Transcript
WEBVTT
1
00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:03.960
A listener production.
2
00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:11.439
This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Done.
3
00:00:11.519 --> 00:00:15.160
I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher
4
00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:18.199
and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In
5
00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:22.519
this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent
6
00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:25.359
people who are experts in their field and who have
7
00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:27.760
something of value to share that will help you feel
8
00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:34.119
less crappy and more happy. Not all of us have
9
00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:39.600
experienced huge childhood trauma. We've not been neglected or physically
10
00:00:39.759 --> 00:00:43.439
or emotionally or sexually abused in our formative years, and
11
00:00:43.520 --> 00:00:46.920
even today, there may not be anything inherently wrong with
12
00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.399
your life. You have a roof over your head, you've
13
00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:52.840
got an income, a functioning relationship, and we know we
14
00:00:52.880 --> 00:00:55.679
should be grateful for those things. Yet there's still a
15
00:00:55.759 --> 00:01:00.399
sense of not being entirely happy, maybe feeling empty and
16
00:01:00.479 --> 00:01:03.840
anxious in some ways. And if this is you, or
17
00:01:03.880 --> 00:01:06.319
even if it's not you, you are going to love
18
00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:10.799
Today's guest doctor Meg Arrol. Meg is a chartered psychologist
19
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:13.159
here in the UK. She's a scientist and the author
20
00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:17.280
of Tiny Traumas and I am so excited to share
21
00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:19.879
this conversation with you. On the Crappy to Happy Podcast.
22
00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:24.879
Doctor Meg, thank you so much for joining me on
23
00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:26.079
the Crappy to Happy Podcast.
24
00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:28.439
Oh, thank you so much, Cas. I'm so excited to
25
00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:31.040
be here. And I just love the title of your podcast.
26
00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:37.239
It's amazing, it's pretty catchy. It's pretty catchy, covers it all.
27
00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:41.200
Everybody knows straight away we're all about So Meg, I
28
00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:43.519
was really interested to see that you have written a
29
00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.400
book called Tiny Trauma. So we've talked about trauma quite
30
00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:49.239
a bit on this show. It's something that I'm really
31
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:51.439
interested in. It's something that touches us all, and I've
32
00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:55.040
been really focused on where I can trying to expand
33
00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.840
kind of people's definition, widen the scope of what we
34
00:01:58.959 --> 00:02:03.120
think trauma really is. And so I was really curious
35
00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:05.239
to see that you've written a book called Tiny Traumas.
36
00:02:05.319 --> 00:02:08.319
So can you please share with the audience how do
37
00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:10.400
you define tiny traumas?
38
00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:13.360
Yeah, so, I think we were just so much on
39
00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.280
the same page about that, about having maybe a more
40
00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:20.759
nuanced conversation about trauma and mental health overall. So I'll
41
00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:23.400
give you a little bit of a backstory and origin
42
00:02:23.439 --> 00:02:26.280
story as it were for the book. So years and
43
00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:29.840
years ago more years than I to remember, I was
44
00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:34.439
teaching a module called the Psychology of Physical Illness, and
45
00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:38.319
in each week we chose a specific condition and it
46
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:41.840
was a third year elective, so the students had chosen
47
00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:45.520
to do this module. We had very, very, very engaged,
48
00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:50.120
engaged students and they were always really interested in these
49
00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:52.800
particular topics. So I spent a great deal of time
50
00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:57.319
researching for my lectures, and I came across a study
51
00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:03.560
on the topic of ibsitualvale syndrome and it really changed
52
00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:07.639
my perspective around the whole topic of trauma. So within
53
00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:11.840
this study, the researchers they looked at groups of people
54
00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:15.879
who had experienced big T trauma, so capital T trauma,
55
00:03:16.319 --> 00:03:20.840
those really significant events in some people's lives that we
56
00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:26.560
now have a major impact both psychologically and physically. And
57
00:03:26.680 --> 00:03:30.280
they're things like living through a war and natural disaster,
58
00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:34.759
perhaps losing your primary caregiver early in life, a violent attack,
59
00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:38.479
these things that most of us understand these days, that
60
00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.759
we know that these are traumatic events, and I think
61
00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:45.560
that that's wonderful because actually, you know, the general public
62
00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:47.759
and we didn't really understand that before and we do now.
