CRITICIZING TRAUMA AND INJURY SOCIOLOGICALLY, USING TWO SOCIAL THEORIES

Introduction

There is overwhelming evidence stating that social connections play a significant role in how people overcome adversity.  It is therefore no surprise that social processes can play a key role in how people respond to trauma. The theoretical approach of this review is how social connections can affect trauma response, the importance of attachment theory and the need for the trauma field to focus on social processes for trauma response understanding on the individual as well as community level (Tseris, 2017, P.251).Many theorists highlights that humans should work together to control many risks against the species and in order to live as a species. In pre-historic periods, it would have been far easier to cope with the threats of predators than trying to do it by oneself – with the support of 10 people; it would require the joint efforts of many humans. Likewise, it is much more beneficial to build a cabin to shield one another from the elements with the support of others than to strive assisted to achieve the whole endeavour. In order to support this proposition, neuroscientists develop a variety of interesting theories, including the theory that human intellect developed far beyond human brain, so that humans can communicate with one other individually. For example, as comparison to bigger animals, people have comparatively small brains (e.g., elephants or whales) (Gross and Medina-DeVilliers, 2020, p.378). Despite this contrast, when the brain size required to sustain fundamental physical functions is taken into account, people have relatively higher brains than all the other species, depending mostly on how massive the body is. Neocortex in humans is believed to be proportionally larger and to enable people to interact with larger social networks. Interestingly, some cognitive scientists claim that the underlying architecture of the human brain is quite comparable to the neural circuits that are activated during social behaviour in its restful (called default mode) (Liddell and Courtney, 2018, p.215). According to this concept humans as a species have evolved to interact to enable people flourish in given environment, which may be shown in basic neuronal circuits that drive human daily work. The purpose of this paper is to sociologically critique trauma as a global health issue on the perspective of two social theories. 

Social attachment theory

Attachment theorists have emphasized that decreased care during infertilities might lead to unsafe attachment and possibly an insufficient in-house attachment model for subsequent childhood and adulthood. That, in turn, is supposed to lead to the creation of secondary attachment techniques and potentially illness, emotion and cognition. Ainsworth and colleagues found that these alternative attachment methods arose when the children's needs are addressed by their primary caregiver in an unpredictable and emotionally detached manner (Tseris, 2017, P.253).The idea that the interrelationship between people is essential for human survival and mental wellness is not new. Attachment theories suggest that people and many other creatures learn from an early age, in times of need, to seek refuge in confidence among other people (Marshall and Frazier, 2019, p.268).

Harry Harlow's early study indicated that the monkeys continually sought for a cloth-crafted "mother" monkey replica, not an alternative wire replica, while the latter gave milk and the former did not provided . Harlow argued that the fabric reproductions were sought by infant monkeys because they needed "comfort to contact." Attachment theorists believe that while main caregivers provide support initially, others will play this function as we age. John Bowlby's (1982) model of attachment-theories suggests that individuals internalize attachment metaphors so as to achieve analogous soothing effects in mental representations (Gross and Medina-DeVilliers, 2020, p.378).  Bowlby emphasized strongly that "the boy and the young kid must have warm, intimate and constant contact with his [or her] mother (or permanent mother replacement) in order to obtain optimum psychological functioning in order both to find fulfilment and pleasure. Throughout infancy and childhood, an internal working model for the individual's attachment safety is built and evolved mostly according to his caregiver's conduct. In order to establish our attachment systems humans use the cradle to turn to trustworthy persons when threatened, they are a key emotional regulatory approach (Liddell and Courtney, 2018, p.243). There is significant evidence in line with this proposal that people tend to search for attachment representations in real or symbolic threats. Unconscious exposure to painful stimuli, for example, increases the possibility of people to recall the names of attachments. It has also been observed that people often tend to activate mental picture of God in reaction to scary stimuli, which may be a further type of attachment for many people. These scientific values underline our predisposition to turn to dependable figures whenever people are threatened (Marshall and Frazier, 2019, p.269).

