In our clinical practice, we have found that the real culprit of depression is not genetic factors, nor abnormal neurotransmitter concentrations, but patients have suffered superimposed psychological trauma from childhood to adulthood, as well as continuous self-denial.
We have also written many real-life case articles, detailing the superimposed psychological trauma that patients have suffered.
However, some readers still feel puzzled after reading it: the so-called "superimposed psychological trauma" suffered by these children, such as being criticized by teachers and parents, being joked by classmates, etc., these are very small and very common things, how can it lead to depression?
In fact, not only readers, but also many parents of adolescent patients we see find it difficult to understand:
"Doctor He, the child has indeed experienced these superimposed psychological traumas you mentioned. But that's not a big deal! I've experienced something more serious than this, I don't even have depression, how can the child get it? ”
We can understand the confusion of this part of the readers, parents. Indeed, most adolescent depressed patients have experienced superimposed psychological trauma that is "small", which is a very common number of small twists and turns, small conflicts, and some are even just unintentional sentences of others.
So, in today's article, we want to explain the concept of "superimposed psychological trauma" in more depth. I hope to help you understand more deeply why children have mental and psychological problems.
01. "Superimposed psychological trauma" is the main root cause of many mental and psychological disorders
The concept of "superimposed psychological trauma" is proposed by us, which comes from our summary of trauma repair under deep hypnosis for a large number of patients with mental and psychological disorders.
In this concept, the prefix "superposition" is very important and indispensable. Even if each negative event is not serious independently, if the number continues to increase and the effects between events continue to superimpose, the negative emotions and distorted cognition caused by the same type of traumatic event will continue to deepen, and different types of traumatic events will also affect each other, and eventually it is easy to lead to individual mental and psychological disorders.
We had a previous article about the different types of trauma. Simply put, if divided according to the psychological harm caused to people, psychological trauma includes the following 3 categories:
Great trauma, that is, the mental trauma that traditional psychiatry says, such as major natural disasters, car accidents, plane crashes, serious violent crimes, and so on. It is characterized by a serious threat to personal safety, and the average person will have a huge psychological impact when it is experienced.
Medium trauma, such as more serious school violence and school bullying, domestic violence by parents against children, children have suffered a certain degree of sexual threats, sexual assault and so on.
Small trauma, this type of trauma has many forms, and it does seem to be "small".
For example, being teased by classmates and being joked by everyone;
Parents quarrel at home, or do poorly or do something wrong, and are reprimanded by parents;
Being criticized in public by the teacher, or being ugly in class;
It is also possible that I watched some scared, suspenseful novels and films, and felt afraid in my heart...
In short, these traumatic events are very inconspicuous compared to the first and second categories. Many people feel that this is part of growing up and is not a matter at all.
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Moreover, because these events are small and common, the negative feelings brought by each one are not particularly strong (compared to the above two types of trauma), so they quickly pass and are forgotten by the individual.
Since trauma has different sizes and classifications, what we call "superimposed psychological trauma" actually has a broad and narrow sense.
In a broad sense, "superimposed psychological trauma" actually includes all types of psychological trauma. Whether it is a major trauma, medium trauma, or a small trauma, in fact, as long as the patient has a mental and psychological disorder, there will certainly not be only a single trauma, but there are many small traumas that are not easy to be noticed.
For example, if a patient suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it is usually a "major trauma", but before or after the major trauma, the patient must have experienced a lot of "minor trauma".
That's why some people who have experienced major catastrophic events will develop PTSD and some will not. Some analysts believe that people with weak psychological resilience, or people with poor social support systems after a disaster, are more likely to suffer from PTSD.
We found that the root causes of this "weak psychological resilience" and "weak social support system after the incident" actually correspond to the small psychological trauma suffered before and after the major trauma.
If the patient suffers more "medium trauma", there are also a small number of minor traumas, such as long-term domestic violence, illegal imprisonment, etc., it is easy to have complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
If the patient suffers mainly from small trauma, although everything is small, but the number is large, involving a wide range of aspects, including family, study, appearance, interpersonal relationships, etc., it is easy to appear as depression.
And many small traumas occur earlier, many patients have long forgotten, they themselves do not understand why they have depression. But in fact, these superimposed small traumas are constantly deposited in their implicit memories, affecting their emotions and cognition. We also use deep hypnosis to help them remember.
