Trauma as the underlying issue.

[Vivian Broughton]

I quote from de Mause paper dated The Journal of Psychohistory 25 (3) Winter 1998:

"The main psychological mechanism that operates in all child abuse involves using children as what I have termed poison containers--receptacles into which adults project disowned parts of their psyches, so they can control these feelings in another body without danger to themselves."

I am a practitioner of Identity-Oriented Psychotrauma Theory/Therapy (IOPT). Our central issue is trauma as underlying all human issues, including the terrible treatment of children over human history. As an example, I would re-state de Mause's statement above as follows:

"Parents who are traumatised themselves, use their children as receptacles for their own (poisonous) feelings so that they do not have to feel their own split off trauma feelings, thus they traumatise their children, who grow to adults and do the same to their children and so on."

As a psychotherapist trained at a reputable institute in London in the 1980s, I wondered why the issue of trauma was not mentioned as a central issue. There is a somewhat paradoxical history to the study of trauma, which you can read here if you wish. It is a dilemma for me, that even in your enlightened writings about the horrors perpetrated on children, I do not see the mention of trauma as a central issue as to why parents and adults have so persistently traumatised their children. 

In IOPT we have a definition of trauma as, unlike high stress, an experience of complete and utter helplessness. Fight and flight are more appropriately consigned to high stress; if we can have the possibility of fight or flight we are not completely helpless. Trauma is beyond that, and involves a perpetrator (who holds all the power, as a parent does) and a victim (who holds no power at all, as a baby and child does). Trauma is a complete breakdown of the victim who can do nothing in the face of the perpetrator.

In our IOPT work we see that the primary trauma for most, if not all, children is of not being wanted in the first place, not wanted and seen for the actual being that they are, and this trauma most commonly occurs already in the womb. How helpless and vulnerable is the child then, and for many years to come. If a mother, because of her own trauma, doesn't want her child, or sees her child as useful to her in some way, the child is made into an object for her use. His or her autonomy and individuality is spurned and the child has to adapt... even in the womb. We call this trauma the Trauma of Identity, because the child cannot hold onto his or her own sense of self, but has to adapt and compromise to the mother's wishes, wants and abuses, even long before the child has any intellect at all.

Following the Trauma of Identity, and in most cases at the same time, is the Trauma of Love, the trauma of being unable to establish a loving connection with the mother. The mother does not love the child (if the child is not wanted, then of course the child is not loved). The mother, through her own traumas, may even not release any oxytocin (the bonding hormone) at all, and may feel no love for the child. At the same time, the child's entirely natural (and chemically based) impulse to love the mother in order to bond and be safe, is rejected by the mother. This leaves the child seriously traumatised, extremely vulnerable to whatever the mother and father choose to do.

Following this trauma is the Trauma of Sexuality; in effect if the mother doesn't want the child, or uses the child for her own use (what de Mause is talking about in the quote above), she doesn't love the child, and then she is not a safe protector for the child. Hence the ability of parents to perpetrate the most appalling actions on their children.

This thinking then translates into much of our global and political situation. All our leaders are traumatised and function primarily from their trauma survival impulses. All our social and legal services more often than not avoid the topic of trauma, and particularly sexual trauma... it is too much for everyone as it will always re-trigger their own personal traumas. These 'trauma survival strategies' are in order to keep the split off trauma experiences out of current awareness.

The reason that we do not talk properly about trauma, or dilute the issue by using the word trauma too easily and without a proper definition, is so that we protect ourselves from our own split off trauma. 

For me it seems that we cannot talk about any of these issues of the abuse of children if we do not include a proper theory of trauma, with a proper definition of what we are talking about. The current DSM V designation of PTSD is, in my view, entirely inadequate. In fact I would go further and say that, rather than there just being the one category of mental illness that covers trauma (out of some 350 or so) in the DSM V, every single designation in the whole manual has traumatisation at its roots. The designations are the symptoms of trauma, the attempted survival impulses. For example, if a child is not wanted by the mother, then the child grows up with an impossible dilemma: there is the natural urge of life to exist, be and flourish, contrasted with the mother's wish (that the child has to adhere to in order to have some connection with her) that the child should not exist. The survival strategy of, for example, self-harming behaviour enacts this dilemma all the time. The person stays alive, just, but at the same time is destructive of themselves, the unconscious need to fulfil the mother's wish that she doesn't exist.

If you are interested in knowing more about IOPT I give a couple of website links below.

