My best pal turned to me in 1999 and said 'You have to watch Dogma. The director guy plays a part in it and the opening sequence is really funny; he talks about the platypus' (well, something like that. It was definitely more Geordie and more profane than that). So began one of those formative adolescent fanboy dalliances that I'd place just outside the Holy Trinity of wrestling, The Simpsons and Robocop as chief influences on my ... I don't know what - certainly my knowledge of mainstream America and humour (prodding at the shoulder of these three were Steve Martin films). Smith was a generation ahead of me and to my mind he presaged the age of the meme or hyper-referential 'content' with his movies caked in popular-culture nods and easter eggs. In 1999 it was positively thrilling to watch movies that featured songs by Weezer and talked about NHL 94 on the Sega Mega Drive. It was actually funny and entertaining when he cast Morris Day and The Time in 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'. In 2023 however, I am absolutely exhausted with the meta-call-backs of canon, universes and memes. At some point the self-referential material wears thin for me and fails to move anywhere. Smith's career seems to typify this impasse. A cursory look at Clerks 3 showed me all I needed to know; characters within a universe created by Smith referring back to the films in his canon and imitating his real life experience (of suffering a heart attack). Then Matrix 4 came out and went even deeper into this approach. Meta-narratives can be big and clever but often, in these two exceptional examples of dire execution, its neither. Twenty minutes into both I was done. Give me the blue pill. Snootch to the nootch!
In the video below we find Smith post-heart attack but in his typically loquacious mood (despite his sobriquet the bloke very comfortably talks for 34 minutes).
Disclaimer - Smith talks about his experiences of sexual abuse
It's clear that Smith has taken in a large amount of his psycho-education (something I like to do with clients at times is introduce them to some of the exact same concepts Smith's therapist has in order to provide them with a useful toolbox) and he speaks candidly and, as you'd expect from him, eloquently on the matter. At the heart of what he says is something deeply important that I have written about as part of a book that will be published soon; Smith says that the brain and the human nervous system do not recognise levels of trauma. He is absolutely right and I'm so glad he said it because all too often the victims of trauma, like Smith himself, play an inverse game of 'trauma olympics' and discount their experiences.
How we take experiences and organise this information in such a way as to structure an understanding of the world speaks to another definition of trauma that I like. Trauma hinges ‘less (on) the event but the impact on the inner world’, so says Richard Schwartz, founder of the Internal Family Systems form of therapy (Levine, 2020). That is to say, even if we could somehow be subjected to the same experiences, how they are internalised and their impact is completely unique to the individual. I think this is an absolutely essential way to regard trauma, especially because, like most psychological phenomena, how it is regarded is a subject of continuous and ardent debate. I understand that like any field, Traumatology has a taxonomic grouping system of types, such as complex traumas, chronic traumas and so on. Much like our internal systems are a way to organise to make sense, so we, as humans have to organise external phenomena into groups, no matter how vast and complex that phenomena may be. And this is the Aeons-old problem of linguistics; finding the words for the irreducible. Psychoanalysis is largely the language of symbols but when applied inside the medical model it has to be filtered through clumsy and painstaking definitions. Trauma and PTSD in particular are subject to what Professor Richard McNally calls ‘Conceptual Bracket Creep’, which is effectively an ever-broadening definition. This creates multiple issues in terms of diagnoses and methodologies, but, as a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor I do not work with trauma survivors using a medical model. I use predominantly personal, psychological models along with social, biological and neurological systems. Whilst I can appreciate that an expansion in classifications of traumas can then lead to a world where, in McNally’s words, ‘Most people today qualify as trauma survivors’ I find the reliance on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the bible that American Psychiatric Association publish, revise and publish as meanings shift) too medical. What I mean is, it is a model wherein the inherently flawed written translations of psychological concepts divines what trauma is from a list that, as we have seen, is in need of regular revision, much to the consternation of certain Traumatologists. That in turn creates an exclusionary list that somehow draws the line between events being traumatic to a person and not traumatic to a person. As a person-centred therapist I feel ethically obliged to refrain from telling a client ‘Well actually, though you’re telling me you’ve experienced a trauma, looking at my book, that doesn’t fall into the definition. Not quite.’ Again, this is where compassion and empathy enter. Let’s explore the impact on the inner world rather than some dictionary that literally states ‘Simple bereavement’ (whatever is ‘simple’ about any bereavement confounds me) does not qualify as trauma. And the idea that you need to qualify suggests a ‘trauma olympics’, something writers like Kristen Higgens name and refute whilst simultaneously inferring a hierarchy of pain in pitching experiences against each other. And again, I can absolutely appreciate that this is what is involved in the medical model, and that widening definitions causes potential harm in misdiagnoses for example. But the fact is it is not my modality: philosophically, moralistically or practically. I want to illustrate how I think about trauma and what I feel is important. I would no sooner deny somebody their experience of trauma than I would their feelings. To me, it’s tantamount to creating a manual for what is and is not offensive. For everybody. And that is not to say that I would classify ‘Everyday experiences’ of loneliness (one of Higgens’ examples) as a trauma but then I wouldn’t ‘classify’ anything. Within both Higgens’ and McNally’s writing is the idea that ‘lesser’ experiences of trauma undermine ‘greater’ ones (sometimes inferred, sometimes explicit). I can well understand that classifying ‘rude office jokes’ as a traumatic stressor seems absurd stood next to child abuse but McNally himself summarises the folly of this way of thinking:
‘Yet surely establishing the stressors that do or do not possess the capability of causing PTSD is an empirical matter, not a conceptual one. In fact, many studies have reported that people can develop PTSD-like symptoms after exposure to stressors that fall short of the DSM definition of trauma (e.g. Mol et al., 2005)’
Interestingly enough he concludes his article sounding resigned; ‘…Attempts to provide necessary and sufficient criteria for defining the concept of trauma presuppose that we can formulate criteria for a unitary concept of trauma’
Smith mentions the amygdala. The amygdala is part of the larger limbic system which comprises of the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. This system is largely responsible for evaluating sensory input/stimulus and then mediating the behavioural and emotional response to such. Smith mentions that this is part of the 'lizard brain' which speaks to the theory of the 'triune brain' (Maclean, 1970), which is an evolution-based theory of brain development from lizard (instinctual, survivalist function), to paleomammalian (emotions - the limbic system) to neomammalian (the frontal cortex - executive function, language, logic). I wanted to add something in here because it's important to note that the triune brain theory has been largely abandoned by neuroscientists. That being said, I still think it is useful to consider Although the brain is evidently not three separate segments that operate independently of eachother (rather than interconnected structures), there is still validity to the functions associated within these structures and there is still utility in employing Dr Dan Siegel's hand-brain model when educating, particularly younger clients. It is simplistic, but it needs to be - the brain is of course, deeply, deeply complex. Thinking about the lower regions of the brain as more instinctual, it helps to normalise emotional reactions. If a child reacts in a rage, reframing this as a survivalist response that renders their upper brain less 'accessible' is a beautiful way of providing some empathy for themselves.
The key message here is trauma is trauma. Smith would happily agree to talk to a camera if he were told the camera would swallow him into a vortex where comics and Star Wars never existed. Smith would talk for three hours if he were asked to sign 600 non-disclosure agreements and that he would be shot at dawn if he ever contravened this dictum. That being said, I'm so glad he chose to use his proclivity for orating to any and everyone to share this.
References
MacLean PD (1970): The triune brain, emotion, and scientific bias. In: The Neurosciences Second Study Program, Schmitt FO, ed. New York: Rockefeller University Press.
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