Some patients remember relatively clearly what happened from childhood to adulthood, and there are many traumatic events that they still remember, and they are still angry and painful when they talk about it, and they also tell the doctor when they see a doctor. But many psychiatrists do not know much about scientific psychology, let alone the concept of "superimposed psychological trauma", they believe that these things are small, common, not enough to cause depression, and the patient's illness seems to find no cause.
In previous traditional psychiatric parlance, this is called "endogenous depression." In the clinic, a large number of depressions are actually caused by this "large number of superimposed small traumas".
02, the child's emotional outburst is a large number of psychological trauma is activated
In addition to the above situation, there is a type.
Some children mainly suffer a lot of small trauma, and there are also a small part of medium trauma, they are prone to depression symptoms (caused by a large number of small trauma), but sometimes they lose their temper at home, yell hysterically, and even smash things and hit their parents (caused by some trauma and a large number of small traumas are activated).
Patients with this condition are easily diagnosed with bipolar disorder because many psychiatrists consider their irritability and smashing people to be manic/hypomanic episodes.
But we do not agree that behind their anger, in fact, a large number of superimposed psychological trauma has been activated, and a more appropriate diagnosis should be "depression with agitated state". However, this point is still controversial in psychiatric clinics, and there is no unified conclusion.
Moreover, the medium trauma mentioned here may be a single moderate traumatic event, such as a very extreme and rough education by a parent, or the child has suffered more serious school bullying; But it is also possible that the small trauma brought by the same type and the same person is constantly superimposed, and finally superimposed to a moderate degree of psychological damage, and once the patient's related trauma is activated, it is very easy to be angry.
For example, Cuiying, a patient we have received, her emotional symptoms have improved during her in-depth clinical psychological intervention, but once she was hysterical at home because of an altercation with her father.
At that time, Cuiying was controlling her diet because she was fatter, and she reduced her rice intake during meals. Once, she also persuaded her father to eat less rice, but his father did not listen to her and in turn told her to eat rice.
Cuiying persuaded again, her tone was a little urgent, and her father said: "Can you control your emotions?" You've been doing psychological intervention for so long! I, Mom, Lucy and Dr. Ho have done so much for you, why are you still like this? ”
Father Cuiying's tone was a little impatient, but it was not serious. But Cuiying's reaction was very violent, she said that her eyes were black with anger, her body convulsed, and then she began to self-harm uncontrollably, constantly slapped her face, hit her head against the wall, and shouted loudly: "In this case, then I will die!" ”
In fact, she herself realized that as long as her father's tone was slightly heavier, or said something that made her feel "yin and yang weird", she would easily collapse, be very emotional, and couldn't control it at all.
Many people don't understand this, including many psychiatrists. The parents did not scold her, but the two disagreed, there was a little spat, many parents and children are like this, why is she so excited and out of control? Many people have to simply understand it on the surface: she is ill.
Through deep hypnosis pathological memory repair technology (TPMIH) to deal with, we found that behind her symptoms there was actually a series of superimposed psychological traumas brought by her father. And with each superimposed one, her negative emotions towards her father became more intense and her distorted cognition became more serious.
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At that time, we found 4 major psychological traumas in a state of deep hypnosis.
The first incident occurred when Cuiying was in junior high school, and her father often took her and her mother to dinner at an uncle's house. This uncle also has a son, who is about the same age as Cuiying.
Every time we eat together, Cuiying's father will talk endlessly, sometimes saying some big things about life, or sharing experiences in educating children. Every time he mentioned how a child should do something, he would deliberately turn his head to look at Cuiying and say, "Cuiying, right?" ”
He also once listed at the dinner table that he thought Cuiying had shortcomings, and everyone would echo and educate Cuiying together. But that uncle would never speak out about their son's shortcomings in public like Cuiying's father.
Cuiying was very depressed, "Usually I don't do well, my father can tell me directly, why do you have to knock on me and scold me when I am gathering with friends?!" ”
At this time, her understanding of some of her father's words was "referring to mulberry and scolding locust".
The second traumatic event still occurred when she was in junior high school. At that time, Cuiying's mother bought her daughter a pair of tights, and Cuiying happily tried them on. As a result, Dad shouted at her as soon as he saw it, "How old are you?" Just wearing such tight pants, who do you want to wear it to? ”
Cuiying's father kept accusing like a serial cannon, and Cuiying was a little scared, saying that the pants were bought by her mother. Cuiying's father immediately turned his spearhead to Cuiying's mother, "Such pants that are not three or four, you also buy them for the child, hurry up!" The couple quarreled.