I hope my emails is of some interest, and I am happy to answer any questions, or respond to others' thoughts.

Professor Dr Franz Ruppert is the originator of IOPT: https://www.franz-ruppert.de/

My website is: www.vivianbroughton.com

best wishes to you

Vivian Broughton

IOPT Psychotrauma Therapist
www.vivianbroughton.com

www.iopt-practitioner-events.com

+44 (0)7813 812852

[Summer's End]

Hello, all. I have written a book, and would like to get permission to quote Lloyd DeMause's words in 

a couple of his journal articles, which are published online. Now that he is gone, I have not been able

to contact anyone who might be able to give permission. I emailed a Susan Heim, but got no response.

Is someone still monitoring the Journal, or editing it, that I could contact? If anyone knows, please get

back to me at dr.s...@verizon.net. Thank you. Sharon Flaherty, Ph.D. www.sharonflahertyphd.com

[Madeline Taylor, PhD]

I agree completely with Vivian Broughton on the definition of trauma as the combination of physical or emotional danger, coupled with having no capacity to protect oneself or have any impact on the perpetrator. When neither fight nor flight is possible and even freezing or fainting has no effect on the perpetrator's behavior, the infant/child is utterly powerless and at the complete mercy of the other.

Judith Herman, in Trauma and Recovery, likens childhood trauma to the experience of prisoners of war, subject to torture with no capacity to protect themselves in any way. Alice Miller's first book was called, Prisoners of Childhood, in its European version, I believe. Both authors emphasize the helplessness of abused children and the psychic toll that takes on their sense of self during their most formative years. The loss of personal agency,  self-assertion, and even of self-defensive aggression, goes to Vivian's thesis that trauma shatters identity. 

Robert Stolorow, in Trauma and Human Existence, and again in World, Affectivity, and Trauma, proposes that trauma is "a shattering of one's experiential world - in particular, of those 'absolutisms' that allow one to experience one's world as stable, predictable, and safe." He also describes how trauma shatters time: "Experiences of trauma become freeze-framed into an eternal present in which one remains forever trapped, or to which one is condemned to be perpetually returned through the 'portkeys' supplied by life's slings and arrows." 

There is no doubt that entire countries of people can feel traumatized by the profound loss of personal agency, personal voice, and the possibility of self-actualization when living under the requirement to obey that's pervasive in brutal, totalitarian regimes. When the state's indifference to the people's suffering equals the indifference of parents to the suffering of their child, the same loss of identity can occur...loss of agency, voice, and other dimensions of individuated selfhood. In many countries, such as Russia, the people have lived under versions of totalitarianism for thousands of years. I've always wondered if this accounts for "the Russian soul," the fabled sense of depression among the Russian people.

Thank you, Vivian, for introducing me to Identity-Oriented Psychotrauma Theory and Therapy...I will happily peruse the websites you've given us and look forward to becoming more acquainted with you and Franz Ruppert.

Sincerely,

Madeline Taylor, PhD

[James Sturges]

I enjoyed both these posts by Taylor and Broughton.

Just wondering if either may wish to expand upon the trauma encountered by military personnel (assuming they have normal empathy) in killing other human beings.

I know that veterans who served in war zones like Iraq have very significant ongoing issues, especially if they served 2 or 3 tours. Of course there are many other examples of this, in war, that have nothing obvious to do with being wounded or made a prisoner.

Thanks.

---------Jim

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[Allan Hytowitz]

Can someone help me get sufficient and additional validation of what may be a major psychological discovery.

I am trying to get sufficient validation to correlate my discovery that people's actions/attitudes are in response to the combination of their quality of vision and their childhood environment.

Despite his obvious behavioral flaws, the proper question  people should be asking about Donald Trump is not whether he has dyslexia or is incompetent or is blatantly corrupt and a con artist.  The proper question which needs to be asked is "why do so many gullible people believe him?"   

My "simple explanation" is that individuals with dyslexia (many of whom are not even aware of their vision problem) and an authoritarian/stressful childhood tend to prefer an "authoritarian leader" regardless of that "leader's" competence or credibility.

Without the support and enablement of his gullible followers, Donald J. Trump would likely be universally regarded as a dangerous clown and con artist.  Instead he is regarded by some as their “anointed leader” and potentially next President.  However, I think I have made a discovery which will allow individuals trained in psychology to join the legal and political efforts to stop Trump and the cult of insurrectionist from taking over our country, and explain why Fundamentalism seems to be taking over the rest of the world.

