Treatment Tuesday - Triggers (i.e., Flashbacks) 101

This week's assessment comes from Joe.* He's a writer, of course, but isn't writing in with specific questions to his manuscripts. No, even better, he's asking a question that I think many of you writers will benefit from hearing the answer.

Joe wants to know: How can things that I've heard called 'triggers' or something to that effect, be used within a story line?

Joe's reference to triggers (which is indeed the right word) describes the phenomenon of things that we see, smell, taste, touch, hear, or just sense that might cause us to relive or remember something in our lives, either good or bad.

Triggers has come to have many associations within the psychological field, in particular with two main issues: substance abuse and trauma.

A trigger for a person who uses methamphetamine could be emotional, such as feeling alone or depressed, or it could be the action of running into certain friends who also use. A trigger for a person who has experienced a trauma could be the exact same thing, but instead of triggering them to use a substance, it triggers an anxiety response, such as flashbacks, panic attacks, and avoidance of anything that reminds them of their trauma. (To read more on post traumatic stress disorder, click here.)

Use of triggers in fiction does not have to be limited to people with addictions or traumatic pasts. A person without either could also experience a "trigger" that takes them back in time, like a nostalgic reminiscence. For me, the scent of Jergen's Original cherry almond-scented lotion makes me picture a bottle on the back of the toilet in the bathroom at my grandmother's home. I'm also reminded of hugging my grandmother and smelling that scent. It's nostalgic, a powerful memory triggered by my olfactory sense.

Joe further asks: How can one use these to make a character give pause to his/her life and either 1) do something about it, b) delve further into depression/reprobate behavior/insert issue here that they are currently using to cope, c) do nothing and let it go each time, waiting on it to return to roost, or d) decide that this "ghost" of their past needs to be put behind them once and for all, as they've been haunted by it for too long and it's time to "clean house" and move on?

And of course the answer depends on the arc you want to send the character through. Some novels depend on the character arriving at a healthier conclusion not to be haunted by their past, but some are the opposite. Villains typically bear the brunt of not reaching emotional wholeness, as the book pivots on their inability to see around their own pain or trauma and want to inflict that on others, etc. Some characters will never be motivated to "clean house" while others will see relief in any fashion they can find: therapy, drugs, violence, spirituality, religion...the list goes on.

The best way to use a trigger--or flashback, if you will--is to show the reader something about that character that they wouldn't have gotten in the present time. It needs to be purposeful, not whimsical on the part of the author. If you pick something in the present day that is going to trigger your character, you need to have the backstory firmly imprinted in your mind to know why.

Here are some considerations when thinking about putting in a flashback scene:

• What will it say about the character? 
• Will it exhibit the damaged place they come from? 
• Will it showcase the perfect family they once were a part of only to juxtapose it against the crumbling fiber of a failing marriage in the present? 
• What glimpse will it give the readers about the character's existence in the past? 
• Will the character act very differently in the flashback--out of character--because the event changed them forever? 
• Will it evoke a very present reaction of tears or anger, which will also show something about the character's coping mechanisms?

Once you figure these questions out, then you'll know whether to move your character through it or stunt their emotional growth for the story.

Just FYI---various literary devices can be used to transition the reader into the flashback:

1) a space within a scene to denote the jump back in time
2) a ### or other marking to denote an entirely new scene
3) use of the past perfect (had talked) before moving back into present to allow the reader to experience the flashback along with the character
4) italics (although this is overdone if the flashback goes on for pages; pulls the reader from the story)
5) whatever your editor or house requires

Hope this has been helpful when considering the use of flashbacks and triggers in fiction. I'll welcome any comments or questions below...hopefully I'll have an answer!

Character Stereotypes: The Ditz

A ditz is someone you can count on not to count on. With synonymous names like flake, space cadet, scatterbrain, and airhead, very few readers would likely want to read a full-length novel about one, but they would make for a colorful secondary character or sidekick.

The ditz is often portrayed in films as a blond, buxom, bubblegum-chewing valley girl. Common examples would be Reese Witherspoon’s role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and Alicia Silvertsone as Cher Horowitz in Clueless. An example of a male flake would be Rhys Ifans’s character Spike in Notting Hill (interestingly, also blond).

But surely there is more between the ditz’s ears than air. What’s really going on with them?

Let me boil a ditz down to three traits. Hopefully you’ll see that they are, totally, more than just, like, airheads.

Click here to read the rest of my article.

And the Winner Is....

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Friday Free Association Chain

The word is........

FAMILY.

First commenter free associates with the above word. Second commenter takes the first commenter's word and free associates, and so on.

Remember -- FIRST thing that comes to mind. GO!!

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T3 - Different Strokes for Fictional Folks

This month, I'm moving on to my newest professional interest: Transactional Analysis (TA).

Transactional Analysis sounds really daunting and intellectual, doesn't it? It's actually just analyzing a person's transactions with others in such a way as to improve their lives. Simple, huh? But you might be wondering what a series grounded in TA can do to better your character development and by extension, your writing.

The answer is an unmeasurable amount! TA is so intuitive--the concepts so "Ah-ha!"--that you'll have a better understanding of not only your characters, but also of yourself. Just stick with me.

