How Was the Trauma Training Today?

Because we are including so many more foster children and children from broken homes into our fellowship, our church participated in a trauma training session today.  Our main purpose was to gain practical insights into how to handle situations where children who have experienced trouble act out their emotions.  To that end, we can be thankful for our time together.  However, there were many errant teachings included which we must reject. 

ERRANT TEACHING ON THE BRAIN

The presentation alleged that the brain is physically transformed through traumatic events, creating “holes” in it and in its ability to process information.  This is possible, but there is a lot of debate on this subject.  The subject is relatively new, based on the largely anecdotal research of Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, published in his book The Body Keeps the Score.  Secular psychologists and even some Christian counselors (who are not always biblical in their approach) have found value in this understanding, shaping their therapeutic practices with his hypothesis.

Yet, there simply isn’t much hard, scientific evidence to support this claim.  As one critical reviewer of this book noted, “There is not a single case report to date of at least one individual who had brain imaging and/or cortisol levels measured before trauma exposure, then suffered trauma exposure, and then was followed over time with serial measurements of brain imaging and/or cortisol to document the most basic elements of the toxic stress theory in real time.”[1]  Though we would not be in favor of traumatizing children in the name of science, this remains a major hole in the research (pun intended).

Of course, we were shown a brain scan that demonstrated disparate areas of activity in the brain which were interpreted as “holes” in the brain.  I am not a neuroscientist, but I had many questions about the scans.  What were the sexes and ages of the individuals scanned; were they comparable individuals otherwise?  What constitutes a “normal brain” for us to contrast it to the scan of the traumatized brain?  What manner of trauma was experienced by the individual in the scan (physical, emotional, sexual)?  What is the background of the traumatized individual, such as homelife — were there otherwise loving parents present for early childhood development or not?  What is the education levels of the individuals scanned (did the traumatized child have access to the same developmental milestones)?  Exactly what areas of the brain are “missing” in the scans, which appear to be of the upper, frontal quadrant?  Perhaps my questions are more because I lack proper training in viewing such scans, and because time constraints limited the amount of halo data which could be presented, but it doesn’t seem like a single side-by-side comparison is scientifically binding evidence.

Even when the brain becomes injured, though, it is possible to “rewire” it due to its plasticity.  For instance, those suffering a physical brain injury which robs a person of certain mobility or cognitive functions can possibly regain some or even all lost skills over time.  Hypothetically speaking, even if an event is so emotionally scarring in childhood that it causes the brain to shut down key cognitive centers, it would be possible to regain that function through proper therapy.  So, this presentation is hardly a case for trauma permanence.  Of course, there just isn’t any definitive evidence that the brain is “injured” in this way through trauma.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the point of the talk.  The speaker affirmed that healing is available through Jesus Christ and that trauma doesn’t redefine the rest of someone’s life.  The thrust of the session was how to deal with such a child so that he or she may grow into mature adulthood.  This was good.

Later, though, the presentation turned to a subtle presentation of evolution (I am unaware of whether the speaker believes in evolution).  She began speaking about the “lizard brain,” called this because it’s viewed as the most primitive part of our brain with structures we share with reptiles.  This would have been the earliest part of our brain to have developed on an evolutionary timetable, adding higher cognitive functions over the course of millions of years.  It controls the “fight-or-flight” responses, the concept that those creatures who learned to respond to movement in the bush survived while those who didn’t died.

As evidence of this, we were told the story of a younger girl who experienced an emotional breakdown each time she was taken to her grandmother’s home.  Through patient, probing questions, they were able to ascertain that she was responding to driving by a particular blue house, one in which she was molested.  The explanation was that she was experiencing a primal fight-or-flight response and was unable to verbalize it on her own.  They corrected it by changing the route they took to grandma’s house.

Yet, is that the best explanation?  It’s obviously true that she was remembering the deep pain of her experience there, and her uncontrolled outbursts welled up from her anxiety of being anywhere near that home.  Yet, how did they discover the cause of her outbursts and deal with it?  Was it through chemical adjustments to the brain?  Of course not: it was through questioning and then a practical course change, something that describes the average counseling session, biblical or otherwise.  We don’t need an evolutionary definition to diagnose the issue.

In fact, consider this: a person can respond to a perceived threat without having experienced trauma.  For instance, children who have never experienced sexual molestation or volatile home lives can have meltdowns on Santa’s lap, crying and screaming as though they saw jagged teeth awaiting them under his beard.  It’s up to adults to understand that children are not always rational, don’t always have the words, and need extra grace and help, which is what the Bible calls us to present to them. 

