Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 741: Trauma Treatment International with Dr. Brock Chisolm
Transcript
- 0:10Or welcome back to the Trauma Diapors Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
- 0:14My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
- 0:19to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
- 0:23who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
- 0:27authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
- 0:33about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
- 0:37That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, all right.
- 0:42So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
- 0:48to the Trauma Favers podcast. I am very excited to have back doctor rockchisom
- 0:54Rock, Welcome back, Hey guy, how are you awesome? I'm so
- 0:58glad you decided to come back and join me. I really loved talking to
- 1:03you initially and that's why you're back here. So Brock has over fifteen years
- 1:10experienced in the psychological assessment and treatment of trauma survivors. He's a clinical psychologist
- 1:15and has assisted in the development and implementation of comprehensive services for trauma survivors internationally.
- 1:22In addition, he is also an advisory to several NGOs on self care
- 1:26and prevention of burnout strategies for staff who work with traumatized populations. Rock has
- 1:32provided expert witness in several high profile human rights violation cases in the UK and
- 1:38international courts. He's an approved expert for the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative hosted by
- 1:42the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and elected board member of the UK Psychological Trauma
- 1:49Society. How does that sound? That is you? So let's bring some
- 2:00people love to speed here who maybe didn't catch your first episode will certainly have
- 2:05that linked up in the show notes page here, but give us a kind
- 2:13of a snippet of First of all, where you're from originally and where you
- 2:16are currently? Okay, Well, I was born in Canada. I moved
- 2:22to the UK as a kid, I think I was twelve or thirteen,
- 2:28and then I spent most of my psychological career in London. But I've moved
- 2:32to the coast near Brighton in the UK. Okay, Okay, So how
- 2:39did this start for you? How did this interest start for you? I've
- 2:45always been interested in both human rights and psychology, so what I've been working
- 2:53with is the perfect overlap for that, and I guess. The other thing
- 3:00that I like about the work that we do is that people recover from trauma
- 3:06or can do that can be both post traumatic growth. People can see things
- 3:12differently and feel better afterwards. I don't mean that we can completely take the
- 3:15pain away, but I like working in an area where where there's improvement.
- 3:25Yeah, why human rights? When did that developer you? I think I
- 3:34think I've always had an interest in what's going on in the world. I
- 3:38very much believe that people are equal, no matter where they're from and who
- 3:44they are, and I also believe that we have to fight for those rights
- 3:52because in most places in the world, and indeed the places probably with the
- 3:57best human rights record, still have an incredible amount of violations. And if
- 4:01if I think some of the people take that for granted and don't realize that
- 4:13what they have is as important as they have, I guess until they lose
- 4:15it. So I'm not really sure, Okay, but I think I just
- 4:20liked reading the papers and staff. Yeah, human rights. I mean you
- 4:27know when you when you first said that, it kind of hits to the
- 4:29core. Um, you know that kind of the first thing I think I
- 4:32thought of was on a kind of a micro level of like one person hurting
- 4:40another, taking advantage of another, bullying another in a sense, and of
- 4:44course if you pan out to the macro, it becomes something something else.
- 4:48But for me, there's a there's a there's a sensation of my god,
- 4:55I you know, how can I help this other person? How can how
- 4:59can how can we help them? Because it stings? Did that in any
- 5:06way grow from any of your own experience? Oh, that's a great question.
- 5:12I mean, it is bullying on a state level, isn't it.
- 5:17And the effect that it has on a person is I think the same.
