Is There an Antidote to Alienation after Trauma?

A sexual assault survivor mentions feeling disconnected from people with whom she once felt close. Another explains that he feels like a stranger to himself.

In interview after interview with my research team, survivors of interpersonal trauma have shared descriptions such as these. Some survived child abuse or adolescent dating violence; others, intimate partner abuse or sexual assault. Regardless of the type of interpersonal trauma, a common thread is feeling disconnected from oneself and others.

Over decades of research, I’ve come to understand this harm to one’s sense of self and connection to others as alienation. But is there an antidote to alienation after trauma? Research points to several strategies.

Reconnecting With Oneself

One way to understand disconnection from oneself is in terms of the tactics used by abusive people, such as gaslighting and DAVRO, a term coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd to refer to deny, attack, reverse victim offender. In the face of gaslighting, DARVO, and other abusive tactics, survivors can come to doubt their own perceptions of themselves, others, and the world. As abuse chips away at the ability to trust one’s own perception, it’s not surprising feelings of alienation from the self and others are common.

The combination of abusive tactics and feelings of alienation point to the importance of reconnecting with oneself in healing. Therapy can be a powerful tool for reconnecting with oneself by learning to notice, explore, and reframe beliefs about the self, others, and the world—particularly negative cognitions arising from the trauma, such as self-blame or seeing oneself as weak. For example, cognitive processing therapy has been linked with reductions in negative cognitions as well as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms across multiple studies.

Reconnecting With Others

Therapy also offers an opportunity to reconnect with another person—in this case, the therapist. At a foundational level, therapeutic alliance—that is, the quality of the relationship between the client and therapist—is linked with change, such as decreases in PTSD symptoms. More is possible, though, particularly as relates to addressing alienation. For example, feminist approaches to therapy recognize the potential for healing and reconnection in the context of a therapeutic relationship through which a therapist bears witness to the trauma and its impact. Indeed, feminist psychologist Laura Brown described feminist therapy in terms of liberation and “a move toward the power of being able to know and name one’s experiences of oppression as well as those of joy.” Liberation psychology recognizes the harm of trauma and oppression, and champions healing through connection with one’s authentic self and community, such as in work by APA President Thema Bryant-Davis, psychologist Helen Neville, and colleagues.

Of course, many kinds of relationships—not just those with therapists—offer powerful opportunities for reconnection after trauma and alienation. Not surprisingly, then, social support has been linked time and again with posttraumatic outcomes, such as PTSD. Some research suggests that social support before a trauma can buffer its impact. Other research suggests that more severe PTSD in the aftermath of trauma can diminish social support. A recent meta-analysis found support for both of these pathways linking social support and PTSD.

Not Just Any Social Support

Importantly, not all social support is helpful—the devil’s in the details, as the saying goes. For example, psychologists such as Emily Dworkin have distinguished between perceived and received social support. Perceived social support refers to a person’s sense of the amount and quality of social support available to them. Received social support refers to the range of reactions that people give when survivors disclose about their traumas. Some of these reactions are positive, including offering survivors tangible help (such as referrals to agencies or information) or emotional support. Other reactions, however, are referred to as negative social reactions.

Negative social reactions can include obvious things, such as victim blaming or treating people differently because of the trauma. Negative reactions can also include actions such as taking control away from survivors or trying to distract them from what happened. Sometimes people can engage in these kinds of reactions with the best of intentions. For example, a loved one might think that a survivor is overwhelmed and that it would be helpful to make decisions for them, thus taking away control.

In a meta-analysis of 51 studies of social reactions, Dworkin and colleagues found that negative social reactions were linked with more severe posttraumatic symptoms, while positive reactions were less strongly associated with symptom severity. This points to the important role that each of us can play in responding to disclosures of interpersonal trauma by working to avoid negative reactions, and, instead, focusing on offering tangible help and emotional support.

Connection as Prevention and Intervention

Because of my team’s work on alienation, I spend a lot of time thinking about the role that building healthy connections with oneself and others plays in healing from trauma and alienation. Of course, reconnection has long been a central theme emphasized by trauma psychologists as key to understanding trauma’s impact and recovery.

Connection is also a powerful way to think about prevention. There’s the obvious that when traumas do happen, connection in the form of social support can buffer some of the impacts, as described earlier. More is possible, though.

Focusing on connections in our communities and workplaces can show us that our current circumstances and futures are tangled up with others. Seeing these connections can help us recognize the importance of working together in new ways to prevent interpersonal trauma and related problems, as I explore in Every 90 Seconds: Our Common Cause Ending Violence Against Women. Indeed, at a time when people across the United States describe feeling increasingly isolated and alienated, whether at work or in our politics, finding and building connections is more important than ever.

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Note: A version of this article appeared this month at Psychology Today here.