Self-As-Context and PTSD: How Labels Reinforce Trauma
Booz Allen
Department of Veterans Affairs
Yale University
University of Nevada, Reno
Key Points
- There’s a distinction between the sense of self defined by content and experiences and the one that’s consistent over time and doesn’t rely on private experiences.
- For trauma survivors, finding a safe perspective can be essential to respond more effectively.
Materials Downloads
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Transcript
As I’ve mentioned throughout this course, a number of consequences flow from our ability to use verbal language to describe, categorize, and evaluate the world. One of those follow-on effects is that beginning very soon after we’ve learned descriptive words like good or bad, we come to apply those types of labels to describe ourselves as well. So, a child may pretty quickly go from describing herself as a girl to describing herself as a good girl or a bad girl, and then later on, to the label of a good girl or a bad girl who’s afraid of the dark.
Batten, S. V. (2011). Essentials of acceptance and commitment therapy. SAGE Publications Ltd.
These self-descriptions of characteristics, evaluations, and roles go on and on as they’re elaborated over time and throughout our lives. And this set of labels that we each have for ourselves is known within ACT as the conceptualized self.
Batten, S. V. (2011). Essentials of acceptance and commitment therapy. SAGE Publications Ltd.