- 5:23And if a group of people bullies some one person, I think that's can
- 5:27often be worse because it feels like the whole world is against you. And
- 5:30when government's bully a minority, it must feel the same. And so yeah,
- 5:41I think you know, when I when I first moved from Canada to
- 5:45the UK in my first year, I had a Canadian accent, which people
- 5:51in England didn't like. So I got bullied there for sure and felt some
- 5:58of that. And then you know, then I moved away. I was
- 6:01just there for one year, moved to another school and it was completely different
- 6:05experience. People were nice, to one another people. It was in a
- 6:09different part of the country where things are easier, life is easier, and
- 6:15it was, yeah, much better. So I hadn't ever made that connection
- 6:24actually, but yeah, I would imagine that that very much formed a formative
- 6:29Yeah, I think that that would contribute absolutely. Yeah. No, you
- 6:33talked about in a way the intersection between human rights and psychology. How do
- 6:40you perceive that? Well, most a great deal of emotional health is dictated
- 6:55by the things that we experienced, the stuff that happens to us. It's
- 6:58impossible, as we all know, to go through life without having a trauma
- 7:03in your life. You know, the only way to escape trauma is to
- 7:09die young. So that so we have to accept that, and so difficult
- 7:18events shape who we are and how we feel. And psychology generally, and
- 7:27mental health generally, is really about trying to mitigate the effect of those It
- 7:32doesn't matter whether a person presents with our as PTSD or or depressed or and
- 7:46I'm not just interested in human rights, but those are the ones that those
- 7:51are the ones that I feel that there's something on a greater level that can
- 7:58be potentially done so that we live in a world which essentially people are more
- 8:05like the second school that I went to than the first school that I went
- 8:09to. Making that connection. Yeah, So in your organization, Trauma Treatment
- 8:20International, Trauma Treatment International, Right, so give us the broad brushstroke of
- 8:26what you folks are doing. Sure, so, I guess actually, just
- 8:31to go back to your question as well, why does human rights And there's
- 8:33so many traumas, sometimes it's helpful to focus just on a few things so
- 8:37that you can understand and learn what you're doing and become I guess better at
- 8:43providing at providing help. So Trauma Treatment International is set up to provide psychological
- 8:54interventions for people that have been set violence. Collective violence is essentially things like
- 9:07trafficking, torture, slavery, war, and our ethos is to try to
- 9:16support not just not so much directly people that have experienced this, though we
- 9:22do do that as well. We work, for example, with Hostage International
- 9:26people that have been held hostage around the world. We work with various journalists
- 9:31who are on the front line and song. But what we really want to
- 9:37do is to improve access to trauma treatment around the world. That's our aim,
- 9:43and so we want to accomplish that by training other people and providing supervision
- 9:50and support and so on in other countries so that the skills are there and
- 9:54so that the people that really need that can access. That's the first thing
- 10:00we do. And the second thing that we do is we work with organizations,
- 10:09normally not for profits, but it doesn't nation are seeking to try to
- 10:13either end things such as torture or slavery or elsehold people accountable. For example,
- 10:20um uh, media organizations which are providing providing the stories of what's really
- 10:31happening close up or um the ICRC or Human Rights Watch for example. So
- 10:39yeah, just intent. I mean no, I said this last time,
- 10:43but so bringing intense right, I mean you're dealing with the just. I
- 10:50mean it's hard to uh, you know, judge any trauma, but there's
- 10:56no doubt. I mean, this is this is very hardcore human trafficking and
- 11:01slavery and torture is on the far end of the continuum of what we're talking
- 11:05about here. Um, how do you well, let me let me ask
- 11:11you a question here. So those people who have been who have experienced trafficking
- 11:20and torture and min held hostage, is there a commonality in how they are
- 11:28and how you approach them to work with them. Oh yes, yes,
- 11:35with a caveat. You know, we are some of the time following traumas.
- 11:46As you know, people might have PTSD, maybe about half the people.
- 11:52So there's a commonality I think in post traumatic stress disorder events as if
- 12:03they're happening again, and that's that's a commonality because that's a neurobiological aspect that
- 12:07everybody's the same on that we all have an autobiographical memory, and if our
- 12:11autobiographical memory lacks sufficient context, has a meaning which is particularly impactful, then
- 12:20we're going to experience sensorially. We're going to smell it and see it and
- 12:24hear it and so on. So everybody, no matter where they're from,
- 12:28is prone to having that happen. And if that happens, it means that
- 12:33the thing that happened to them that was harmful isn't in the past. It's
- 12:37the last time they had a flashback, it's last time they had a night
- 12:41so they have had again and again and again. So there's a commonality there,
- 12:43and that's of course with all trauma, right, there's no difference to
- 12:48anything else. I guess another commonality to some of them the collect of violence
- 13:01that we're talking about, is that it's whole systems often and said hey,
- 13:11we're going to do this bad thing to you or to this group of people.
