An increasing number of investigators today suspect that we allexist, under most circumstances, with two conscious minds that usually func-tion in such harmonious interaction that we are consciously aware of onlyone (Joseph, 1992, Tinnin, 1990). Under conditions of individual or groupstress, however, a disconnection can occur between the verbal and nonverbalmind, and then we can get a clearer sense of the functioning components ofthis preverbal state. What we have learned about human functioning as aresult of trauma offers us a lens to look back at our evolutionary past.

We are creatures of habit. The tendency to repeat the past is an intrinsicpart of all life. If we survived yesterday, then it makes sense to use the samesurvival strategies today. We all repeat the past all the time-as individuals,as groups, and as institutions. If we have survived-if we have even pros-pered-then repetition is logical and survival-enhancing.

The response of the patients was even more clear. The female patientsrapidly formed a clique which repeatedly excluded Sally from casual groupencounters. The only woman who formed an alliance with Sally was awoman with a past history of drug addiction and prostitution. The malepatients were solicitous, drawn like “moths to the flame,” in the words ofone of the male staff members. When Sally and one of the other male patientswere found locked in an embrace in Sally’s bathroom, we finally realizedthat the entire group was caught in a reenactment of Sally’s childhood experi-ence and only then were we able to take charge of the case and begin redirect-ing the traumatic scenario so that Sally-and the rest of the com-munity-could heal.

The divorce rate

The group effect is greatly enhanced by our innate capacity for emo-tional contagion. This is the tendency we all have to automatically mimicand synchronize our facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and move-ments with those of another person, a sequence that causes us to convergeemotionally with the other. Emotional contagion occurs so rapidly-evenaffecting heart rate and skin condition-that we are not aware of what ishappening even while it is happening (Hatfield et al., 1994). Both humansand primates engage in this mimicry at a neurophysiological level, and it isclearly one of our many inherited characteristics that bear on the power ofsocial interaction.

The motive force behind traumatic reenactment is found in dissociatedfragments of unverbalized experience. Dissociation is a hallmark characteris-tic of traumatic experience and serves the purpose of protecting and bufferingthe central nervous system under conditions of hyperarousal and unusualstress (Schumaker, 1995). But dissociation is a universal human capacityand probably evolved for a number of reasons-to allow us to transcend anunacceptable reality, to escape from conflict and trauma, to enhance theherd sense and thus increase social control and cohesion, and to provideneurological conservation and economy of effort since we became able todo two things at once (Ludwig, 1983)

If trau-matic reenactment is a clear and possible outcome to a traumatic experienceof the individual, is it possible that traumatic reenactment can also occur atthe level of the group? And if reenactment behavior does affect entire groupsof people, is it possible that a group’s “character” can also become maladap-tive as a result of post-traumatic skew?

These defensivemaneuvers become group norms and, similar to the way the same defensivemaneuvers become norms in the lives of our individual patients, they arethen passed on from one generation of group participants to the next. Eachnew member, then, must become acculturated to the established norms if heor she is to succeed. In such a way, an original group creates a group realitywhich then becomes institutionalized for every subsequent group. This aspectof the groupmind becomes quite resistant to change, rooted in a past thatis forgotten, now simply the “way things are.”

Sandra L. Bloom, M.D.

We are creatures of habit. The tendency to repeat the past is an intrinsicpart of all life. If we survived yesterday, then it makes sense to use the samesurvival strategies today. We all repeat the past all the time-as individuals,as groups, and as institutions. If we have survived-if we have even pros-pered-then repetition is logical and survival-enhancing.

An increasing number of investigators today suspect that we allexist, under most circumstances, with two conscious minds that usually func-tion in such harmonious interaction that we are consciously aware of onlyone (Joseph, 1992, Tinnin, 1990). Under conditions of individual or groupstress, however, a disconnection can occur between the verbal and nonverbalmind, and then we can get a clearer sense of the functioning components ofthis preverbal state. What we have learned about human functioning as aresult of trauma offers us a lens to look back at our evolutionary past.

The response of the patients was even more clear. The female patientsrapidly formed a clique which repeatedly excluded Sally from casual groupencounters. The only woman who formed an alliance with Sally was awoman with a past history of drug addiction and prostitution. The malepatients were solicitous, drawn like “moths to the flame,” in the words ofone of the male staff members. When Sally and one of the other male patientswere found locked in an embrace in Sally’s bathroom, we finally realizedthat the entire group was caught in a reenactment of Sally’s childhood experi-ence and only then were we able to take charge of the case and begin redirect-ing the traumatic scenario so that Sally-and the rest of the com-munity-could heal.

The divorce rate

The group effect is greatly enhanced by our innate capacity for emo-tional contagion. This is the tendency we all have to automatically mimicand synchronize our facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and move-ments with those of another person, a sequence that causes us to convergeemotionally with the other. Emotional contagion occurs so rapidly-evenaffecting heart rate and skin condition-that we are not aware of what ishappening even while it is happening (Hatfield et al., 1994). Both humansand primates engage in this mimicry at a neurophysiological level, and it isclearly one of our many inherited characteristics that bear on the power ofsocial interaction.

The motive force behind traumatic reenactment is found in dissociatedfragments of unverbalized experience. Dissociation is a hallmark characteris-tic of traumatic experience and serves the purpose of protecting and bufferingthe central nervous system under conditions of hyperarousal and unusualstress (Schumaker, 1995). But dissociation is a universal human capacityand probably evolved for a number of reasons-to allow us to transcend anunacceptable reality, to escape from conflict and trauma, to enhance theherd sense and thus increase social control and cohesion, and to provideneurological conservation and economy of effort since we became able todo two things at once (Ludwig, 1983)

These defensivemaneuvers become group norms and, similar to the way the same defensivemaneuvers become norms in the lives of our individual patients, they arethen passed on from one generation of group participants to the next. Eachnew member, then, must become acculturated to the established norms if heor she is to succeed. In such a way, an original group creates a group realitywhich then becomes institutionalized for every subsequent group. This aspectof the groupmind becomes quite resistant to change, rooted in a past thatis forgotten, now simply the “way things are.”

Sandra L. Bloom, M.D.

If trau-matic reenactment is a clear and possible outcome to a traumatic experienceof the individual, is it possible that traumatic reenactment can also occur atthe level of the group? And if reenactment behavior does affect entire groupsof people, is it possible that a group’s “character” can also become maladap-tive as a result of post-traumatic skew?