如何在工作中應對精神創傷大綱

When Julio Harari’s son was suffering from cancer and became upset about his hair falling out after chemotherapy, the banker from Buenos Aires shaved his own head. He went to work the next day shorn of hair, to the puzzled reaction of colleagues.

當胡利奧?阿拉里(Julio Harari，見文首照片)患了癌症的兒子因化療脫髮而心情沮喪時，這位來自布宜諾斯艾利斯的銀行家也剃光了自己的頭髮。他第二天光頭上班的樣子讓同事們感到困惑。

Mr Harari describes his experience: “They tell you that your son is sick and you freeze. Then you get results from the next test, and you freeze again. You start thinking about what life is going to be like without your son, and you freeze. But you have to carry on, there are others in the family and other responsibilities as well.”

阿拉里講述了自己的經歷：“他們告訴你，你的兒子病了，你嚇呆了。然後你拿到了下一次化驗的結果，再次嚇呆了。你開始想象沒了兒子的生活會變成什麼樣，你又嚇呆了。但你必須堅持下去，家中還有其他成員，還有其他責任。”

Although Mr Harari was traumatised by his son’s cancer, he was also able to put his feelings aside in this show of support for his son, who died in 2015 at the age of 24.

雖然阿拉里因兒子患癌受到了創傷，但他在精神上還是能夠挺住——剃光頭表示對兒子的支持。他的兒子在2015年去世，年僅24歲。

Trauma is an emotional and physical response to an unbearable event, such as bereavement, war, physical attack or abuse. The mind often rushes to protect the person, by numbing them from overwhelmingly painful feelings of grief, helplessness, rage and collapse.

精神創傷是對無法忍受的事件——如喪失親人、戰爭、身體攻擊或虐待——的一種情感和生理反應。大腦通常會迅速作出反應以保護個人，讓他們對極度痛苦的悲傷、無助、憤怒和崩潰感到麻木。

People who have suffered trauma carry it with them, often unknowingly, wherever they go, including the office. Work can either help recovery or be the place where trauma is reignited. Much depends on the person’s early experiences, as well as their organisation’s culture.

遭受精神創傷的人經常毫不自知地將創傷帶到自己行至的所有地方，包括辦公室。工作既能夠幫助一個人從創傷中恢復，也可以重新點燃創傷。這在很大程度上取決於當事人早年的經歷以及所處組織的文化。

For Mr Harari, who is an associate director of an international private bank and in charge of a team of five specialists, work was a helpful distraction. “If you’re only thinking about the chemo, life is very miserable,” he says. “But if you also have [work] you can carry on breathing.”

阿拉里是一家國際私人銀行的副董事，負責一個由5名專家組成的團隊，對他而言，工作是一種有效的轉移注意力的方式。“如果你腦子裏只想着化療，生活非常痛苦，”他說，“但如果你還要（工作），你可以不讓自己窒息。”

During his son’s illness, it was important for Mr Harari to acknowledge that he would not be able to keep up the usual pace at work. This helped him to be realistic about what he could achieve. He also came to realise that he could only help his son by being by his side.

阿拉里承認在兒子患病期間自己無法保持正常的工作節奏，這一點很重要。這幫助他以現實態度看待自己能取得的業績。他也意識到，自己能給兒子的幫助只有陪伴在他身邊。

“I knew I would always run behind the curve. And I learnt that I could hug my son, but I could not cure him.”

“我知道自己只能與時間賽跑。我知道，我只能擁抱他，但無法治癒他。”

Returning to work

返回工作崗位

After his son’s death, work provided a form of respite from his pain and grief. “He passed away on a Sunday night, and Thursday I was back working,” says Mr Harari. “Some people asked how could I do that and I said, ‘It keeps me alive’. I had to compartmentalise [my feelings] otherwise the pain would freeze me.”

兒子去世後，工作成爲他緩解痛苦和悲傷的方式。“他是一個週日晚上走的，週四我就回來工作了，”阿拉里說，“有人問我爲何這樣着急，我說，‘工作支撐着我’。我必須把（自己的情感）分隔開，否則痛苦會讓我痛不欲生。”

“Compartmentalisation” — splitting off conflicting feelings — is a common reaction, and one of many defences the mind employs to protect individuals from extreme feelings. Such defences are normal, and only become harmful if they distort reality too far.

“隔離”——將矛盾的情緒分隔開——是一種常見的反應，也是大腦用來保護個人不受極端情緒影響的防禦手段之一。這樣的防禦是正常的，只有當過度扭曲現實時，纔會變得有害。

Mr Harari was fortunate to have the emotional stability not to be overcome by feelings of helplessness and despair during his son’s illness. That stemmed from a healthy and supportive early family life.

幸運的是，在兒子生病期間，阿拉里的情緒穩定沒有被無助和絕望的情緒擊潰。這源於其健康的、總是得到支持的早年家庭生活。

For others, however, experiences in early family life such as deprivation, neglect or abuse can affect the nervous system, making subsequent setbacks harder to bear.

然而，對其他一些人來說，早年的家庭生活經歷，如被剝奪、被忽視或被虐待，會影響神經系統，使他們更難以忍受後來遭遇的挫折。

Persistent unhappiness

持久不悅

For such people, even ordinary work disappointments, such as missing a promotion or being treated unfairly, can reactivate early traumas, leaving the person with incomprehensible and overwhelming feelings. The process is described in The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.

對此類人而言，即便是工作中的普通挫折，如錯過升職或遭到不公平對待，就能夠重新激活早期的創傷，讓其陷入難以理解和難以抗拒的情緒中。貝塞爾?範德科爾克(Bessel van der Kolk)的《身體從未忘記：心理創傷療愈中的大腦、心智和身體》(The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma)一書描寫了這一過程。

For these individuals, an anticipation of danger persists — frequently where none exists — putting them in a hyper-vigilant state and often reacting irrationally.

對這些個人來說，對危險的預期持續存在（而實際上往往不存在危險），使他們處於極度警覺的狀態，而且經常做出不理智的反應。

Such employees avoid close relationships at work because intimacy often provokes strong feelings, which give rise to traumatic memories, says Julia Vaughan Smith, a psychotherapist and executive coach specialising in trauma. Instead they may become needy, compliant or even narcissistic.

心理治療師、專門治療創傷的行政教練朱莉婭?沃恩?史密斯(Julia Vaughan Smith)表示，這樣的員工會避免在工作中產生親密關係，因爲親密往往會激起強烈的情緒，後者會引起創傷性記憶。相反，他們可能變得缺乏安全感、順從，甚至自戀。

Ms Vaughan Smith explains: “They can be close in a superficial or detached way in which they have a pseudo independence: ‘I don’t need any help I’m quite all right on my own’.”

沃恩?史密斯解釋道：“他們可以與人保持一種膚淺或超然的接近，使他們有一種獨立的假相：‘我不需要任何幫助，我自己過得非常好’。”

Such people fear being out of control and helpless. They control themselves, their work and others in an attempt to keep the parameters of their lives held firmly, so they are not taken by surprise. Their energy is consumed with strategies to avoid the traumatic memory, and vitality is lost. Exhaustion sets in because they are constantly under stress.

此類人害怕失去控制和無助。他們控制自身、自己的工作和他人，試圖牢牢控制住自己生活的參數，以使自己不遭遇意外。他們的精力被消耗在想辦法避免創傷回憶，失去了活力。因爲他們一直處於壓力之下，所以總是感到精疲力竭。