Trauma within, Trauma without….how the current UK climate is affecting our patients and us?

“It is quite impossible to conceive how ‘experience’ in the widest sense, or, for that matter, anything psychic, could originate exclusively in the outside world. The psyche is part of the inmost mystery of life…”

Carl Jung

Introduction

What happens when there is disruption in the wider field—the field of our politics, our planet, our shared humanity? How do we embody best practice while providing a space that resources our patients without leaving ourselves, as practitioners, depleted?

Over the last decade in the UK, as community services have come under strain (McManus, Meltzer, Brugha, Bebbington, & Jenkins, 2009), there has been a marked increase in mental health needs. A direct effect is that acupuncturists are seeing more patients presenting with anxiety and depression.

As Jung suggests above, what lies without affects what lies within. Many high-functioning individuals with anxiety can “keep going” while the external environment remains steady. But when the environment is uncertain, people whose histories include difficulty or the lasting effects of imperfect childhood experience begin to “shake and sway”—and they seek the acupuncturist for relief.

What We’re Seeing

One of the most recognised “leaks” of trauma is anxiety and depression; many experiences are folded into these broad labels. In Heartshock (2019), Ross Rosen notes: “75% of those I treat have signs and symptoms of past traumatic events.” This suggests that today’s shaking and swaying is not only a UK climate issue but a global one.

A client recently described their day-to-day work in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, as a “trauma ball”: difficult, fast-building, with collateral suffering. Other patients report their inner lives feeling increasingly complex, citing Brexit and climate change as key contributors.

CT Holman writes: “Emotional trauma…is a pathogen that creates disharmony. If left untreated…it affects the three treasures: Jing, Qi, and Shen” (Treating Emotional Trauma with Chinese Medicine, 2018, p. 22). Trauma—and the memory or re-experiencing of it—scatters the Qi. If we don’t prioritise this, treatment outcomes may be limited; worse, the course of treatment can be skewed.

I have indeed found this to be true. And we must also ask: can this be a contagion, and how is it affecting us as practitioners?

What Helps: For Patients and For Us

Trauma specialist Dr Gabor Maté offers four keystones that map well to our work with highly anxious patients. They also resource us.

1) Compassion. Extend compassion to yourself and to other. Self-love is turning up to possibility. Stay engaged with learning supports. When you feel lost or out of your depth, remember that something else is possible—and that you are worth that possibility. Breathe. Invite the patient to breathe too.

2) Courage. See things as they are—begin with yourself—and make space for your patient to express how things actually are. Allow a pause before launching into our habitual “advice-giving.” Practise the courage to sit with suffering and with not-knowing.

3) Awareness. Bring what is outside inside. Notice how you feel with a client, and then discuss this with your supervisor. Track countertransference and use it as information, not identity.

4) Dis-identification. What happens for our patients will ripple in us, but it needn’t capsize us. Dis-identify enough to stay resourced and useful. If your awareness reveals your own work, take that to your supervisor.

Elder Wisdom

When we feel out of our depth, lean into elder wisdom. Points that invoke the “ancestors” can help patients cultivate an inner sense of guidance. Our work is underpinned by centuries of philosophical inquiry; remembering this offers both practitioners and patients a potent antidote to the field of chaos—imagined or actual.

Nine Obstacles to Mental Clarity (Yoga Sutra of Patanjali)

1. Lack of effort

2. Fatigue or disease

3. Dullness or inertia

4. Doubt

5. Carelessness or laziness

6. Inability to turn attention inward

7. Distorted seeing

8. Inability to establish firm ground for practice

9. Inability to sustain that ground (regression/being triggered)

The Brahmavihārās (Four Immeasurables)

1. Friendliness (loving-kindness) toward the joyful

2. Compassion for those who are suffering

3. Appreciative joy—celebrating the good in others

4. Equanimity—remaining impartial to the faults and imperfections of others

   
   

Resourcing Ourselves

The key question is: How do I resource myself as an acupuncturist? Needle choices matter, but—Buddhist and yogic traditions would argue—presence is primary. How do I fully commit myself to the work? What is needed so I can act within my full capacity as a healer?

Thich Nhat Hanh writes that happiness and suffering “inter-are”: they support each other. Just as Yin and Yang cannot be separated, suffering provides the understanding that allows happiness to flourish.

As the bloom (and occasional bust) of summer dissipates, autumn offers everything needed for deeper reflection. Over the following weeks, you can sit with these questions. If not, may you still have steady feet and sufficient breath—beyond the imminent election.

Peace and out.

Charlotte Brydon-Smith

#tips #change