Social baseline theory

Social baseline theory is another key theory to consider with regard to the impact of attachment and trauma. It suggests that social ties play an essential role in effectively minimizing energy use which coincides with the idea of efficient use of energy sources as a key driver of neuronal activity. This theory proposes that human beings are hardwired to connect each other due to evolutionary processes, which resulted in the connection of human brain so that the natural state of the brain is proximal (Liddell and Courtney, 2018, p.268). Social baseline theory suggests that energy conservation, including basic such as temperature regulation and a limitation of risk of predators, has become a major part of social relationships. The considerable dependence on caregivers and others, to offer warmth, safety and care, in early years, is postulated as an innate trend towards attachment to other persons, to share the survival burden, e.g. shield people against predators and keep them warm (Tseris, 2017, P.255).The problem of thermal regulation is essential for survival as many functions that rely on life depend on a satisfying body temperature and require large energy expenses to keep this temperature. Social baseline theory therefore claims that social ties are crucial to human energy conservation by keeping humans warm, and hence do not waste energy on superfluous tasks. The innate programming of social affection which is inherent in social baseline theory has an extremely important influence on the processes at a high level (Gross and Medina-DeVilliers, 2020, p.378).

Cross-species study demonstrates this. In groups, for example, rodents show lower metabolic rates with increasing group size. In addition, huddling rodents have a greater body temperature. This thermoregulatory action on the bio-system results in the allocation of energy to other functions necessary for threatened survival. This trend shows that humans are programmed to seek closeness to people from an early age since we are crucial for our existence (Marshall and Frazier, 2019, p.270).There has been relatively less empirical activity that explicitly evaluates the impact of the mental representations of attachments on trauma healing. Out of Israel there have emerged two noteworthy researches. One of the solid results of PTSD research is the increased interference of people with PTSD with an emotional stop test. This test involves naming the colours the word is printed on, while people with PTSD are slower to mention the colours of the words associated with the threat (Bryant, 2016, p. 290).

Literature analysis

A potential criticism of previous research on social dynamics affecting trauma reactions is that the PTSD field has embraced a mostly "egocentric" approach, in which individuals are asked and inferred from their social platforms. It contrasts with breakthroughs in other areas of study, including socio-cantered sciences, economics, anthropology, arithmetic, political science and social psychology, which map the significantly enhancing of individuals and organizations on social levels. The social network analysis studies both the social structures of humans within these social structures and their individual characteristics, therefore allowing mapping out how these individual traits can be affected and influencing the social connections of the individuals. It is crucial, because many key mechanical factors that have an impact on adjusting, to understand how post-traumatic stress reactions happen in a social network environment (Tseris, 2017, P.256). Firstly, there used to be a proven association between one person's structural location within a network (e.g., isolated, connected by only a few others or maybe related to many people). The fact that friends who are not friends are not predictive of women's suicide is typical for this opportunity. In addition, the structure of a social network can influence how emotional and compartmental aspects influence people in the network (Liddell and Courtney, 2018, p.301).

It is time to take a more socially-informed approach to the research of traumatic stress. Even though there is a convergent understanding that trauma does not occur in a social vacuum and the significance of interpersonal and social elements has to be appreciated, our theories have not adequately addressed this need. The approach to social networking offers a framework that can be adopted after traumatic events to investigate the impact of post-traumatic symptoms on social behaviour, and vice versa. These interactions require longitudinal designs and this is demonstrated by the results of multifaceted study that showed the causative role of social processes in the field of mental health (Gross and Medina-DeVilliers, 2020, p.378). This is particularly crucial following traumatic occurrences, such as large-scale disasters, that have a direct social impact. There can be significant social changes in events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and terrorist attacks, and how the many roles of social networks might be essential for adaptation (Marshall and Frazier, 2019, p.271).