 

The key to understanding the physiological factor is the development of a rapid and simple test for the visual stress associated with dyslexia

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Color_iPad/index.html

The online color/contrast screening test is available at no charge and can be used on a PC, iPhone, iPad, or Android device.  That test has clinical validation with a 90% correlation to diagnosed dyslexia symptoms.

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Dyslexia_and_Color_Perception-SandraStark.pdf

https://youtu.be/l9hJwA2LJdU 

The discovery regarding Trump support is that about 87% of 2018 Trump supporters have a combination of dyslexia (Near Vision Stress) AND an authoritarian/abused childhood.  Only about 32% of the 2018 Clinton supporters had dyslexia (Near Vision Stress) but they all had a supportive/nurturing childhood.  (Details below.)

	Blue Preference	Green Preference
Type of	Near Vision Stress	Stable Near Image
Childhood	75% Red / 20% Green	50% Red  / 45% Green
Clinton Supporter	32%	68%
Trump Supporter	87%	13%

 

	Blue Preference	Green Preference
Type of	Near Vision Stress	Stable Near Image
Childhood	75% Red / 20% Green	50% Red  / 45% Green
Nurturing - Win/Win	Tribal	Collaborative
Authoritarian – Win/Lose	Fundamentalist	Skeptic

 

That emotional response is associated with the PolyVagal theory of childhood development.  

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12954445/

What I am hoping is that you can suggest someone who could provide a proper, and more extensive Academic study of this concept.  

BACKGROUND:

In 2008 we discovered a "revolutionary" vision test which uses a spinning dynamic optotype segmented ring called a Dyop (pronounced "di-op") which is six times as accurate as Snellen testing, eight times as consistent, and twice as efficient for measuring acuity (and refractions) than what is provided by the standard Snellen static letter-based visual target (optotype) as developed in1862. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXpdI9pVNI

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Which_Optotype_Are_You_Using.pdf

 A Dyop does not require literacy (enabling its use by infants) and can measure acuity in color by providing a strobic stimulus to the photoreceptors in the eye, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXpdI9pVNI

http://www.dyop.info/documents/How_We_See.pdf

Figure 1

Figure 2

Why We See In Color - How Chromatic Triangulation regulates acuity
https://youtu.be/iOdXDxXHYvA

Color Vision Variances - Using a Dyop to screen for Near Vision Stress 
https://youtu.be/l9hJwA2LJdU 

By measuring acuity in color it was discovered that specific colors that match the sensitivity of the Blue, Green, and Red sensitive cone photoreceptors in the fovea had different color acuity endpoints.  It was also discovered that even individuals who tested the same for Black/White acuity, frequently had differences associated with diagnostic differences (Figure 3).

Note that for the acuity endpoint, the smaller the value, the better the acuity for that permutation.

Figure 3

We subsequently discovered that individuals with a better ability to see Blue/Black versus Green/White had a higher likelihood for potential symptoms of dyslexia, migraines, and epilepsy.  Individuals with a better ability to see Red/Gray were likely far sighted (hyperopes).  We then learned that individuals with a reduced ability to see Green likely had a lower percentage (20%) of Green photoreceptors versus a 75% percentage of Red photoreceptors in the fovea.

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Chase_OVS07.pdf

That correlation of diagnosed dyslexia and color perception was subsequently validated by Dr. Sandra Stark.

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Dyslexia_and_Color_Perception-SandraStark.pdf

Because of the multiplicity of symptoms, and to reduce the potential cultural stigma, we labeled the visual condition as Near Vision Stress associated with the lower percentage of Green photoreceptors being associated with an increased ability to have Green focused on the fovea to provide a stable image (see Figure 1).  We labeled non-symptomatic individuals (likely with 50% Red and 45% Green photoreceptors) as having a Stable Near Image.

Using the screening test for about 1000 individuals, the Dyop color screening test showed a much higher percentage (~40%) of individuals with a higher red/green ratio (seeing the smaller spinning Blue/Black) than found in the literature (~20%),  Those individuals who preferentially saw the spinning Blue/Black ("Near Vision Stress") also frequently had a personal or family history of migraines and epilepsy as well as dyslexia.  

However, prior to the 2016 election I discovered among friends who were Trump supporters that almost ALL of them were better able to see the spinning Blue/Black Dyop (indicating symptoms of Near Vision Stress) rather than a Green/White Dyop.   I used that color screening test with a random sampling of potential voters at a nearby Mall Food Court and discovered that 87% of the Trump supporters preferentially saw the smaller Blue/Black (aka dyslexics with a higher red/green photoreceptor ratio) versus 32% of Clinton supporters.  

