In reading through Chapter Thirteen, I found it more illuminating on the state of traumatic experiences. How to deal with trauma cases is integral to self-recovery and regaining control of one’s life control. From the chapter, I found the three key steps outlined by Dr. Judith Lewis Herman, a Harvard psychiatrist to be profoundly important in understanding how to deal with traumatic experiences. First, the capacity to attaining a sense of safety from threats, fear, and adverse emotional triggers. Second, the capacity to remember the details of the trauma and holding the capability to mourn the loss it induces on a person’s life. Finally, the process towards regaining control and reestablishing a normal life (Goleman, 1996, 210).
The development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can have extensively adverse effects on an individual. PTSD is caused by experiences of tarrying events in one’s life. Equating to the case of Irene, I found the chapter to be insightful and outlines the impacts of societal control and negligence (Goleman, 1996). For example, in context that Irene reports her fears seeking the help from the police, they dismiss her in the sense that nothing that has happened. This culminates in the continued experiences of fear and lack of protection from the society that one entrusts their life and social welfare. This failure culminates in self-isolation and feeling of being a prisoner in one’s own life. Therefore, learning this information, I found it to be interesting in the way systems established to prevent the prevalence and escalation PTSD fails to advance its mandates.