The significant clinical and research work on the potential advantages of social linkages highlights the need of promoting social relationships. Trauma, especially protracted and interpersonal trauma, can adversely affect attachments. It is a cause of concern. This presents an important challenge for understanding how to improve trauma therapy and perhaps increase therapy response (Liddell and Courtney, 2018, p.281). Neuroscience also offers fresh insights into how biological mechanisms involved in pathways can affect emotional processing and perhaps make PTSD therapy easier. In the event of the acute post-trauma period, for instance, neuropeptide oxytocin, a disease which has been demonstrated to help bind safe individuals, successfully can limit PTSD. If attachment can bring psychological advantage, it can be a useful way to help recovery from trauma. However, if some traumatized persons are unable as a result of previous traumatic binding experiences to gain access to these binding systems, we should design more focused techniques either to promote attachment capacity or to developing non-binding tactics that can also benefit (Bryant, 2016, p. 290).

The accumulating research reveals that it is an extremely complex problem how we cope in our social context following trauma. Personal characteristics in how people search for and benefit from attachments affect the actual existence of social connections, which can have a significant impact on our way of thinking, feeling and acting (Bryant, 2016, p. 290).The science of psycho-traumatology has historically explored this situation from the perspective of an individual, but it informs us that a more complete understanding demands wider techniques that recognize the interaction impact of social networks in which people recover from trauma. There is a deceiving lack of empirical research linked to attachment to apply the numerous empirical developments made in attachment studies to the victims of trauma. Based on the literature examined here, people would expect persons with stable attachment types to benefit from social assistance following a trauma. Those with avoiding tendency to attach may use different secondary coping methods in order to handle their experience. These solutions have been poorly articulated and a greater knowledge of how people with uncertain attachments cope with trauma needs to be developed (Gross and Medina-DeVilliers, 2020, p.378).

Conclusion

The degree to which humans engage in their social world is crucial to the species survival and hence to how individuals deal with trauma and adversity. Attachment theories have emphasized that decreased care during traumatic event might lead to unsafe attachment and possibly an insufficient internal attachment model for later childhood and adulthood. That, in turn, is supposed to lead to the creation of secondary attachment methods and potentially health, emotion and cognition. Ainsworth and colleagues found that these alternative attachment methods arose when the children's needs are addressed by their primary caregiver in an unpredictable and emotionally detached manner. This report outlines the value of social relationships from an evolutionary perspective and incorporates them into the debate of dominant attachment theories. Experimental data to support the possible advantages of adversity management attachments and an examination of how these advantages are mitigated by individual attachment variances is discussed. Whenever attachment can bring psychological advantage, it can be a useful way to help recovery from trauma. However, if some traumatized people are unable as a result of previous traumatic attaching experiences to gain access to these binding systems, it is important to design more focused techniques either to promote attachment capacity or to developing non-binding tactics that can also benefit. The paper has also analysed the potential influence of trauma on attachment mechanisms and the way this can contribute to the development of trauma. Finally, a broader perspective is presented about social network analysis and a more socio-cantered trauma response model would foster a more complete knowledge of social processes as moderate reactions to trauma.

References

Tseris, E., 2017. A feminist critique of trauma therapy. In Routledge international handbook of critical mental health (pp. 251-257). Routledge.

Gross, E.B. and Medina-DeVilliers, S.E., 2020. Cognitive processes unfold in a social context: a review and extension of social baseline theory. Frontiers in psychology, 11, p.378.

Liddell, B.J. and Courtney, B.S., 2018. Attachment buffers the physiological impact of social exclusion. PloS one, 13(9), pp. 203-287.

Marshall, E.M. and Frazier, P.A., 2019. Understanding post trauma reactions within an attachment theory framework. Current opinion in psychology, 25, pp.167-171.

Bryant, R.A., 2016. Social attachments and traumatic stress. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 7(1), p.290.