Kerre Woodham: Trauma is a pretty vague term

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A letter to the editor in the New Zealand Herald this week was scathing of children receiving counselling in the wake of the Christchurch quake.

The letter writer, a doughty woman who grew up during the air raids of the Battle of Britain, wrote that facing adversity built character. The children of World War II hadn't received any counselling and she was of a mind that young people today should harden the heck up.

I, too, feel people can be over-counselled but I hasten to add there are no hard and fast rules. Counselling can be, quite literally, a lifesaver - but it shouldn't be seen as a cure-all for everyone.

Some years ago, a Christchurch psychiatrist suggested that a stiff drink might help some people recover better from traumatic events than if they received endless counselling sessions. Chris Haslet said research had shown an emotional debriefing could be counter-productive and reinforce traumatic memories. If he's still in Christchurch, I wonder if he's following his own advice.

Some people need help processing events; for others it's best to chuck off the experience and move on. Both are valid psychological responses.

These days, though, what passes as a traumatic experience seems to be broad. I could understand a mum taking her 3-year-old to a counsellor if the little guy had been waking every night with nightmares since September's quake.

But I found it harder to have sympathy with the mother who had a breakdown when her 17-month-old son was put in an overhead luggage compartment on a Virgin Blue flight by an attendant playing a game of peek-a-boo.

The little one was in there for a matter of seconds and yet the mother said she was traumatised by the event. She's taken her son to specialists and doesn't know when he'll recover. Lordy. Put that woman in an air-raid shelter and let the bombs rain down. Then she'll understand what trauma is.