63
00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:50.719
We do know how significant that can be from individual
64
00:03:50.759 --> 00:03:54.400
and groups. But the researchers looked at these big T
65
00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:57.439
traumas but also a group of people that had experienced
66
00:03:57.639 --> 00:04:00.599
little T trauma or lower case team we're thinking about
67
00:04:00.639 --> 00:04:03.439
the word trauma, and they compared them in terms of
68
00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:06.639
health outcomes. So they were specifically looking at tummy symptoms
69
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:10.960
for this IBS population, but also psychological symptoms and quality
70
00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:14.439
of life, these sorts of things, and what blew my mind.
71
00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:18.120
So as a psychologist and researcher, you have kind of
72
00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:21.680
that sort of informal hypothesis in your mind, and my
73
00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:25.199
prediction was probably going to be like, both types of
74
00:04:25.319 --> 00:04:30.360
trauma will have an impact. But what really made me
75
00:04:30.519 --> 00:04:35.519
pause was that for this study, those people that experienced
76
00:04:35.560 --> 00:04:41.000
this little tea lowercase T trauma actually had worse outcomes
77
00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:46.319
than those people who had big TA acute traumas. And
78
00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:50.920
that really surprised me. It really surprised me, and so
79
00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:53.040
that was always in the back of my mind and
80
00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:56.079
I thought, that's notable, that's interesting, and actually no one's
81
00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:59.680
really talking about that. So later on in my career
82
00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.920
in my work, I began to see people my own
83
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:08.959
practice who would come to me and they would actually say, look,
84
00:05:09.439 --> 00:05:12.560
I haven't been through anything that bad. I haven't been
85
00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:17.120
through a major trauma. I don't know why I'm feeling
86
00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:22.240
just not okay. And I started to recognize some patterns
87
00:05:22.839 --> 00:05:25.800
in terms of things that would come up within our work.
88
00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:32.279
They would often be this low grade, consistent, cumulative type
89
00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:36.720
trauma that would build up over time and really lead
90
00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:40.319
people to a range of presentations that I would see.
91
00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:44.600
So things like high function anxiety, low grade depression, or
92
00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:50.560
even just feeling numb all the time, emotional eating, imposta syndrome,
93
00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:56.120
problems with sleep, just a huge range of themes, but
94
00:05:56.800 --> 00:05:59.319
of which if you were to go to say your
95
00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:03.240
GP or primary care physician, you probably wouldn't meet the
96
00:06:03.319 --> 00:06:08.000
criteria for a psychological condition. You probably wouldn't meet the
97
00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:13.000
criteria for major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder. But
98
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:17.319
you're still really not thriving or flourishing in life at all.
99
00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:20.519
So there's this big gray area. Cass. It was like,
100
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:25.879
this is a great area, and as professionals, we need
101
00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:29.120
to start to take note of what's going on in
102
00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:30.160
people's lives.
103
00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:34.240
I am so on the same page. I was having
104
00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:36.959
a conversation just a side note so I have been
105
00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.920
doing some corporate kind of well being work with a
106
00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:42.680
company over in Amsterdam. I've been doing some executive coaching.
107
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.560
I have a background as a coaching psychologist as well
108
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:48.800
as then being a clinical psychologist, and there's always this
109
00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:53.399
distinction between what coaching is and what therapy is. And
110
00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:56.160
coaching is taking these people who are well and functioning
111
00:06:56.199 --> 00:06:58.319
and thriving and kind of you know, helping them to
112
00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:02.879
achieve goals and to move into being the most flourishing
113
00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.240
kind of selves. And somebody said to me just this week,
114
00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:11.759
what we're looking for here is like coaching, not therapy,
115
00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:13.600
And I said, well, I have to be honest in
116
00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:18.000
my experience, especially as a private practicing psychologist, you know,
117
00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:20.439
not in a public mental health system where you're dealing
118
00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:25.120
with really serious mental health conditions. I oftentimes struggle to
119
00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:28.120
draw the distinction. Like a lot of people who are
120
00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:30.920
showing like what you're saying, you're struggling. People come to
121
00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:34.480
therapy they know something's wrong, but they're not meeting the
122
00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:39.000
criteria for significant mental health issues. And equally, the people
123
00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:41.839
that come for coaching are often in that same sort
124
00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:44.279
of spot, like it's that languishing isn't it. It's like
125
00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:47.079
that kind of just that just a little south of
126
00:07:47.959 --> 00:07:50.959
kind of moderate no mental health definitely.
