KEY POINTS:
In the 1970s, a couple of young girls were picnicking at the top of a hill in the middle of a park in smalltown New Zealand. Their parents waited for them in the children's playground at the base of the hill. They were letting the girls exercise independence, but as the girls were only 8, the parents were within calling distance, if need be. Just as the girls were finishing their lunch, a man approached them and asked if he could sit down too. The girls offered him a cake and a drink, and then the man asked if they'd like to feel the mouse in his pocket. Both girls loved mice and the first little girl plunged her hand deep into his pocket.
The mouse wriggled around a bit and she asked if he could take it out so she could play with it. The other little girl was a doctor's daughter, and she was made of sterner stuff. That's not a mouse, she said, accusingly, and grabbed her friend's hand. They ran off down the hill, with the first little girl thinking, "If it's not a mouse, then what on earth is it?"
The man tried to grab them as they ran, but he was too slow, and the girls' yelling and laughter attracted their parents' attention. When they told their parents the story, the laughter stopped. Their dads' faces darkened, and one of them bellowed, "I'll kill the bastard". The fathers headed off, and the mothers took the children home, where the differences between mice and men were explained.
That first girl was me, and there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of New Zealanders who have similar stories. And I'm so glad that I was living in the 70s when it happened, because had it happened today, I probably would have been dragged off for counselling, and a victim impact report would have been assessed, and a mountain would have been made out of what was really a very small molehill. If I wanted to, I could probably blame my heavy drinking and my fascination for the pockets of men's trousers on my early childhood experience. It would be a long bow to draw, but with the help of a sympathetic counsellor, I bet I could give it a good bash. And that would be very wrong. Since when did people start wanting to be victims and start taking a perverse sort of pride in their victimhood? I suppose around the same time that we all started looking for people to blame for whatever ill fortune befalls us. Victims of crime and childhood abuse deserve sympathy and support, but not everybody chooses to be a victim of their circumstances. Obviously, I was never going to be psychologically scarred from my childhood brush with a weirdo, but I know a couple of women who endured hellish experiences, and they've chosen to get on with living. They believe, as do I, that you can choose whether your experience will define you.
So I was pleased to see a Christchurch psychiatrist has suggested that a stiff drink might help some people recover from traumatic experiences better than sending them off to endless counselling sessions. Chris Haslet, who works at Hillmorten Hospital in Christchurch, said latest research suggests an emotional debriefing could be counter-productive and reinforce traumatic memories.
The police have compulsory counselling for their staff, and one officer believes the system is too rigid. Although it was initiated with the best intentions, he said, some people didn't find working through memories helpful, and he suggested it might be better to allow people to choose the course of action that suits them best. Haslet concurs, saying some people can gain from working through an incident; others cope better by putting the event behind them and moving on. Both are equally valid psychological responses. Would that more people chose the latter.