At that time, Cuiying was very angry, she felt that her father's accusation was like saying that she was going out to stand on the street, like a prostitute, she was very angry in her heart, and even broke down. She was about to retort, only to find that her father was accusing her mother. She was anxious and wanted to defend her mother, but suddenly she didn't know how to refute it. And Dad scolded one sentence after another, she couldn't refute at all, and her heart was panicked.
Since this incident, Cuiying's feelings for her father have changed from the previous "finger scolding locust" to "dad always speaks yin and yang strange".
The third traumatic event occurred during the intensive psychological intervention. At that time, Cuiying needed rehabilitation due to a knee injury and could not run temporarily.
Once, Cuiying was holding her legs at home and it was very uncomfortable. Cuiying's father said to her, "I also injured my knee before, but in order to complete the goal, I endured the pain and insisted on walking, from half a kilometer to 2 kilometers, and finally to 5 kilometers, I persevered, and now my knee doesn't hurt anymore, why can't you?" ”
Cuiying felt that what her father said made sense, so she began to exercise again, the amount of exercise increased, and as a result, her knees became more and more painful, and she found new injuries during the follow-up visit.
Cuiying was angry and said that her father had made a mess. But her dad said lightly, "I was just casually saying a suggestion."
Cuiying was even more angry, feeling that her father had hurt himself like this, and did not apologize at all. At this time, the feeling she felt for her father in her heart turned into "contempt".
The fourth trauma is the violent conflict caused by not eating rice. At that time, she was so angry that she self-harmed, slapped her face, hit her head against the wall, and shouted, "I can't stop you, I can't repay you, then I'll die!" ”
Cuiying's father was angry and anxious at that time, he was afraid that his daughter would really seek death, so he immediately said: "People have souls, people will be reincarnated, your debts in this life have not been paid, even if you die in the next life!" ”
But when Cuiying heard this, she was even more devastated, "My father is too vicious, I have been so miserable in this life, and he cursed me to suffer in the next life!" He is a very vicious, very vicious person! Without the slightest emotion! ”
These 4 events are only the main psychological trauma found under a deep hypnosis, Cuiying has actually experienced very, very many superimposed psychological traumas brought by her father since she was a child. Every time it was not a big deal, her father did not beat her, nor did he directly insult her in difficult language, but mainly criticized, denyed, or compared her with others.
But because small traumas continue to accumulate and her parents do not have the consciousness to repair in time, Cuiying's feelings for her father gradually develop from the initial "hatred" "he refers to Sang Huai" to "he is a very vicious person", once she feels that her father's expression, tone, and speech are not right, she immediately explodes emotionally and her eyes turn black.
If you can't see this process of psychological change, then Cuiying's performance will make people feel incomprehensible, her father just persuaded her not to seek death, how did it become a vicious curse on her? Why was she so excited?
Therefore, some parents say that they have experienced a lot of greater difficulties, they are not depressed, why are their children depressed after experiencing some small things?
One important reason is that the traumatic events that children experience are cumulative and superimposed from childhood to adulthood. As the number increases, the child's negative emotions will become stronger and stronger, and the wrong or distorted cognition will become more and more serious, very sensitive, full of thorns, and some even reach the point of seemingly unreasonable.
Another important reason is the change in the background of the times, which we have said many times.
In the growth period of the post-60s and post-70s generations, they face more challenges of survival and security, and everyone is concerned about material needs, whether they can eat enough, and whether they can grow up healthy. If it can, it is the greatest happiness, and nothing else is a thing.
But in the current generation of children, as soon as they are born, their material needs are satisfied, and even excessive. They naturally turn to spiritual needs, emotional needs. If not satisfied, this becomes one of the major obstacles to their mental and physical growth.
Therefore, it is hoped that the majority of parents, as well as mental health workers, will keep pace with the times and have a deeper understanding of this problem.
Family education is indeed not easy, most parents are "new parents", in the education of children will inevitably make some mistakes, inadvertently cause some small trauma. But if we can deeply and comprehensively understand the concept of "superimposed psychological trauma", we can more consciously avoid allowing the trauma to be superimposed.
For the parents of patients, if they can correctly and scientifically understand "superimposed psychological trauma", they can keep pace with the times, better understand the symptoms of their children, better realize self-family treatment, and help their children recover faster.