- 13:16We're all going to get together, we're going to try as hard as
- 13:18we can to do some terrible things. And for different reasons. Of course.
- 13:26Sometimes it's to make money, sometimes it's power. Sometimes it's just hatred.
- 13:31But that is often different from other types of trauma. You know,
- 13:35if somebody, if somebody attacks me in the street, for example, it's
- 13:41not very personal and it's one guy. But if I knew them, then
- 13:43it's more personal. That's a difference. But if it's my government, or
- 13:48if it's my if it's if it's if it's the government of the country that
- 13:50lives next door to me that are coming in with tanks and missiles, then
- 13:58that I think is a whole. I think that's a whole different. That's
- 14:03and that's and and and therein lies the intersection of psychology and um human rights.
- 14:13Yeah, I mean just the way you said that. I mean,
- 14:16my god, the impact the impact that that probably has on most people to
- 14:26think that a whole government or a whole collective of people have done have done
- 14:31this thing. To them, try to hurt them or harm them or torture
- 14:35them. Um, let me just shift here a bit, and what do
- 14:41you think rock It is within you personally that allows you to get in there
- 14:48and and do this type of work. M hm um. I mean,
- 14:56you know, personally, I I have a I do like to know what's
- 15:01going on in the world and understand what is happening and try and make sense
- 15:05of it. I feel I feel better if I feel as if I'm trying
- 15:16to make a positive contribution, you know it. I think we're all selfish
- 15:22in that respect. We do some things that make us feel better, and
- 15:24it makes me feel better to try and work in this. In this area,
- 15:31I also find people's stories are fascinating and I really really enjoy the connection
- 15:41that can be made from somebody whose life has been completely different from mine.
- 15:48And you know, in often sometimes people's lives are quite similar actually, but
- 15:54other people I work with, it's hard to imagine what they've been through,
- 15:58where they have come from or going on. I mean a country that mainly
- 16:02has a rule of law, I mean a country that mainly doesn't abduct and
- 16:06torture people. And that's just because of where I was born. I mean,
- 16:12that's just luck. But I really there's not one person that I've worked
- 16:19with where there hasn't been a connection that we can speak on a human equal
- 16:26level. And I love that. I really enjoy that. Let's just pause
- 16:30here for a second to thank our sponsors. All Right, we are back.
- 16:40I mean, I can't sit here and imagine what torture or being in
- 16:48war would be like. But it's interesting, you know, when you said
- 16:52in response to my question, you know, you like knowing what's going on
- 16:56in the world and trying to make sense of what's going on. And yet
- 17:00when you're talking about torture and human rights violations and trafficking, sometimes, how
- 17:08do you make sense of that? Right? There almost seems to be but
- 17:12and yet you said, well, sometimes it's done. There are reasons why
- 17:17it's done, you know, So that that to me is very difficult,
- 17:22a challenge to understand. How do you make sense of this harm that one
- 17:29person is doing to another on a very simplistic level. Well, you know,
- 17:37the last person that I saw today asked me a kind of a similar
- 17:42question. It was her final session. M She works in a war zone
- 17:52and in in a in a prison, um that were torturing of working in
- 18:03this prison. Her job was to try and help the people in the prison.
