Violence/A meditation, by Gary Reece, Ph.D.

Violence:  A Meditation
           by
 Gary Reece, Ph.D.

Last Saturday I did what I have often done throughout my childhood and adult years.  I went to a Saturday Matinee to see a film for a few hours of escapism and relaxation.  It  is a tradition I find very soothing and enjoyable; to sit in the dark and enjoy a story well told.

Today’s experience was very different from the bucolic times of childhood of a cartoon followed by a newsreel and a double feature of  Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger: super heroes of another age.  A bag of popcorn and a few moments sitting in the dark viewing images of fantasy and heroism; an afternoon well spent.

That was not to be today! For 15 minutes of previews of coming attractions I was bombarded by “Surround Sound.”  Explosions, guns in rapid fire, car wrecks, visually intense images terror, of people being machine gunned. The sounds andd flashes of computer generated effects.  After 15 minutes of this very overwhelming sensory implosion the movie began:  0 Dark Thirty.  And for the next 30 minutes I was flooded with images of “Enhanced Interrogation” an Euphemism for Torture.  I said to myself after this experience, “No wonder America is saturated with violence!  We tortured the enemy, they killed some of our guys in retaliation, we killed some of theirs, we finally get Ben Laden.  But the violence continues.

This experience led to a blog: meditation on Violence.  I was disturbed and distressed by this unexpected reaction to the whole experience. After much reflection I decided that there is much to be learned here.  It is instructive to look at what I saw and experienced that afternoon.

When I got home the instruction continued,  I watched the evening news.  I saw in the following order:  Another school shooting in Houston Texas, a child killed by a drive by gang shooting in Compton, a 12 year old boy massacred his entire family, and to cap it all off there was a kidnapping and a murder- suicide in a domestic dispute.  And there were also other stories as well, a child molester arrested after a 40 year career as a teacher with numerous victims, and  a mother charged with starving, beating, and imprisoning her two children.

What‘s the cause of all this violence, I wonder?  So many different kinds: Child abuse, gang violence, domestic violence, terrorism in Algeria, Libya, Mali, Syria, and violence between nations.  Hundreds of thousands living in refugee camps. Are there threads which are common to this litany of inhumanity?

For the past 10 years I have been working with abused and traumatized children.  My book, soon to be published, looks at the effects of abuse on their development.  In my work I see many parallels between the dynamics of child abuse and the torture I witnessed in the movie.  I would like to share these similarities.

I will begin by setting the stage by sharing one of my favorite quotes from Alfred Adler:  “Self esteem?  The supreme law of life is this:  The sense of worth of the individual self shall not be allowed to be diminished.”

In torture and child abuse we see several common elements.  First the individual is dehumanized and rendered helpless.  The interrogator in the movie taking total control, said, “I want him to know he is absolutely helpless.”  He is dehumanized as the enemy, and then the second event happens, the victim is shamed and humiliated: subjected to demeaning physical acts, bound and gaggged and then water boarded.  Secondly the interrogator said, “I am going to hurt you and I can do anything I want to you.” He lets the victim know there is nothing he can do, he is helpless, and without hope.  He wants to get very deep inside his head.  There is no respect, he is an object to be used and manipulated for his own personal purposes.  The agenda of war.

Again I am reminded of a quote from another favorite,  Erik Erikson who writes:  “Shame supposes that one is small, completely exposed and conscious of being looked at--in a word, self-conscious.  One is visible and not ready to be visible…shaming exploit’s the increased sense of being small.

Children as well as others held hostage who experience the loss of control and their inability to find any “coherent survival strategy’ become terrified and then enraged.  In the mirror image of the self, they either turn the rage against the other, or themselves.  Allan Schore writes of this experience as a condition called “Shame-Rage.”  He writes:  Exposure to shame-humiliation is an all too frequent accompaniment of early child abuse, and it  may serve as an interpersonal matrix for dissociated rage (shame-rage).  He points out that there are certain kinds of mothers who are giving their children  early training to become violent when they grow up.  How do they do that?  In much the same way as an interrogator.  “They tease the boy until he loses control and strikes out…they ignore or ridicule his signals of anxiety and vulnerability…and they are consistently rough and bossy with him.  Paradoxically when the boy does strike out… the mother is at a loss to put an effective stop to his behavior.”

