This video discusses a primary reason why individuals with a history of trauma struggle to heal: repressed anger. The speaker, a psychiatrist, explains that this repressed anger often transforms into shame and depression, leading to self-hatred and a feeling of hopelessness. A common scenario involves a child who experienced abuse from one parent but also had a loving parent. When this child enters therapy to address the trauma from the abusive parent, they often find it difficult to acknowledge and process their anger towards the loving parent. This is because loving a parent, even one who was also abusive, creates a conflict. Acknowledging anger towards a loved one can lead to feelings of guilt and shame, causing the individual to suppress this anger. The speaker emphasizes that this suppressed anger is the root cause of depression and self-loathing, as the individual internalizes the anger that should be directed at the source of their trauma. The core issue is the inability to direct anger appropriately towards those who caused harm, leading to a cycle of shame, guilt, and depression.

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This is the number one reason why people with a history of trauma do not get better. If you have a history of trauma and you feel like you're hopeless and you're a loser or whatever, chances are there is a lot of anger that is repressed.

So I've had so many patients, this is like literally textbook. Like child grows up with two parents. One parent is abusive, one parent is loving. As child comes into therapy to deal with the trauma of growing up with an abusive parent, the hardest thing to do in that therapy is for that child to discover their anger towards the loving parent. Like you like this person, this is a good person, right? So if I like if I have one parent that was so kind to me, it feels so weird to be angry with them. And then if I feel angry with them, what do I feel? Guilt.

So what we see is that anger becomes shame and we end up missing it because we say, "Oh my god, I'm so ashamed of myself and it's [ __ ] hard." I say this as a psychiatrist who's made this mistake. At the root of it all is this anger that becomes depression. I can't afford to hate someone else. So I'm going to hate me instead. And if you feel a lot of guilt and you feel a lot of shame, it's because you won't allow yourself to feel angry at the people that it's appropriate for. And why is that hard? Because I love.

Why trauma is so hard to beat

This is the number one reason why people
with a history of trauma do not get
better. If you have a history of trauma
and you feel like you're hopeless and
you're a loser or whatever, chances are
there is a lot of anger that is
repressed. So I've had so many patients,
this is like literally textbook. Like
child grows up with two parents. One
parent is abusive, one parent is loving.
as child comes into therapy to deal with
the trauma of growing up with an abusive
parent. The hardest thing to do in that
therapy is for that child to discover
their anger towards the loving parent.
Like you like this person, this is a
good person, right? So if I like if I
have one parent that was so kind to me,
it feels so weird to be angry with them.
And then if I feel angry with them, what
do I feel? Guilt. So what we see is that
anger becomes shame and we end up
missing it because we say, "Oh my god,
I'm so ashamed of myself and it's
[ __ ] hard." I say this as a
psychiatrist who's made this mistake. At
the root of it all is this anger that
becomes depression. I can't afford to
hate someone else. So I'm going to hate
me instead. And if you feel a lot of
guilt and you feel a lot of shame, it's
because you won't allow yourself to feel
angry at the people that it's
appropriate for. And why is that hard?
Because I love

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Why trauma is so hard to beat

Transcription