- 18:07She was there voluntarily, UM, and she needed to be evacuated out
- 18:15of this country because because she was traumatized, because she had PTSD from the
- 18:19work that she was doing. And one of the reasons that she was traumatized
- 18:26was that she had She was she was fairly young, and she'd gone in
- 18:29with high hopes. It was her first it was her first time doing this
- 18:34kind of work, and she went in with expectations that, hey, I'm
- 18:38I'm going to be able to stop the torture. I'm going to be able
- 18:41to stop the horrible things that's happening, or at least, you know,
- 18:45make much more of a difference than in fact, it turned out that she
- 18:49had and when that didn't work fairly quickly, UM, she found it understandably
- 18:59difficult to come in fact, all of the conditions that would sort if you
- 19:03if you had to design up place where you would I ended. And this
- 19:14was our final session today and she said, you know, how what what
- 19:18what what do you think about humanity? You know, how do you do
- 19:21do you retain any hope for humanity? Well? What do you think is
- 19:25going to happen. And we had a discussion about this together, and what
- 19:30we both agreed on is that, first of all, there are lots of
- 19:36things which are getting better, lots of things that are improving. Equality is
- 19:41generally going in the right direction, not in a straight curve, but it's
- 19:47you know, there are it is. You know, the slaver is at
- 19:52least illegal now compared to two hundred years ago. For example, we have
- 19:56same sex marriage, we have we have laws that at least trying to prohibit
- 20:03racism. That things are getting better, not worse in certain countries. What
- 20:11also happens is that in some places in in in fact, I think we
- 20:22agreed places, but in places where there's a dictator, by and large,
- 20:27that dictator isn't a benevolent one. They're there to control. They're there for
- 20:33power, money to an extent, but power mainly, and that person doesn't
- 20:42reflect the overall population. And so you get a small minority of people that
- 20:49end up having a lot of power now within society. Within all those societies,
- 20:56you also get a bunch of people that want to follow that strong leader
- 21:00for whatever reason. I find it really difficult to understand how that happens.
- 21:07Why that happens that I can't make sense of that. Perhaps we could talk
- 21:12about that a little bit later on. But so you have these places where
- 21:18you get a strong leader without empathy. You know, somebody who would score
- 21:23highly on the psychopathy scale, who it gets enjoyment from control her to or
- 21:36doesn't care about her, and those people remain in power. And going back
- 21:45to the question, you know, how do you retain faith in humanity?
- 21:48Well, I think it's a small number of people that have a large amount
- 21:52of control, and I do believe that providing and this is a big providing
- 22:00we don't kill ourselves, we don't end it soon. You know, in
- 22:03two hundred years time, I think the world would be a much better place,
- 22:07unless, of course, you know, there's armageddon, there's a climate
- 22:12catastrophe. You know, it's the sort of thing like if we can get
- 22:17past this, you know, things will be much much better. Things are
- 22:19all moving that way, but it's a scary place. There's a scary place
- 22:23at the moment. You know, in particular, things seem a little bit
- 22:27more frightening than they did, say ten years ago. Yeah, I mean
- 22:33that that's a good question that that person asked, and I think, as
- 22:37you're talking, what's coming up for me? Is I think the answer or
- 22:41at least my answer, would depend on where I'm standing at the moment,
- 22:45you know, my where if I'm if I'm really up close, or you
- 22:49know, you're talking about from a from a broader perspective, from from a
- 22:52global perspective, and how things have gotten safer in the world, of course,
- 22:57But um, you know, for me, I tend to operate more
- 23:06on a micro one to one level, and um, I would find it
- 23:15very difficult to respond to that person's question with things are are getting better?
- 23:23Um, because I tend to be more into the a closer perspective. And
- 23:33yet I would very you know, I understand that globally things are things are
- 23:37getting better, but I mean you're dealing with human trafficking and torture, and
- 23:44my god, I mean that that's still going on, yes, albeit on
- 23:48a smaller scale. Um. Yeah, I mean I think that's what I
- 23:56was trying to say. You know, at least things are proving in that
- 24:00slavery is illegal, for example, I don't think that it doesn't happen.
- 24:04Of course, there is an example. There are less wars now than there
- 24:10ever have been. Doesn't feel like that. But there are statistically less people
- 24:14dying in war than there has been any other time in history. That's better.
- 24:18But then, you know, we tend to see, especially when we
- 24:22focus on the more micro level and the news just generally, you know,
- 24:26it's hard to see that. It's hard to recognize that I spend at least
- 24:30half the week working with people who are in or affected by the Ukraine.