127
00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:53.800
And I'm a chart of coaching psychologists as well, and
128
00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:58.000
there is trauma informs coaching too, So again we are
129
00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:02.639
broading in our scope many of these different subdisciplines in psychology,
130
00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:05.720
and there are so many overlaps, aren't there. It's it's
131
00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:08.600
important to make distinctions, but to realize that, you know,
132
00:08:08.639 --> 00:08:11.800
we really people are human beings in a complex, aren't
133
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.600
they exactly? But in terms of thinking about mental health
134
00:08:15.639 --> 00:08:20.839
on a spectrum is so incredibly important. So if you think, okay,
135
00:08:20.920 --> 00:08:25.439
so if somebody may be languishing, that is a different
136
00:08:25.800 --> 00:08:28.399
end of the spectrum to florishing, but it's not quite
137
00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:31.279
bad enough, as they say, to to meet the diagnosis
138
00:08:31.319 --> 00:08:36.320
of depressive disorder. But then even there's something between florishing
139
00:08:36.399 --> 00:08:39.759
and languishing where people can just be coasting and so
140
00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.480
still able to meet all the requirements in their lives.
141
00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:46.320
They're you know, probably doing quite well at work, taking
142
00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:48.879
care of their families and loved ones, and maybe even
143
00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:52.759
engaging in some hobbies, but actually they feel like they're coasting,
144
00:08:52.799 --> 00:08:57.159
that they're not really living their own lives. And this
145
00:08:57.240 --> 00:09:02.080
is where tiny tea tiny traumas come in because in
146
00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:05.720
my work, if we can identify some of these things
147
00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:08.799
that happen in all of our lives that actually cause
148
00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:11.000
us just to be knocked off course a little bit
149
00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:14.399
and start connecting the dots, being able to have that
150
00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:17.960
awareness first of all, that these low grade traumas exist,
151
00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:22.320
they do affect us, and that we can find out
152
00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:27.120
really what our constellation of tiny tea traumas and often
153
00:09:27.159 --> 00:09:29.720
the life events mixed up in that and they interact
154
00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:33.799
together and they can really compound each other too. To
155
00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:38.559
have so many of us walking around on autopilot really
156
00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:43.559
or experiencing I see this high function anxiety so much
157
00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:48.000
on a day to day basis. People are feeling anxious
158
00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:52.480
all the time. But because you'll know, to meet the
159
00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:55.919
criteria of these sort of mental health conditions, one of
160
00:09:55.919 --> 00:09:59.399
the main criteria is that you're not able to achieve
161
00:09:59.399 --> 00:10:02.840
your activity of daily living. All of my clients do.
162
00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:06.679
They all do so, but it is effort. For it
163
00:10:06.799 --> 00:10:10.639
is like walking through molasses and not the nice sweet
164
00:10:10.759 --> 00:10:15.759
carrying the really sludgy, sticky kind. And that's just no
165
00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:16.480
way to live.
166
00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:22.000
No, So Meg what are the kinds of experiences you're
167
00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:24.559
referring to when you talk about these constellations, like all
168
00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:28.919
of these little tiny tea traumas, these kind of emotional injuries,
169
00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:32.000
Like can you share kind of examples of what those
170
00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:33.840
things are that we're talking about.
171
00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:38.720
Yes, absolutely, And again the difficulty sometimes that we have
172
00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:42.200
is that all these things are individual to us. So
173
00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:45.879
a point I really want to make in general about trauma.
174
00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:48.840
It is not the event per se, it's how it
175
00:10:49.039 --> 00:10:53.159
impacts us, how it impacts the individual. So something that
176
00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:56.600
has happened in your life may impact you very keenly,
177
00:10:57.159 --> 00:11:00.960
but actually it may not particularly affect another person at all.
178
00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:03.919
And that's the same for the spectrum of trauma as well.