Initial color test responses for the spinning Blue/Black (Near Vision Stress) versus the spinning Green/White ring (Stable Near Image)

Candidate	Blue	Green	Total		% Blue	% Green	Total		% Blue	% Green	Total
Clinton	8	17	25		32%	68%	100%		38%	89%	62%
Trump	13	2	15		87%	13%	100%		62%	11%	38%
Total	21	19	40		52%	48%	100%		100%	100%	100%

It took two more years to figure out the likely correlation of vision with politics having to do with individuals with Near Vision Stress also having an authoritarian/stressed childhood and learning to be overly-confident about what they are seeing.  

When I asked Trump supporters who tested positive for Near Vision Stress and preferentially seeing the Blue/Black Dyop to describe their childhood they typically referred to it as being either authoritarian and/or abusive.  The Near Vision Stress individuals who were Clinton supporters tended to have loving/nurturing childhoods.  A stressed childhood has individuals learning to feel more comfortable in a structured or authoritarian environment.  Thus, "how we SEE the world determines how we VIEW the world."

The "simple steps" to correlate visual stress and a childhood environment to cultural preferences is to ask three questions:

1.  Ask individuals to view the Dyop color screening test.  Have them move away from the screen until they cannot detect the segmented rings as spinning, then have them move forward to determine which ring they first see spinning, the Blue/Black ring or the Green/White ring?  

Seeing the spinning Blue ring first indicates Near Vision Stress (aka, dyslexia).

http://www.dyop.info/documents/Color_iPad/index.html

2.  Ask the individuals, on a scale from 1 to 10, how Authoritarian their childhood was?  A scale of 6 through 10 likely indicates a stressed/authoritarian childhood. 

3.  Ask the individuals if they voted for Trump or Biden? 

It is likely that ~80% of the individuals with Near Vision Stress and an authoritarian (6 or higher) childhood voted for Trump and still support him.  For lack of better terminology, I have categorized the combination of visual responses and childhood environment as Tribal, Fundamentalist, Collaborative, and Skeptic.

	Blue Preference	Green Preference
Type of	Near Vision Stress	Stable Near Image
Childhood	75% Red / 20% Green	50% Red  / 45% Green
Nurturing - Win/Win	Tribal	Collaborative
Authoritarian – Win/Lose	Fundamentalist	Skeptic

 

Individuals with Near Vision Stress and a nurturing childhood tend to prefer structured or hierarchical relationships.  I call that category Tribal (which seems to include most sincerely religious people).

Individuals with Near Vision Stress and an authoritarian childhood, and , learn from that childhood to be authoritarian or submissive to authoritarianism.  I call that category Fundamentalist.  (The overwhelming majority of cultish Trump supporters are Fundamentalists.  It is likely that Trump supporters don't like Government Regulations due to the visual stress of reading such documents.) 

 

Individuals with a nurturing childhood, and a Stable Near Image, learn from that childhood to be symbiotic (win-win) in their relationships.  I call that category Collaborative.

Individuals with an authoritarian childhood, and a Stable Near Image, learn from that childhood to be either skeptical or rebellious.  I call that category Skeptic.

My terminology is creative but is based on my personal experience and observations.  My concern is mostly with the Fundamentalists (the Cult of Trump) in that they overcompensate for their own insecurities and believe the compulsive lies of Donald Trump.  My hope is that by validating the combination of their color perception profile plus their childhood imprinting, it can be used to explain to those individuals why they have been so easily conned by Donald Trump.

I also realize that the "dedicated" Trump supporters will likely be offended by such a test and accuse the test giver of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome."  Ironically,  BEING a Trump supporter is what is indicative of derangement.  While it is possible that the racist and Fundamentalist attitudes of people in the United States today are far less than they were a generation ago, it may literally take another generation for those attitudes to go away.  This visual and environmental combination explanation should speed up the process.

I am hoping you can suggest someone who could provide a proper, and more extensive Academic study so that a larger study and solid validation will keep humanity from destroying itself.  

==============================

There is also a global and cultural aspect to this thesis as well. (Please note that "racial" is not the same as "racist.")