- 24:37You know, I can't tell them that the Ukraine is I'm not saying it's
- 24:40getting it definitely isn't I of course read the statistic of death for childs and
- 24:52influence in the US is now gun violence. I mean, that's that's a
- 24:56statistic that's getting worse. That's hard to explain. So part of part of
- 25:02what you folks do is you train people UM. And I'm presuming this young
- 25:07woman was one of those people who you folks trained to go out and work
- 25:11with. No, this was this this uh, this young lady, this,
- 25:18this young woman UM works for a large ENGNGO UM that have officers around
- 25:26the world kind of you know, like like the UN. She doesn't work
- 25:32for the UN, but that kind of global REACHUM. And she comes herself
- 25:38comes from a country that has a dictatorship which is very far from benevolent um
- 25:48and she was referred simply because she was traumatized and rather than it was it
- 25:56was one of the one of the less usual times where where we provide direct
- 26:00treatment to a group of okay, various organizations that we work at a wider
- 26:10level. But I think it's really really important to remember what we're doing by
- 26:14also continuing to provide therapy on a one to one level, so that so
- 26:18that we remember what we're talking. I don't think you can train people if
- 26:22you're not doing it very easily. Right right, Just mind number one,
- 26:25I'm speaking with brock Chism, doctor brock Chism of Trauma Treatment International. Just
- 26:32conscious of the time here you'd mentioned you wanted to talk touch base on I
- 26:37think this is a very interesting topic of how a group of people can follow
- 26:44such a an individual, a dictator, if you will, how does that
- 26:49happen? Well, I'm hoping you can tell me, guy. I mean,
- 26:55of course there have been historically, you know, examples of this,
- 26:59but it is a phenomenon, and a scary one at that. Yeah,
- 27:03I'll tell you what. I think. It's similar to, but again I
- 27:08haven't got much of an explanation. And the amount of people that you've spoken
- 27:14to and worked with, I'm hoping you can say, hey, actually listen
- 27:18back to our episode ninety one and then you'll get your answers. I'm really
- 27:22hoping for that, and no pressure I have off I. When I started
- 27:29my career, I worked with a lot of people who were affected by domestic
- 27:33violence. They were in controlling an abusive relationships and as we as we know,
- 27:44it takes a long time. Now some of that is very explainable.
- 27:48If you're economically tied up with that person, you're dependent on them. To
- 27:52Fiji kids, we can see that that you might that we can see how
- 27:56that might be similar to being in a regime where you're working for the government
- 28:03and you're paid by the government to do your job and follow orders, and
- 28:07it's very hard to escape and you can't just you know, get on a
- 28:10plane and just live somewhere else. So there are some similarities where there's kind
- 28:14of no choice. That's that I understand. But what also happens is for
- 28:22quite a while people sometimes some people are almost transfixed by this relationship. They
- 28:30explain it away, they know it's fine. You know he didn't mean it.
- 28:34They make excuses, they actually lie to to make this person who's clearly
- 28:44controlling an abuse of look better, and it's off. I wonder if some
- 28:56of the things that people call witchcraft years ago, although it tends to be
- 29:00more men controlling women rather than women who were called witches, so that is
- 29:07not the similarity. But it's like people are under a spell. And you
- 29:11know, I worked with someone who she was She's intelligent, she's assertive,
- 29:22she had a string of relationships that were good, and she came under the
- 29:26spell of somebody who was manipulative and manipulated her and controlled her. And she
- 29:33did this for years. She couldn't escape. She would she would go away
- 29:36for a week and think, right, I've got to go and then come
- 29:37back. And eventually I was able to escape that. But she explained it
- 29:42like as if under a spell. And I see that on a wider scale
- 29:48too. You know, you see people at rallies, you see people at
- 29:52Nazi rallies, you see people at I don't know, under putin. We
- 30:04are slightly dissociated. They're not They're in another reality. We can see it,
- 30:10and um in cults we see that a lot. I have to.
- 30:15I happ't been just started watching like the documentary about Waco. Yes, um,
- 30:22you know correct. So it seems as if we're all susceptible to this,
- 30:26to becoming like hypnotized as this is the bit I can't explain, guy
- 30:30mate, can you? Uh well, no, but what's coming up for
- 30:37me is a clear narcissistic personality on one hand, and it almost feels like
- 30:45a lock and a key, right that two need each other to exist.
