The Peculiarity of Psyche Wounds

The peculiarity of psyche wounds is that in most cases, psyche wounds aren’t the result of something really “bad happening”. In most cases – statistically speaking – psyche wounds mainly are the result of everyday living. They are caused by everyday frustrations, stresses, worries, feelings of helplessness, fears and all kinds of ongoing toxic feedback. Feedback ranging from personal encounters to constant media bombardments.

The question at this point is… Why is this the case?

Because – logically speaking – the higher the incident is listed on the stress barometer, the more difficult it is to efficiently deal with the incident, and it stands to reason, that the incident would leave more severe emotional traces and scars behind than is more than likely to result in a derailing psyche wound. But in reality, the opposite tends to be true, the lower the incident is listed on the stress barometer, and by implication, the “easier” it is to deal with the incident, the more severe the emotional traces, scars and subsequent psyche wound in the end.

Human behaviour is never easily explained, nor is there “clear-cut” or simple answers to any of these kinds of behavioural questions. Although there isn’t a clear and “scientific-verified” answer to the ‘psyche wound peculiarity question‘, the following hypothesis – to a greater or lesser extent – can shed some light on the phenomenon.

To maintain our sanity and for our daily survival, we develop so-called stress priorities, with a “cut-out” level, which we use as a reference to guide us on whether to take action or not. For example… when the stress value is greater than e.g. 30, and depending on our interpretation and context, we could decide that it warrants our immediate intention and we may choose to take action to resolve the issue… NOW! And also, by implication, the accompanied emotional impact of the incident – and when doing so – confine the development of a possible derailing psychic wound.

However, when an incident “measures” 30 or less on our stress barometer, we might classify it as “not important enough” to deal with now and continue to ignore/suppress it in the vague hope that it will miraculously dissolve and “go away” as time passes. The case with the majority of little jackals that we are confronted with daily.

Therefore, the higher the perceived stress value on our stress barometer, the more likely we are to take deliberate actions to “sort things out” as soon as possible. On the other hand though, the lower the perceived stress value, the less likely we are to address the incident. There are a ki-zillion different reasons and possible explanations for this kind of human behaviour, but ignorance – it seems – mostly is at the root of many reasons used to justify this kind of behaviour. The major challenge – when assisting people to heal psyche wounds – is not so much to identify the wound, but to determine the priority that the individual attached to the wound. The higher the priority, the more difficult it might be for the individual to “let go of” the psyche wound.

It is relatively safe to assume that all humans prioritize stressful experiences and decide on appropriate actions depending on the real or perceived stress values (i.e. all people are the same). How do we prioritize…? That – of course – is a whole different story, because prioritizing differs considerably from person to person, and even from one situation or context to the next (i.e. no two people are alike).