The cultural and evolutionary advantage of dyslexia is that it provides a Stable Distance Image and enables an individual to more easily spot predators and game as part of a hunter/warrior society.  The cultural and evolutionary disadvantage of dyslexia is that it makes reading letter based words (especially in the 21st century) more difficult which is why gene pools with a higher ratio of high red/green photoreceptor individuals tend to use pictographic writing.  Our current global and personal expansion of wealth and technology is due to the increase of letter-based literacy.

The cultural and evolutionary advantage of a Stable Near Image is that it enables an individual to notice subtle differences in letter-based words and plants and is more conducive to scientific discovery.  In the 13,000 years as the dominant culture in the Americas (who had a Stable Distance Image), prior to the European invastion and genocide, Native Americans never invented the wheel.  Another cultural and evolutionary advantage of a Stable Near Image is that it encourages a symbiotic relationship among people since a predatory or tribal approach to society divides resources rather than lets the most aggressive party accumulate resources.  The 20th century global growth of wealth is based on letter-based technology and global symbiosis, as reflected in the "Dell Computer Rule" in that no countries who make components for Dell Computers have ever gone to war since disrupting the other country's supply of components is a loss for both countries.

As to the genetic distribution of vision types, about 95% of Native Americans have dyslexia as descendants of the Mongols.  Dyslexia is so rampant that one of the frequent criteria for being a Native American (or part of the "Tribe") is that you have to have dyslexia.  About 80% of Hispanic Americans also have dyslexia as mixed-race descendants of Native Americans.  About 80% of Native Africans have dyslexia while "only" 60% of African Americans have dyslexia due to being mixed-race descendants of Native Africans.  About 80% of the Asian gene pool (especially China) also has dyslexia which correlates to their being descendants of the Mongols much as are Native Americans.  It also correlates to Asian cultures using pictographic writing rather than letter-based writing since pictographs are more easily identified at a distance than clusters of letters.

I also have a web page describing the behavior of Donald Trump and his supporters/sycophants. 

http://www.trumphasdyslexia.com/

However, in 2018 I posted the following comment regarding the end of the Trump Presidency which is at the bottom of the www.trumphasdyslexia.com webpage:

HOWEVER, I am NOT very optimistic as to the outcome of our society WHEN Trump is removed from office.  There are too many Trump supporters who continue to be oblivious to the lies, the immorality, the corruption, and the bullying who will fail to recognize that they have been conned.
What I am expecting is a massive, Trump supporting, self-appointed militia will riot similar to the riots in India when a beloved guru was convicted of rape:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/india-riot-guru-rape-conviction-dead-1.4263977
Fortunately our “well-regulated militia” (the US Military, Police, and National Guard) will be able to deal with the self-appointed “people” who think they have the “right to bear arms” and fail to realize that their obsession is actually that of a self-appointed terrorist organization.

In hindsight I realized that I "predicted the January 6, 2021, riots in Washington DC and the January 8, 2023, riots in Brazil which correlates to the higher percentage of Native Americans (Brazilians) who have Near Vision Stress raised in an authoritarian culture.  

 And at the top of that web page I also have videos with Donald Trump showing "classic" behaviors of illiteracy and dyslexia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4gpBH2n-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybp1alenryo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzqbE7yYxE0

HOWEVER the best video is the interview at OxfordUniversity with Tony Schwartz (the actual author of “The Art of the Deal”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxF_CDDJ0YI&t=2s

Schwartz does not use the term dyslexia, but he does describe Donald Trump as being functionally illiterate, uninformed, irresponsible, and blatantly incompetent using lying and bullying to hide his illiteracy and incompetence

I am hoping that the problem with the Cult of Trump can be resolved by the US Court system, but any assistance as to an Academic Study of the combination of dyslexic visual response, childhood environment, and the associated attitude towards Trump would speed up the process by providing an explanation for that behavior.  It also may assist in the survival of the human race.

The authoritarian behavior of Putin also can be ascribed to HIS dyslexia and his authoritarian/abusive childhood.

If you run a small validation study with the color screening test and the authoritarianism questionnaire, I think you will realize the validity of my "crazy idea."  The hope is that a larger study and solid validation will keep humanity from destroying itself.

Again, thank you for your assistance, and thank you for your time.

Allan Hytowitz

www.dyop.org

www.dyopvision.com

www.linkedin.com/in/allanhytowitz

5035 Morton Ferry Circle

Johns Creek, GA 30022

404-281-7798

Technology is the use of increasingly accurate, self-evident, and reproducible information to replace energy and matter.  

The benefit of technology is NOT in what it lets people accomplish, but in how it improves the character of people. 

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