I recently came across a study that established interconnections between trauma, the self-conscious emotions (i.e., guilt and shame), and hypersexuality. The tendency towards hypersexuality appears especially strong among male trauma survivors. A summary of the findings from the study can be found here.
The study’s findings stirred up a few interesting questions in me. First, what is it about experiences of trauma that evoke guilt and shame–emotions that make us question the stability of our social bonds and membership? Second, what is an easy way to tell that certain expressions of sexuality may be unhealthy responses to trauma? And third, why would hypersexuality be a common way of coping with the guilt and shame associated with trauma?
Why Guilt and Shame
The fact that guilt and shame are so closely linked to trauma is a bit of a head scratcher at first glance. For one, traumatic experiences are so varied. Each “type” of traumatic experience has its own emotional nuances so it seems a bit odd that guilt and shame would be so consistently linked to traumatic experiences. After all, aside from feelings of danger, what does experience in combat have in common with being sexually assaulted?
Certain kinds of trauma, like sexual-assault, can be easily linked to experiences of shame. Survivors of sexual assault have natural feelings of healthy sexuality forced into contact with hostility, victimization, predatory behavior, and social stigma. Many victims feel a sense of guilt as well because they wonder if their actions, clothing, kindness, and trusting mentality could have made them a target.
Another reason to feel puzzled by guilt and shame resulting from trauma is how guilty and ashamed the victim feels but not the perpetrator. In cases where a traumatic event is interpersonal in nature, meaning one person victimizes another, shouldn’t it be the perpetrator who carries around feelings of guilt and shame? While we have ways of explaining this phenomenon, where the victim feels what the perpetrator should be feeling, it’s not the most intuitive consequence.
Any student of psychoanalytic theory could explain this phenomenon as projective identification. Projective identification occurs where the force of someone’s projection is so strong (and strongly disavowed) that it induces a corresponding experience in the recipient.
Setting complex, esoteric theoretical concepts aside, it could suffice to explain the guilt and shame that follow trauma as catastrophic failures of culture. Each of us sets aside powerful impulses and longings in order to reap the functional benefits of society and the reassurances of culture. Culture is a group narrative of who a group of people is, what they aspire to, and why life is worth living for them.
Traumatic events often expose the fiction in cultural narratives to their victims. The consequence is the traumatized feel alienated from others and unprotected by the stories others believe. Take the soldier who fights overseas, sees its atrocities, and returns to a populace ignorant of the realities of war. Civilians comfort themselves with stories of fighting for freedom and justice, but soldiers know first hand of the discrepancy between the story and reality.
The abused altar boy also knows this fiction. Religious fellowship and the soothing words of scripture don’t feel the same after being victimized by a leader in the community. Not only does religion stop feeling good, but the traumatic event separates the victim from others who believe it to be the answer to profound existential anxieties.
Shame and guilt arise whenever we feel disconnected from the culture of which we are a part. We begin to wonder if we are the problem–either we have done something wrong or are just inherently wrong.
There’s more to be said specifically about why shame in particular is so inherently connected with trauma. I’ll elaborate more on the link between shame in trauma in a later section.
Why Hypersexuality?
First of all, what even is the difference between natural sexuality and hypersexuality? The short answer is compulsivity. Hypersexuality is not really a matter of having an “overactive” sex drive. It’s much more about needing to have sex to feel okay. Or to use a food analogy, the difference between healthy sexuality and hypersexuality is much like the difference between having healthy eating habits and binge-eating. Overeating tends not to be about having a big appetite as much as it is about wanting the good feelings of eating to replace the bad feelings of idle moments.
Sex is healthy when partners find an overlap in naturally oscillating states of sexual desire. When desire and the compulsive need to find relief from negative emotional states get confused, sex starts to become unhealthy hypersexuality. Returning to the food analogy, healthy sex is like eating a wholesome, well-balanced meal several times a day. Hypersexuality is like going to the supermarket, picking up chips, cookies, candy and doughnuts then going to a private place to binge on them.
Hypersexuality is often associated with manic and hypomanic states where action replaces introspection. Sex, like food, is an especially powerful action to drown out introspection because of the potent physiological changes that occur naturally during sex.
In other words, people look to regulate painful emotions by seeking stimulating environments like clubs, casinos, shopping trips, vacations, spontaneous sexual encounters, etc. instead of recognizing one’s emotional state and finding a healthy, non-destructive way of coping with it. Manic and hypomanic defenses are common in trauma in addition to dissociation as a way of avoiding oneself.
What does hypersexuality have to do with trauma and PTSD?
As we’ve established, the so-called self-conscious emotions of guilt and shame often accompany trauma. Shame is especially pernicious. Shame tends to occur whenever the trauma has forced sufferers into the primitive defense of dissociation. Dissociation occurs when a psychological experience is so unbearable that the moment-to-moment flow of conscious experience separates from the experience of being in one’s own body. Put more simply, the trauma victim has an out-of-body experience to numb the psychic and physiological pain of the trauma.
Once dissociation occurs, it often becomes a dominant defense mechanism. The nature of post-traumatic symptoms is that the sufferer is constantly vigilant of the trauma repeating. Thus, any hint of danger leads to the recurrence of dissociation.
The emotion of shame is a residue of trauma and becomes like a moat that separates mind from body. Those who experience trauma feel a sense of shame or disgust at being in one’s own skin. Addictive and compulsive behaviors are tools trauma victims use in order to tolerate shame and have embodied experiences.
Compulsive sexuality is a logical coping strategy to deal with trauma, dissociation, and shame. Sex is a highly stimulating–even intoxicating–experience that makes being in one’s own skin pleasurable. Men especially may be hypersexual due to the association men learn between having sex and social acceptance. Shame is an extremely uncomfortable feeling associated with being a social outcast. Being received sexually, for many men, feels like the antidote to the dark feelings of shameful, social exclusion.
Healing from Trauma
Healing from post-traumatic symptoms like hypersexuality requires that the sufferer practice tolerating overwhelming emotions and working to restore healthy dialogue between mind and body. Psychotherapy provides a useful context to begin confronting difficult emotions associated with trauma. A skilled psychotherapist with whom the patient has a strong relationship can help to untangle the emotional knots left by trauma, encourage slow and steady exposure to painful residues of trauma, and raise awareness around a patient’s tendency to dissociate.
Mindfulness and yoga are especially helpful adjuncts to psychotherapy. Yoga especially has been celebrated as a way for people to synchronize physical and emotional experiences that have been dissociated through trauma. Muscular tension, defensive body postures, and chronic states of autonomic arousal can all be directly addressed through a modest yet consistent yoga practice.
People who have suffered from trauma can have negative experiences with mindfulness and yoga when it’s done outside of a psychotherapeutic treatment. Trauma survivors need to go slow, have expectations managed, and receive psychoeducation around preventing re-traumatization. In short, it’s important to have the proper support if your aim is to address symptoms of trauma through yoga or meditation / mindfulness practices.
In short, the psychological experiences of trauma are essential to address through a conventional strategy of psychotherapy with a skilled practitioner. The embodied experiences of trauma are also incredibly important to address as well, which is what makes yoga and meditation such helpful adjuncts. The mind-body impact of trauma is something famed trauma researcher and psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk discusses at length. For a review of his acclaimed book, The Body Keeps the Score, continue reading here.
Mindsplain’s Journalistic Standards and Practices
About Mindsplain • Report Typo or Error