179
00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:08.080
So to bear in mind that some things that really
180
00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:11.279
do not people of course in their life. It won't
181
00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:14.799
be the same for everybody, but these tiny tea traumas,
182
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:20.039
there are some really interesting categories. So things like microaggressions,
183
00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:25.559
things like toxic positivity, things that really make us feel undermined.
184
00:11:25.919 --> 00:11:29.159
Often things that make us feel a little bit humiliated,
185
00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:32.559
because in an evolutionary sense, we want to be part
186
00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:34.360
of our groups, and if we have the fear that
187
00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:36.279
we're going to be ejected from our group. That is
188
00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:41.200
actually that triggers that stress response. So moral injury was
189
00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:44.159
one thing that came a lot in the pandemic, and
190
00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:46.559
not just for nurses and doctors, but for many of
191
00:11:46.639 --> 00:11:49.840
us who are sitting on the sidelines so basically couldn't
192
00:11:49.879 --> 00:11:54.320
help other people. That was incredibly hard for people. And again,
193
00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:59.399
it probably isn't just one of these experiences. It is
194
00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:04.080
when they build up over time and often when they're constant.
195
00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:08.200
So if someone is perhaps working in a workplace where
196
00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:11.440
there is quite a lot of microaggressions, where people have
197
00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:15.440
been undermined quite a lot, then we do know from
198
00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:18.480
some really amazing research that it does have a profound
199
00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:23.559
impact in terms of health outcomes. So I'll give you
200
00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:28.720
an example actually of something that really really stuck with me.
201
00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:35.759
So I had a client. She was very, very high functioning,
202
00:12:36.039 --> 00:12:41.320
she's very sort of inverted commas, successful in her work,
203
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:46.440
and also amazingly kind and compassionate person, and she was
204
00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:51.159
on the verge of burnout. She was burning herself out. Again.
205
00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:54.240
She said, look, nothing really that bad happened to me.
206
00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:57.440
You know, I haven't been through an abusive experience. You know,
207
00:12:57.440 --> 00:12:59.600
I have a really good relationship. All my life is
208
00:12:59.639 --> 00:13:02.080
really good. It on paper. And so we kind of
209
00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:06.600
explored some things and one thing she said that came
210
00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:09.960
up when I asked my tiny tea question. So I
211
00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:13.440
posed this question to my clients. Can you tell me
212
00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:17.080
an event or experience that has occurred in your life
213
00:13:17.799 --> 00:13:21.480
that has affected you in some way affected your behavior
214
00:13:21.559 --> 00:13:23.159
or the way you view the world, of how you
215
00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:27.360
think about yourself. But you thought wasn't quite important enough
216
00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:31.600
to mention, and that's the important thing. And she came
217
00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:33.679
back and she said, well, you know, when I was
218
00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:37.639
a kid, if if I had a bad report card,
219
00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:41.120
my mom she would pin it up on the wall
220
00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:45.000
and they stayed there from my whole childhood for years.
221
00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:48.000
So every morning I would get up and I would
222
00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:53.440
see these f's or even d's. And but Meg, that's
223
00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:57.320
not trauma, Like that wasn't that bad. I wasn't in
224
00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:00.559
an you know, I wasn't in a really difficult sort
225
00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:04.559
of environment like living through a ward. It's not that bad.
226
00:14:04.840 --> 00:14:07.039
And we took a pause. We took a pause, and
227
00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:10.960
we reflected on that, and again, imagine, imagine how that
228
00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:14.720
would impact your sense of self worth if growing up
229
00:14:15.559 --> 00:14:19.159
what you saw every day was something that was telling
230
00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:23.720
you weren't good enough. So many people have these sorts
231
00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:26.480
of experiences. And it doesn't have to be based on
232
00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:30.320
childhood either. These things can happen later in life. They
233
00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:34.240
can happen all the way through life. And one point
234
00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:36.399
in my book that I want to make really clear
235
00:14:36.519 --> 00:14:38.320
is that because many people have said.
236
00:14:38.120 --> 00:14:39.240
Well, how do we avoid this?
237
00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:42.519
How do we avoid tiny traumas? And it's not so
238
00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:45.799
much about avoiding it, because you can't cast you can't
239
00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:49.720
avoid difficulties in life. It is about having the awareness