Trauma Expert

Movies and tele­vi­sion shows are made to help enter­tain. Many fam­i­lies and friend groups make going to the movies a recur­ring activ­i­ty. They get ready, head to their local mall or movie the­ater, and eager­ly stand in line to pur­chase movie tick­ets. Before find­ing their seats, they load up on pop­corn, can­dy, and drinks. All to sit in a dark the­ater and watch the movie togeth­er. No mat­ter what type of movie – action, com­e­dy, dra­ma, hor­ror – a movie’s pur­pose is to cap­ti­vate and engage. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, sto­ries are typ­i­cal­ly altered or changed to keep peo­ple inter­est­ed when it comes to movies and tele­vi­sion shows. While this is great for enter­tain­ment, it’s not the best when dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing facts from fic­tion, espe­cial­ly when it comes to how movies choose to por­tray men­tal ill­ness. How­ev­er, accord­ing to this trau­ma expert, not all is as it seems in the movies. 

So if you’re won­der­ing about the ques­tion of “Do I need ther­a­py for trau­ma?” let’s learn more about what Hol­ly­wood gets wrong about trau­ma specif­i­cal­ly, as well as what to look for instead as you nav­i­gate when you may need trau­ma ther­a­py.

Warn­ing — there are spoil­ers. 

Do I need therapy for trauma?

1. The Signs and Symptoms

The signs and symp­toms of trau­ma in movies and tele­vi­sion shows aren’t the most accu­rate. Flash­backs and night­mares may be com­mon signs or symp­toms of trau­ma, but they don’t always have the most accu­rate depic­tion when it comes to movies or tele­vi­sion shows. For enter­tain­ment pur­pos­es, these flash­backs are often dra­ma­tized to enter­tain. Dur­ing these types of pro­grams, the respons­es to trau­ma are fre­quent­ly pre­dictable and drawn out. The real­i­ty is that these flash­backs and night­mares can be unex­pect­ed and even sub­tle. In the movie, The Mar­t­ian, Mark Wat­ney is left behind after being struck by a piece of met­al dur­ing a dust storm. When he wakes up, he real­izes that the rest of his crew has left him on the red plan­et, utter­ly alone. Wat­ney, how­ev­er, is able to put this aban­don­ment and loss aside and focus on what needs to be done. After many sols, Wat­ney fig­ures out a way to get off the plan­et and resume life. 

Be aware of this instead: 

• You’re notic­ing that there’s a block in your abil­i­ty to form close rela­tion­ships with oth­ers
• You com­mon­ly have night­mares or flash­backs about a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion, or hav­ing trou­ble sleep­ing fol­low­ing an event
• You take efforts to avoid peo­ple, sit­u­a­tions, or objects that remind you of a par­tic­u­lar event
• You tend to react to small or sim­ple things, when no threat is present or intend­ed
• There’s a group­ing of symp­toms and these symp­toms are start­ing to cre­ate prob­lems social­ly, occu­pa­tion­al­ly, etc. 

2. Oversimplification

Hol­ly­wood can make it seem like trau­ma is a sim­ple men­tal health issue. Many char­ac­ters on tele­vi­sion or in movies expe­ri­ence a trau­mat­ic event and must over­come it quick­ly for the movie to progress and not be too drawn out. Feel­ings sud­den­ly dis­ap­pear, night­mares are resolved, and the pro­tag­o­nist is ready for action. In real­i­ty, trau­ma can be high­ly com­plex and unique to each indi­vid­ual per­son. Trau­ma respons­es don’t go away overnight or with­in the time­frame of a three-hour movie. One exam­ple where this hap­pens is in the movie, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is told by the biggest vil­lain in that uni­verse, who has killed all kinds of species, plan­ets, and Jedi, that this vil­lain is actu­al­ly his father. While Luke does share his feel­ings momen­tar­i­ly, the rest of the movie shows Luke car­ry­ing on about his Jedi duties. Luke does devel­op a sort of “sav­ior com­plex” where he is focused on sav­ing his father from the evil, which also rarely hap­pens in typ­i­cal life. 

Be aware of this instead: 

• Trau­ma can be an acute or com­plex issue, depend­ing on its fre­quen­cy and sever­i­ty
• While trau­ma can be treat­ed through var­i­ous ways, a cause and effect situation–such as that described above, is rarely what will resolve the trau­ma
• Trau­ma treat­ment takes a num­ber of ses­sions for men­tal health providers to real­ly under­stand and address the prob­lem

3. Mental Health Professionals

The char­ac­ters that play men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als in tele­vi­sion shows aren’t appro­pri­ate­ly por­trayed either. Since tele­vi­sion shows and movies are so short, they often have to stage cer­tain acts or cut scenes. This means that some­one who expe­ri­ences trau­ma on screen can make it seem like they have one ther­a­py ses­sion and are imme­di­ate­ly healed. In real life, it takes sev­er­al ses­sions with a men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al, as well as home­work, for some­one to start the process on a path toward heal­ing.