- 30:48Um, it's very similar to uh well, as you said, I think,
- 30:55or implied an abusive relationship with one person leans away what the other person
- 31:02is doing. It's and not only that, but in a lot of instances,
- 31:07is influencing the group of people to enact right certain atrocities on a collection
- 31:18of other people. I mean, it's it's frightening and scary. And no
- 31:23I don't I don't have a particular episode the point too, but it's it's
- 31:30I think it's a phenomenon that's that's really interesting and that is still occurring today
- 31:34obviously. Yeah, And I mean there are some things that we can understand.
- 31:38So for example, if you control, if you manipulate the truth so
- 31:45people on an individual level, on those kinds of relationships, the narcissistic person
- 31:51and the map manipulative way, you can completely control roll what the message is
- 32:00where you can completely dictate. Let's let's take Putin's rush at the moment,
- 32:06you know, he's he's shut down. Now everything that isn't the message that
- 32:10he wants to give. But what also happens, though, is that you
- 32:15know that there are these Russas again quite good, I think sending out these
- 32:21alternative facts let's call them, where they're using Facebook to present an alternative reality.
- 32:29And I think a lot of people that believe that. I think some
- 32:32people that believe those things want to believe them because they say, hey,
- 32:37you know, I know the truth. You don't know what the real truth
- 32:39is. I I know that there's um kids taken in a pizza you know,
- 32:49a pizza restaurant in Washington and so on, and you don't. And
- 32:52that means that means you know, that's because I'm smart and you're a stupid
- 32:55kind of thing. And then I can see the motivation for some people and
- 33:06believing that. And you know, now that communication has changed so much since
- 33:12I don't know, you know, since the Internet, I guess, and
- 33:16that does make the world a more frightening place because people are more susceptible.
- 33:21You know, I don't believe that everybody that joined ISIS was evil. They
- 33:23were sucked in in the same way. I don't believe that everybody that joined
- 33:28any of those are I don't know. I'm not sure that I could define
- 33:34what evil is. But I don't think that all of those people are bad.
- 33:37I think many of those people think that they're doing it for the right
- 33:39reasons. I also think that there are people that just like doing harmful,
- 33:45hatred things. As we kind of wind out here, Brock, who you
- 33:52know the listeners here are therapists of all kinds, survivors of all kinds.
- 34:00Who would you encourage to check out your website? Trauma Treatment International? Oh
- 34:07well, we got a number of good projects at the moment. We're providing
- 34:13therapy to Afghan judges and lawyers which escaped the Taliban. Wow. We are
- 34:22provided getting training to families, which it was for people hosting Ukrainians in their
- 34:32own home, but it's it's now the funding for that's now a wider project.
- 34:37So anybody who wants tips on how to host people who have escaped trauma.
- 34:47If you are in an organization or you're in work where you are either
- 34:52exposed directly to trauma yourself from what you're doing, or else you're working with
- 34:58traumatized people, then we have a resource hub about how to keep you doing
- 35:02the best job that you can if, especially if your job is to try
- 35:06and end those traumas. And I would mainly include I would mainly encourage any
- 35:13billionaire that happens to be watching right now, we would like to fund what
- 35:16we're doing. That would be my first I'll probably put that top of the
- 35:21list if I'm turned out. And this is going to surprise you, guy.
- 35:28A lot more money is spent on harming people in the world than it
- 35:31is on helping people. That'd be nice to change that woman. Yeah,
- 35:40well, look, Brock, awesome talking to you, so inspiring to talk
- 35:45to you, man. I mean, what you're doing is just so laudable
- 35:51and I'm so glad there are people like you out there, sincerely who are
- 35:55doing this work. So your website is t T hyphen I NTL dot org
- 36:04or just a Google Trauma Treatment International Again, we'll have that linked up at
- 36:07the show notes page. Um. Look, love talking to you and thank
- 36:15you so much for joining me again. Thanks guy, all right, take
- 36:17care, have a good weekend. Hi,