ERRANT TEACHING ON SYMPATHY AND EMPATHY

One of the other disturbing teachings was in the presentation today contrasted sympathy to empathy.  It began with a video featuring a female speaker with animated cartoon animals interacting in context to her talk.  In her talk, she said that empathy drives connection while sympathy drives disconnection.  That was a stunning claim, and the presentation gives the impression that sympathy is somehow bad, equating it to clichés!  It was a surreal experience to sit in a church while hearing the Christian virtue of sympathy downplayed, but this arises from secular thought.

Here's the reality: Empathy, when properly understood, is a lower or more basic form of relating to others’ emotions than sympathy.  Why is that?  Conceptually, it demands that we merely experience or feel the emotions of others.  This can create difficulties for the one wanting to help to maintain an objective perspective, such as a foster parent, a pastor, or a biblical counselor, as a person can get easily drawn into a person’s emotional spiral.  (Of course, this depends on whether one utilizes empathy as a more affective rather than a cognitive act.)  Empathy, as the cartoon today depicted, involves getting down in the pit with someone — which may (or may not) offer some comfort — but the help ends there. 

Joe Rigney details this in an article he wrote for Desiring God.^[2]  He accurately defines empathy as meaning to “suffer in” and sympathy as to “suffer with,” and he directly argues against the notion that sympathy drives disconnection.  He notes that there is a certain “sin of empathy,” in fact, which may avoid addressing necessary issues.  Instead, he rightly notes that sometimes, emotional distance is needed to properly help someone.  Indeed, empathy is a newer psychological concept fraught with pitfalls, and so, sympathy and compassion are necessary tools for ministry.

Consider that we never read of the empathetic Jesus.  However, we do read numerous examples of the compassion of the Lord, and Scripture describes Him as our high priest who can “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15).  If sympathy is just painting a silver lining on the dark clouds of sorrow, as this presentation alleged, then we have an ineffective Savior.

Sympathy is necessary for ministry, especially for the young, troubled heart.  Any parent of an emotional child understands the need to both recognize the trouble of the child’s heart while modeling regulation over emotions and assisting the child to think differently.  Sympathy is indeed “suffering with:” seeing the emotion, getting into the problem, and helping with problems.  It is not giving trite aphorisms in response to other people’s pain, which is a way of dismissing issues rather than helping.  Instead, it may start with a hug (which the video we watched classified only as empathy), and it moves on to standing up with the helping hand, assisting the suffering up the ladder and out of the hole.  Sympathy is at the heart of all biblical counseling, not just empathy.

CONCLUSION

There were certainly some helpful elements today.  I personally hoped to see more practical information shared, such as how to handle situations both in the context of classrooms and in the home.  Still, there was a helpful booklet distributed with some hints that we discussed, and there were also some stories shared complete with honest failures to encourage us to continue on with good work, even if we do so imperfectly.  And it was extremely important for everyone to hear that trauma doesn’t define a person’s life, that there is healing available in Jesus Christ.

However, there were some very troubling elements.  The presentation gave dubious evidence of brain issues, seasoned with evolutionary thought, and completely misrepresents sympathy (and attribute of our Lord).  There also wasn’t much in the way of biblical encouragement (I mentioned the ones presented), meaning that secular thought was elevated above biblical thought.  While I appreciated what the speaker was trying to accomplish, this was not the kind of presentation that reflects the core beliefs of our church. 

As such, we will choose to do something different in the future for this kind of training.

For those wanting a more biblical approach to handling the issues which arise, I recommend the following resources:

• “Shepherding a Child's Heart” by Tedd Tripp (Shepherd Press)
• “Get Outta My Face!” by Rick Horne (Shepherd Press)
• “Instructing a Child’s Heart” by Tedd and Margy Tripp (Shepherd Press)

For those wanting more information on the issues of the brain and general counseling, I recommend:

• “Blame It on the Brain?: Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience” by Edward Welch (P&R Publishing)
• “PsychoBabble: The Failure of Modern Psychology and the Biblical Alternative” by Dr. Richard L. Ganz (Association of Certified Biblical Counselors)
• “Counseling the Hard Cases: True Stories Illustrating the Sufficiency of God's Resources in Scripture” by Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert (B&H Academic)
• “Counseling: How to Counsel Biblically” by John MacArthur (Thomas Nelson)
• “Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change” by Paul David Tripp (P&R Publishing)

I have more recommendations along these lines, so let me know if this whets your appetite for more.

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[1] Francine Tan, “A Critical Evaluation of Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score,” JBSC, Fall, Vol. 7, (2:2023), 40.

[2] Joe Rigney, “Do You Feel My Pain?  Empathy, Sympathy, And Dangerous Virtues,” May 2, 2020, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/do-you-feel-my-pain.