TA is a theory of personality as well as an approach to doing therapy. It's main idea is that people make decisions based on past experiences and understandings that were at one time necessary for psychological survival but now may be no longer valid. (Many times, they aren't!)

The first aspect of TA I want to introduce you to is the idea of "strokes." Eric Berne, a Freudian-trained psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who founded TA, believed that humans need physical, social, and intellectual stimulation, and that a "stroke" is any act of recognition/stimulation. He theorized that people needed these strokes to develop a sense of self-esteem in themselves and trust in the word. Without strokes, a person can die, as research has proven infants who go without human contact do die.

Hold it right there. In all the reading and writing you've done, wouldn't you say that a lack of self-esteem (in some regard) or a lack of trust in others form the basis of many an internal character arc? A heroine who sees herself as unlovable. A hero who will never trust another woman. A character who believes all goodwill toward him is faked. Another who sees herself as unattractive, unworthy, imperfect.

Psychological strokes of acceptance, recognition, or attention are what give our characters confirmation (or the opposite) of their worth. Strokes can be verbal or non-verbal, and they come in 2 varieties:

1) Unconditional or Conditional

Ah. Gets interesting here. Conditional strokes are received for doing something. "I'll like you if/when you act a certain way, achieve a certain goal, make a certain dollar amount." These strokes have to be earned, and are contingent on the person having to make a change in some way. Unconditional strokes are given just for someone being who they are. "I like you no matter what." These strokes don't have to be earned.

2) Positive or Negative

Positive strokes (a.k.a. "warm fuzzies" -- I'm serious) say "I like you." They can be non-verbal physical touches, smiles, waves. They can be verbal words of appreciation, love, friendliness. These strokes are necessarily for a person to be psychologically healthy and whole. Negative strokes (a.k.a. "cold pricklies") say "I don't like you." This could be a cold shoulder, walking the other direction when they see you, setting a person up to be made fun of, etc.

People want to be recognized and accepted. As children, we test various ways of garnering strokes to see what behaviors or tactics will get us what kind of stroke. We will carry these methods into adulthood. If positive strokes are lacking, people will seek negative strokes, as research has proven that negative strokes are better than no strokes at all. If a person receives no strokes, they can become depressed and will resort to self-damaging and harmful methods to receive recognition.

Now for some questions for your characters:

1) What does your character do most often to receive strokes?

2) What kinds of strokes does your character receive?

3) How much of his/her time is spent trying to garner strokes?

4) Who in your character's life give them the strokes they survive on?

5) What kinds of strokes is your character most likely to give?

Q4U: You tell me...will this help you get inside your character's head more? In the comment section below, give me a Thumbs Up for more transactional analysis posts or a Thumbs Down comment for "No more, please!" (Won't hurt my feelings...I want this to be useful!)

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Therapist Funnies - You will SMILE!

Just for your enjoyment, a few therapist funnies to make you smile:

                                                  Q: How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? 

                                                  A: Just one, but the light bulb has to WANT to change. 

###

A man is walking along the street when he is brutally beaten and robbed. He lies unconscious, bleeding. While he is lying there, a police officer passes by, but crosses to the other side of the road, without trying to help. A boy scout troop does the same, as do a number of pedestrians.

Finally, a therapist walks by, and runs up to the man. He bends down and says, "My God! Whoever did this needs help."

###

During a session, a psychotherapist says to his client, "Today we're going to try and analyze your Freudian slips. See, a Freudian slip is when you want to say something but you make a funny mistake and say something slightly different. The analysis of such a mistake can lead to some emotions you're in conflict with, some bad memories from your childhood, and so on. Have you made any such funny mistakes lately?"

The client thinks a moment, and responds, "You know Doc, yeah. I made a funny mistake while talking to my mother. I was eating dinner with her and I wanted her to pass the salad, but instead I said: 'You stupid witch, you ruined my life, I hate you.'"

###

RING!

RING!

CLICK.

Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.
If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear. 

###

Top 10 Signs a Therapist is Approaching Burn-out:

10) You think of the peaceful park you like as "your private therapeutic milieu."
9) You realize that your floridly psychotic patient, who is picking invisible flowers out of mid air, is probably having more fun in life than you are.
8) A grateful client, who thinks you walk on water, brings you a small gift and you end up having to debrief your feelings of unworthiness with a colleague.
7) You are watching a re-run of the Wizard of Oz and you start to categorize the types of delusions that Dorothy had.
6) Your best friend comes to you with severe relationship troubles, and you start trying to remember which cognitive behavioral technique has the most empirical validity for treating this problem.
5) You realize you actually have no friends, they have all become just one big case load.
4) A co-worker asks how you are doing and you reply that you are a bit "internally preoccupied" and "not able to interact with peers" today.
3) Your spouse asks you to set the table and you tell them that it would be "countertherapeutic to your current goals" to do that.
2) You tell your teenage daughter she is not going to start dating boys because she is "in denial," "lacks insight," and her "emotions are not congruent with her chronological age."

And, the number one reason a therapist may be burning out...

1) You are packing for a trip to a large family holiday reunion and you take the DSM-IV with you just in case.