Be aware of this instead: 

• Men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als come from a vari­ety of back­grounds and exper­tise — some focus on trau­ma treat­ment, while oth­ers may focus their treat­ment on sub­stance use, grief, or depres­sion, to name a few
• There’s not a “one size fits all” approach to trau­ma, nor to men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als
• Find­ing the right clin­i­cian can take time as well in many cas­es, tri­al and error, until you find a pro­fes­sion­al that you click with
• There is no “sil­ver bul­let” or strat­e­gy that imme­di­ate­ly fix­es sit­u­a­tions, as every­one is dif­fer­ent and so are their expe­ri­ences

4. The Recovery Time

Hol­ly­wood can make it seem like a trau­mat­ic event can be resolved entire­ly with­in the span of the movie. In real­i­ty, trau­ma can stay with some­one for quite some time. A trau­mat­ic event typ­i­cal­ly doesn’t just go away on its own. It takes a lot of hard work, ded­i­ca­tion, and time for some­one to feel like they can move for­ward in their life again. For exam­ple, in Top Gun: Mav­er­ick, Mav­er­ick is hav­ing a chat with Ice Man. Mav­er­ick shares about the guilt and trau­ma he expe­ri­enced when he watched his copi­lot, Roost­er, die. Ice Man tells Mav­er­ick that Mav­er­ick just needs to move on. In the next scene, Mav­er­ick shows no more signs of guilt or loss and is back to being the hero. 

Be aware of this instead: 

• How quick­ly a per­son resolves their trau­ma will vary 
• How peo­ple address and deal with their trau­ma can depend on a vari­ety of fac­tors, beliefs, and life expe­ri­ences
• Being a hero is not depen­dent upon whether or not your trau­ma gets resolved

5. How Trauma Impacts Loved Ones

Anoth­er way that Hol­ly­wood gets trau­ma wrong is by the pri­ma­ry focus typ­i­cal­ly being on the per­son who expe­ri­enced the trau­mat­ic event. What Hol­ly­wood fails to rec­og­nize is the trau­ma that the fam­i­ly, friends, and loved ones often go through, in addi­tion to the per­son ini­tial­ly affect­ed. Loved ones expe­ri­ence the after­math of trau­ma by wit­ness­ing their friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber try to nav­i­gate life after trau­ma. Fam­i­ly mem­bers may also not know what to say to the affect­ed person—or, know every­thing to say, which usu­al­ly results in being unhelp­ful advice. This shows a very lim­it­ed view of trau­ma and how much it can impact not only the per­son who under­went the trau­ma but also the peo­ple who care for that per­son. Take the movie, Encan­to. At the end of the movie, the grand­moth­er shares about how she has been trau­ma­tized by the killing of hus­band after he stood up for her while they were mov­ing to a new home. After the grand­moth­er shares this, every­one in the fam­i­ly is smil­ing and hap­py togeth­er. Or take Bruno, who has had years of iso­la­tion and feel­ings of rejec­tion, only to apol­o­gize for a mis­un­der­stand­ing and every­one in the fam­i­ly wel­comes him back. Mean­while, Bruno shows no signs of his for­mer feel­ings of rejec­tion or aban­don­ment. 

Be aware of this instead: 

• Try as you may, you will only be able to address your expe­ri­ence of the trau­ma; how oth­ers expe­ri­ence and deal with the trau­ma is their path to walk
• It does not help oth­er peo­ple for you to assert your­self in sit­u­a­tions, assume what some­one needs, or enable their jour­ney to change
• Time­lines vary for peo­ple who are work­ing through their trau­ma, whether it direct­ly, vic­ar­i­ous­ly, or indi­rect­ly hap­pened to them

Trauma Focused Therapy Adults

Lights, cam­era, action? It’s more like lights, cam­eras, and mis­con­cep­tion. While Hol­ly­wood often crush­es its goal of enter­tain­ing, it falls short of edu­cat­ing, espe­cial­ly regard­ing men­tal health and well­ness. The impact of trau­ma should not be por­trayed light­ly. If you or a loved one expe­ri­enced trau­ma, work­ing with a licensed and trained men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al is encour­aged. Reach out to have a free con­sult with Dr. Brad­ford Stuc­ki, LMFT today! 

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