Confessions of a Trauma Therapist

We’ve all been shaken to the core by this seemingly upstanding leader who turns out to be an evil sadist. The question most of us ask ourselves is this: How could this man be that man? How can the same person be a pillar of society and, at the same time, a depraved, heartless killer with a fetish for women’s lingerie?

Russell Williams, we’ve found out, is married to a woman who is respected by her colleagues and friends. On the surface, their lives together looked ideal: two successful adults doing good work for their communities.

In my own professional and private life, this has always been a burning question for me. We all know of self-righteous politicians who are revealed to have a secret and perverse sex life. Most of the perpetrators of my clients are pillars in their communities, popular heads of companies, church leaders and educators recognized with plaques and thanks for their years of service. My own grandfather was the epitome of self-controlled respectability.

It was this same question that led me to study German history for many years. I was teaching trauma therapy in Germany, getting to know my students and their parents who had often served The Third Reich. The participants in my workshops who were usually born just after the war. They’d often been beaten and shamed by their parents. It turned out that Germany has a long, well documented history of cruel child rearing known as “Black Pedagogy.” How, I wondered, could these gentle, sensitive older people I was meeting be the same people who beat their children and carried out unspeakably brutal acts under the Nazis?

What happened to Russell Williams to turn him into a monster? Was he born to be heartless and evil? Or did something awful happen to him? It’s an important question to ponder.

For many years I traveled to Germany to teach about psychological trauma at the Focusing Zentrum Karlsruhe. A psychotherapist has a unique window into the society in which she lives. My years of teaching psychotherapy skills in Germany allowed some very special insights into this foreign country’s history.

Germans suffered terribly from both the first and the second world wars. War, however, is not the crux of their suffering. The trauma begins with German child rearing. I believe that traditional German child rearing is responsible for Germany’s history of wartime atrocities.

Germany has a well-documented history of intentional cruelty and shaming of children dating back to the1750’s. Well meaning parents followed the advice of “experts” who told them how to raise an obedient child. What mattered was that the child would grow into a citizen who would obey orders. To this end, crying babies were shaken to scare them into never making their needs known. Children were shamed and beaten to make sure they never followed their own feelings and wishes.

No one who benefited from secure attachment as a child could have carried out the brutal orders German soldiers inflicted on their victims. As a result of their childhoods, they had no access to their own feelings. If you can’t experience your own feelings, how can you empathize with others?

The lesson for all of us is this: If we want to live in a peaceful world, we need to take great care to raise our children with love and caring.