Some of these rang true...happy Wednesday!

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Treatment Tuesday - Survivor's Guilt 101

This week's assessment is for Jennifer. She wrote in about her current WIP featuring two brothers. The hero feels he is to blame for his brother's death. His brother was driving the car and they were having an argument about the hero's irresponsibility when they got into an accident. The hero's brother died, leaving the hero with survivor's guilt. To add insult to injury, the hero's brother was considered the "perfect" brother, the responsible one--yet he was the one who died. Enter the heroine, who was the girlfriend of the deceased brother. She finds out she is pregnant, and the hero wants to "make things up" to his brother by marrying her and giving the baby a name.

Jennifer wants to know: Would this reaction make sense? Are there any other common factors found in people experiencing this type of guilt?

Before we get to your specific scenario, a brief overview of Survivor's Guilt might benefit my readers. Survivor's guilt is a phenomenon that occurs when a person experiences a traumatic event and lives when one or more people died. This could be war, a car accident, terrorist attack, hurricane--any event where some people die and others do not. The survivor perceives himself to have done wrong just by surviving.

Survivor's guilt used to be it's own diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until 1994 when it was subsumed under Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It carried with it many of the same criteria as PTSD does now, including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, withdrawal, nightmares, episodes of uncontrollable crying/laughing, and a loss of interest in things that one brought pleasure. (Very similar to PTSD.)

This type of trauma response can result from 1 of 3 situations: (1) individuals feel guilty for surviving or being uninjured when others were killed or injured; [your hero fits here] (2) they were unable to rescue someone or had to leave someone dying in the disaster; or (3) it was not possible to overcome "the bad guys" (Holen, 1993; Simpson, 1993).

Some of the questions your hero will be thinking:

• Why did I live when the he died?
• Should I have died so he could live?
• Would he have had a better life, more to live for? 
• What more could I have done to save him?

What makes your story doubly interesting is that your hero has both active and passive survivor's guilt. According to clinical psychologist Yael Danieli, there is both "real" and "imagined" guilt. She distinguishes between them in that real, conscious guilt comes from an actual act of commission or omission on the part of the survivor that may have contributed to the emotional endangerment/harm/death of the other. The fact that your hero and his brother were arguing in the car might indeed have hindered the brother's driving reflexes in some way.

Imagined (also called passive) guilt is guilt a person's feels when they wish they could have acted differently, maybe more heroically, and as such would have prevented the harm that befell the other person who died. Usually this guilt happens in the absence of having knowingly acted in a harmful manner (i.e., the person didn't do anything that would have hurt anyone else), but not always. Your hero could have been talking about roses on the side of the highway when the other driver hit them and there was absolutely no fault of his in the accident. But because of his passive guilt about the argument, he's moved on to active guilt about playing a role in the actual accident.

[A caveat: one question to ask yourself about your hero is this--is he a control freak? You mentioned he wasn't the most responsible of brothers, which would lead me to the conclusion that he's not a control freak, but I ask this question because those people who are frequently have an even harder time dealing with survivor's guilt. The feeling of utter helplessness in the face of what might seem to be a random, senseless event leaves them unable to cope. They would rather believe that they could have done something differently to counteract their feeling of ineffectualness.]

So he's got this beast called survival's guilt. Would it lead him to want to marry his brother's girlfriend to give the baby a name? Short answer? Sure. Many survivors try to join in the "recovery effort" after a traumatic event--and trying to help others impacted by the loss is a major way to do this. It might be a proactive way he could relieve the guilt, assuming that relief is something he actually wants. But for some reason, this doesn't ring especially true to me, almost as if I'd think he'd rather wallow in the guilt, you know? You mentioned that he was some sort of slacker. Irresponsible. That his brother was the "perfect" brother.

My gut tells me that your hero would have many dormant feelings of worthlessness or not being as worthy as his brother emerge after the accident. Old messages of him never "measuring up" or not being as good as his brother might have been triggered, which would possibly illicit all manner of self-condemnation, inner turmoil, or acting in such a way as to prompt rejection or disdain from others so that his internal feelings and external factors gel.

So for a guy like this (if I indeed pegged him right), marrying the girlfriend would have to serve some greater purpose. You didn't mention anything about love in the character sketch, and a pregnancy is time-limited, so it appears that the marriage would be very close to the death of the brother--within the year. I got to thinking that if he had loved this girl all along that would make the marriage all that more bittersweet and tormenting, like he finally got what he wanted--but at the expense of his brother. That's emotionally intense!

How would your character make an arc that leaves the reader satisfied that he'd dealt with the guilt and moved on?

Aaron Haas wrote about survival guilt in Holocaust survivors in his paper (found in Lemberger, 1995). In it, he writes, "Guilt is the penance one pays for the gift of survival." Psychologist Donna Marzo wrote that instead of having a person focus on their guilt, they should focus on the gift of survival. In your book, that could mean a gift for your hero to change his ways, mend his relationships, be better than he was. It's a second chance. Let his internal arc swing this direction to give your reader a nice cathartic conclusion as he embraces life and living.

Good luck with this! Any other questions, leave them for me below. Hope this helps.

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