Ernest Becker once wrote:  “Unlike the baboon who gluts himself on food.  Man nourishes himself mostly on self-esteem.”

I believe parents in a sane society are equally responsible to provide opportunities for our children, and the rest of us to feel good about ourselves, to feel competent, creative, powerful and free in the enterprise of self-hood.  When those opportunities are denied and we experience humiliation, shame, and failure, in our vulnerability and inability to have control over our lives the consequences are dire for both the individual and the society in which it occurs.   I believe authentic community must preserve, sustain, and encourage individuals in their quest for meaning purpose and fulfillment of their self esteem project.

In the past few years I have had opportunities to work with whole communities in their attempts to recover from tragedy.  These opportunities had several qualities that led to healing.  It is a well known fact that recovery from trauma requires a certain kind of environment.  And it is the quality of the environment which determines the outcome of  recovery from trauma.  These qualities are found in all healing and healthy relationships. They are the same kind of environment which fosters and supports the pathway from childhood to mature selfhood and self-esteem.

I once had the opportunity to visit an exhibition that was on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  It had Artifacts from King Tut’s Tomb on display.  This appears to be a somewhat bizarre segue from Terror and Torture, but bear with me. I left the exhibit with a singular thought.  “How similar that sacred burial site was to the human psyche.”  When we are born, hopefully we are greeted with a sense of “hallowed presence”  and in that moment we begin with the help of skilled parents to construct the inner sanctum of the self.  This is the second womb. In that inner sanctum we fill it with sacred objects, and things of great value to ourselves.  We through trust allow others to enter and appreciate our collection of sacred objects, the most sacred of course is our very self which is vulnerable and exposed inside the sacred place.  When we allow others into our sacred space and they appreciate our uniqueness and the things we value most; cherished objects, dreams, and visions of the self we want to be we feel confirmed and valued.  There is even an unspoken covenant, “If I let you in, you will do so with reverence.”  This is a covenant born of trust and intimacy.  Parents must provide a stable, safe,  consistent, and respectful haven for this venture of the self: a secure base.  It is a sacred duty.  Society also bears a share of this responsibility to provide opportunities for the self to flourish and be validated.

Jules Henry a social psychologist once talked about betrayal as Black Sham.  This occurs when we allow others to see us as we really are and then are subjected to ridicule.  In other words they desecrate the shrine.  This is the experience of humiliation and shame which leads to rage and I believe, sows the seeds of violence.  A humiliated child is a vengeful child.

As in Columbine, Littleton, Newtown, Aurora, Oklahoma City, Waco, and Jonestown, we are shocked and ravaged by these  episodes of mass violence, but on a daily basis there are acts of violence being carried out on a smaller and unnoticed scale.  Small acts of humiliation, ridicule, shaming, and failure to appreciate and cherish each other.  We soon learn it is not safe to be vulnerable and  guard our innocence, inside we harabor our accumulated wounds.

Violence is a symptom of a failure of community:  a failure to cherish, safeguard, and empower the young, to provide opportunities and support the voyage of the young and vulnerable through the rough waters of a complex, impersonal and often insensitive and violent voyage to adulthood.  We bombard our children with images of violence, put guns in their hands, subject them to humiliation and render them powerless to achieve their dreams of being a person of worth who has the power of self-determination.  And then we witness the fruit of the seeds we have sown and wonder why they strike out, killing themselves along with others who became a target for their despair and rage.  It does not take much interpretation when a child shoots his mother in the face.

What we need to stem this insane epidemic is a certain kind of community.  A community which has several necessary qualities:  it must be intentional, inclusive, safe, secure, empowering, authentic, respectful, affirming, congruent, just, and trustworthy. I have participated in communities like these which helped their wounded to heal.  They provide the means to understand, educate, support, care for, and share stories of their woundedness and grief, their confusion, shock, terror, and rage.  And yes through this sharing and commitment they found a commonality and a way to find meaning, purpose and a way of reviving hope.  Bearing each other’s burdens, we are not alone in our healing.

The antidote for violence is community, the antidote for fear is community, the antidote for shame and rage is community.  The antidote for helplessness and despair is empowerment through community.  Acceptance is the antidote for humiliation.  Grace is the antidote for hatred, not guns.