Trauma Conference?

I was invited to a conference with a trauma focus, which happens much more frequently these days, as “trauma-informed” gains momentum. Ten years ago it was a rare event. I’m always interested in learning something new, so I checked out the keynote speakers. I read the bio and work focus of the first speaker and was right away engaged. I want to know all about their work! Then I checked the second one. This person had a website and had started a group, and was all about training mental health folks (“from new practitioners to people with 20 years in the field”) all about their method.

In case you can’t tell, I started to feel judgmental. I know it’s weird to admit, but I do judge people. I was feeling particularly irritated by what I was reading as a patronizing approach – that everyone, from newbies to experienced practitioners should be using this method. I see myself as a lifelong learner – and certainly I think it’s good for people to continue to learn as they grow in their practice. However, this felt a little formulaic, like, “if only everyone did this the way I do, everything would be better.”

It didn’t help that on their website, they are posed with their arms across their chest, smiling proudly.

So, what do I do when I’m feeling judge-y? I try to pause. On this day, I told myself I was judging, and I told myself to be open minded, after all, there is a foundation, and several books! I decided to listen to a podcast with them (focused on trauma). The person talked about their own tough times, and I was like, “See Martha, don’t judge.” And how their tough times led them to the work that they are doing today. Which seems to me to be really good work. I let the podcast play as I looked at their foundation website.

There I found some blog posts about cultural awareness and practice. Yay! Bonus points. Written by a guest author! Cool, since the person who started the foundation is white. Once again, I chided myself for being judgmental. Clearly this person does understand since they got a guest writer to write about this important topic. Only oops, the guest writer is also white.

Meanwhile on the podcast, the interviewer asks the keynote to tell about a clinical error, and what they learned from it. And the keynote person basically says, “well, I did this thing in a not very skillful way – I don’t think it hurt anyone, but I really realized that it could, and so now I’m very careful.” It sounds like I’m paraphrasing, but I’m not. In essence, they sidestepped the question. Then the interviewer thanked them, as if something important had been said. (You see that I’m back to judging again, right?)

I started thinking about the other teens who were there when he was offered this leadership role. I do believe in offering kids leadership roles.

I believe that people who have been impacted by trauma do gain confidence and a sense of agency by being asked to lead. It’s a great strategy/intervention and acknowledgment of their many skills, sometimes learned because of the trauma they have faced.

However, thinking of this white male teen in Juvenile Hall, a place that was likely not mostly white (I recognize that I’m making a bit of an assumption, but there are plenty of actual numbers on this) being offered a leadership role and it changing his life…made me feel a little sick. I listened on, hoping he would mention his power and privilege in that moment, but he didn’t. His brief comment about mentors and loving people who helped turned my stomach a little more, because it seemed as if he was saying they were not very important.

I want to be clear, I do not think this person is a terrible person or even that they do not do good work. They may be doing great work and helping lots of people. They are working with a tough population and I’m glad that they are doing that work. However, doing trauma work MUST include attention to sociocultural trauma (e.g., racism, sexism, ableism), which includes doing your own work, checking on your own power and privilege, and acknowledging those forces. I don’t believe that we can call our work trauma therapy without it.

In the end, I didn’t sign up. There are plenty of conferences out there, I’ll wait for one that’s a little better aligned with my work.