On the 3rd October 2016, just over a year ago, Kim Kardashian was gagged and robbed at gunpoint. At the time, Kim, along with her sisters Kourtney and Kendall Jenner were attending Paris Fashion Week. As the full extent of her trauma came to light, Kim fled France. Though three months later in January 2017 a total of 10 people were charged in connection with the crime, who can really blame Kim for not wanting to return to the city that will forever be, for her, intrinsically linked to the incident.
Historically speaking, the word trauma is derived from the Greek word for ‘wound’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as an ‘emotional shock following a stressful event or a physical injury, which may lead to long-term neurosis.’ In some incidences a trauma of Kim’s scale can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and considering the ordeal she was forced through, the spotlight that glared down at her, can returning to the site of her agony do more harm than good?
Clinical Psychologist Dr Lisa Orban from Haven, The Survivors of Abuse Network, doesn’t necessarily think this would be the case. ‘Revisiting sites of the trauma can be very helpful in facilitating the recovery process. Avoidance of trauma memories or reminders such as places might help anxiety in the short term, but end up maintaining the trauma-related anxiety in the long run’, she explains. This is something that Consultant Clinical Psychologist Marc Hekster echoes, ‘avoidance behaviour is one of a number of symptoms identified in trauma, which basically means you’re avoiding anything to do with the precise thing that happened to you or that is associated with it. While the avoidance behaviour takes you away from danger, it becomes a secondary problem,’ he adds, ‘to actually process what happened and feel better one needs to talk and deal with it using psychological treatments.’
Though these experts don't necessarily recommend Kim's decision, her response is common. When something traumatic, like Kim’s ordeal, happens, Mr Hekster says, ‘memories of that event are often stored in the body and a certain part of their brain that are not easily accessible because people don’t want to be upset again.’
‘I can understand why Kim Kardashian doesn’t want to go back to Paris because she probably wants to protect herself,’ Mr Hekster explains, ‘she is worried and deeply upset probably about what happened.’ He adds that in trauma work there is an old-fashioned concept of taking a sufferer back to the scene of the incident. The idea is to get the person talking about the scene without reliving it. However, as people usually want to talk about how they feel, not what actually happened this can be more unhelpful.
Dr Orban recommends a treatment called ‘Prolonged Exposure Therapy’, which, she says, ‘uses repeated deliberate, systematic confrontation with situations, places or objects that are feared. It allows the individual to "stare down their demons" by deliberately confronting traumatic memories and reminders (on their terms) while allowing for new learning to develop (e.g., they are now safe). These repeated and carefully controlled exposures also result in something called habituation, which is the gradual reduction of anxiety symptoms in the body over time. For more severe and enduring traumatic memories and anxiety such as those experienced by individuals with PTSD, this process is best done under the careful guidance of a qualified mental health professional.’
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Though not the same, Mr Hekster offers a similar solution called in-vivo. It’s about creating, as he puts it, ‘a new layer of positive memory, which then sits on top of the old memory and then becomes increasingly far away in the mind’. This requires working with a counsellor or therapist to receive psychological treatment and then taking the victim back to the place where the incident happened to work through the issues as they happened in a supportive situation. ‘It’s not about talking through the exact details of what happened, but helping the person feel more comfortable crying or feeling upset and then enabling a person to understand it is not happening anymore and it is over, it is past.’ Mr Hekster elucidates before prudently clarifying, ’The issue is it happens with caution, not just jumping back into it because it can be overwhelming.’
Though this is without a doubt Kim’s choice and her journey to make, Mr Hekster is left asking: ‘I want to know why she doesn’t want to go, what her fears are and what is stopping her, if she could explain that and if she feels comfortable going then go, if she feels terrified to go then I wouldn’t recommend it. She should visit Paris when she’s ready and not before.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.