposes the egotistical rage responses of the mourning victim. Individuals around the victim (” society”) likewise emerge from their stage of rage changed. Once again, the members of society are not able to assist the victim to emerge from a self-destructive stage.